What happened in May?

May was a really busy month for us: I hyper-extended my knee, had my first ‘real’ mother’s day, had lots of soccer games, checked out a bunch of day cares, enrolled Parker in day care, got ready for Mike to go back to work, worked with Hailey on her Golden Gate bridge project, went to evening events for work, weddings and baby showers, worked in our yard, changed my mind and finally planted those infamous bulbs, got the back room set up for a new renter, had a fun Memorial day barbeque, and lots of other less than exciting stuff.  Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with the photo challenge with so much going on, but this month I am back on track and am finally able to crawl out of the hole I’ve been living in and rejoin the blogging world.  Thank goodness!!! I have definitely missed it; I’ve missed writing and I’ve missed reading all the other amazing blogs out there that I usually follow.  

So I am going to start this month off with a 12 To-Do’s recap.  Half the year has almost completely flown by so hopefully half my list has too!

1: Finish fixing up the guest bedroom – DONE!!! And we have a renter who moved in at the end of last month.  Yay for us!!

2: Paint and set up the outside living room – In April, I said this was about 15% finished.  This month I’d say we’ve taken a step backwards since we had to clear out our furniture in the guest bedroom so the renter could move in and we have acquired a few other hand-me-down pieces of furniture since, so its kind of unorganized out there right now and we definitely haven’t painted or put in carpet.  With the extra income from Mike working now, hopefully we can get this done by the fall.

3: Finally plant the stupid hyacinth and narcissus bulbs that have been in the cabinet for over a year in the front yard – mostly done!  I still have a bunch more because each bag had like 50+ bulbs in it, but I got one whole planter finished!  I have really gotten into gardening recently, and have surprisingly enjoyed it so much.

4: Paint something worth putting up in our house – I put it up in a Pin It – Do It post, and yes, I have finally painted something worth putting up in our house, using a mixed media style (collage and acrylic), I painted the lemon picture.  I turned out great.  We aren’t actually going to put it up because the teal that I used doesn’t quite match our dining room like I hoped and I think I’d like a slightly bigger one for us, so I am actually going to sell this one on Etsy, just haven’t gotten around to putting it up yet.

5: Take a refresher course on photography and work at taking better pictures – I didn’t take any Photo a  Day pictures this month, but I did continue to take family photos.  I have been reading a lot of great tutorials on using lighting and on editing techniques as well.  I really need to get Lightroom so that I can really have full capabilities for editing, but right now PicMonkey and the basic edits in Picasa are working just fine.

6: Find a really awesome new hiking spot (maybe even one that is less than a 45 minute drive away) – Not yet, but maybe for Father’s day.

7: Wean myself off the snooze button – The snooze button is still my kryptonite.  After I hurt my knee, we really stopped working out.  I have been waking up extra early this week to do at least the Abs dvd, and because I have been really trying to be on time to work on a more regular basis.  But still the snooze button seduces me every time.

8: Create a photo collage wall for our living room – Mike and I talked about this one, and we’ve decided we want to do something a little more interesting than a photo collage in the typical way.  I have been searching on Pinterest for some good ideas but haven’t found anything that really strikes me just yet.  

9: Go on a vacation – So tentatively we are planning to go to Solvang with my parents again in October.  Hopefully it works out.

10: Start saving money for our eventual move out of California – hahahahahahahahahahaha…no.

11: Find my voice for my blog – Seeing as I essentially took a month off, I’d say this one has taken a step back.  My goal for this month is to have at least two substantive posts and one photo post a week.  Let’s see how things go.

12: Get pregnant again :) - not yet but hopefully soon!

Apparently, I’ve got a lot of work to do in the next 6 months…