Summer Plans

We took our house off the market.  The more we looked around, the more we realized that we had it pretty good right here!  We're planning some major renovations to accomodate our growing family.  By the end of the summer, we hope to have the basement finished.  That means that we'll have a family room we can fit ourselves and our guests into, an extra bedroom that will be temporarily used as a hobby room, and our living room will turn into a dining room.  Eventually we'll knock down the wall between the kitchen and the spare room and make it into a big kitchen/dining room and the living room will be back to a sitting room.   I might even get a new bathroom/laundry room combo and a mudroom!  That's a lo-o-o-ong term project.  I think each 'o' in that word stands for a year.  Maybe even a decade. 

There are plenty of other things to do around here this summer that don't involve mucho mullah.  Here's my rundown:

*go through all those totes in the basement and get rid of all the outgrown & unwanted clothing

*add a couple pear trees to the orchard (I HEART my orchard!)

*make a sitting area on the lawn somewhere...maybe in place of the death trap ornamental pond?

*Waldorficize the backyard.  I'm not very Waldorf, not very Waldorf at all, but I can't help but get super pumped when I think of all the possibilities.  I'm thinking wash station, fairy village, x-tra large xylophone, modified teepee...

*clear out the baby barn of all our junk, sell it and use the money to turn the building into a chicken coop/goat barn. 

*make eyes at Richard and ask for forgiveness for buying a goat.  :)

*charm Richard into loving and accepting the animals as part of our children's education by making a spectacular goat cheese quiche. 

*finally, after 7 years of living here, install the deck (which we have) so that we can use the "out" door in our bedroom.  This leads me to imagine a cute little serving trolley that will stay by the door in our bedroom which I can stock with mini-coffee maker, cookies and good books to entice us to actually use the deck.

*on the school front, I'm nixing summer vacation.  After the March break meltdowns, I'm not going there again!  Let's face it, though - the kids need a break, and so do I.  Since a change is as good as a vacation, we're going to mix things up a bit to have a little fun while still staying in the school groove.  We're going to do some wildcrafting (another reason I love my house.  I know exactly where in the woods the mint, yarrow, burdock, etc grows.) and start on Story of the World.  I'm giddy just thinking about it!

I can't wait for summer!!