So what have YOU been up to lately?

eating snow cones while waiting for the movie to start at the drive in theater

The last month we've been insanely busy:

• Mr M had to travel for drill
• he had a bunch of appointments and things to take care of before he could go on an overseas business trip
• we finally finished all our adoption stuff (interviews, home visit, training, and online profile are all done- just waiting for the written approval now)
• the usual house stuff- we finally got the last couple boxes unpacked and sorted (yay!)
• we went on a short camping trip
• LMS started swim lessons
• LMS finished kindergarten
• and the list goes on and on

I got tired all over again just typing the list. No wonder I haven't had the energy to blog lately.

Things have slowed down a smidge (finishing Mr M's stuff and the adoption stuff helped a lot), and my current project is to finally make progress painting the inside of the house. I've only painted three rooms since we moved in last spring: LMS's room, the library, and the basement rec room. That leaves the kitchen, front room, two stairways, two hallways, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms to paint. The other two bathrooms have recent paint jobs that I'm leaving for now.

Since the predominant color in our house is grungy builder's beige, except the lime green in the master bed/bath, it's important to me to get the walls looking clean and pretty. The grunge is really starting to get to me.

I've been holding off actually starting because I'm going to put paneling on the front room ceiling and we're installing can lights in the kitchen and we need to find a long ladder to do the ceiling above the stairs, all of which need to be done before the walls can be painted. I've recently realized I can move forward anyway by painting the dining part of the kitchen and working on the upstairs rooms until the ceiling stuff is finished.

Last week I spackled all the dents and little holes left by the previous owners, then I sanded and respackled where necessary, then sanded again. Spackle dust makes such a mess! I ended up working on the little hallway between the kitchen and front room, the kitchen, the stairs going upstairs, the upstairs hall, hall bath, and the master bedroom.

After the dust settled a bit I painted all the ceilings white and installed new light fixtures in the dining area of the kitchen, the upstairs hall, and the master bedroom, which makes a big impact for not a lot of money.

After two coats of flat ceiling white, I'm now ready to move on to the walls this week: "Shore" by Valspar for the small hallway, the stairway, the upstairs hall, and the hall bath. It's the same color I used in the library, and I like that it's still a light, neutral color, but with more gray than the current yellowish beige. So far it seems to go with just about any other color, which makes it very versatile. I tried other colors for the upstairs hallway and stairway, but they just weren't working, so we'll stay neutral for now. I'll use "Lemon Butter" by Valspar for the kitchen, and gray for the master bed. The gray is leftover from when the previous owners painted the front room, but it's a bit dark, so I'll add some white to lighten it up, and maybe a touch of blue as well.

We're also finishing up swimming lessons this week, which will be nice. I like the progress LMS has made, and she's got a great teacher, but it's definitely a time commitment that I'm ready to give up :)

How busy has your summer been?