Top Ten Things on My Summer To-Do List
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I found out about OhAmanda’s Top Ten Tuesday via my friend, Angie, at Real Life at Home. I hope Angie will forgive me for totally stealing borrowing her top ten list idea, but it sounded like such a fun list that I wanted to make one, too.
1. Play! I am a night owl at heart, though I try to curb those tendencies during the school year. I love staying up late during the summer after the house is quiet. It’s a great time to play around with my blog or just play online — I love playing online Scrabble and Free Cell.
2. Try to come up with a better schedule for the upcoming school year. We’re more routine people than schedule people, really, but last year our routine got completely out of whack. When I started working out each day, my Bible study time took a real hit and our afternoons got crazy, with me often feeling like we had to rush through the last bit of school to get done so that I could make different classes at the Y.
I don’t like that.
So, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to have to bit the bullet and just start getting up (much) earlier next year, or if I can tweak things to make our day run more smoothly even with our preferred late start time (kids up by 10:00, school started by 11:00).
3. Work on ideas for next school year. This year one of our favorite parts of homeschooling — the hands-on stuff — really fell by the wayside, mostly as a result of poor planning on my part. I’d like to spend some time this summer looking through our resources for next year and jotting down some ideas for hands-on activities we could do along the way.
4. Enjoy my hobbies. Within the last year, I’ve rediscovered my love for drawing — and discovered that I have more talent than I thought I had. I’m not saying my drawing are great or anything, just that, if I spend some time really working on them and really seeing my subject, you can at least tell what I’m trying to draw and I’m fairly pleased with the finished product.
Also, with my new camera scheduled to arrive on or before my birthday, I’m really looking forward to delving into a love of photography that I’ve had since I was a teenager. Like the drawing, I’m not great at it, but it’s something I’ve always been interested in, but haven’t made the time to pursue over the years. I think summer will be a great time to do that.
5. Reconnect with my kids. With the busyness that seemed to overtake us during the last half of our school year, I feel like I haven’t really spent much quality time with my kids lately. I want to make doing so a priority — day trips, individual dates, and family game nights are all on my list of ideas.
6. Lose 20 pounds. I’ve lost 50 so far. I’d love to get another 20 off this summer and I think that’s a fairly reasonable goal. I plan to continue working out daily, but I also hope to add some fun outdoor activities that also burn calories, such as biking and swimming.
7. Deep clean my house. I want to spend a day or two in each room of the house, doing all those things that don’t get done during the school year. Honestly, it will probably take a week in each of the kids’ rooms. *sigh* Once that’s done, I’d love to come up with a cleaning schedule that we could actually stick to during the school year to ensure that a little gets done each day and the house is staying relatively clean. Wonder if that’s a pipe dream?
8. Shop for curriculum. Our local curriculum fair is during the summer and I always look forward to it! Not only is it my chance to stock up on next year’s curriculum, but it’s also a chance for me to hang out and catch up with my homeschool mom friends. Plus, you know, there’s that whole buying books thing that homeschooling families seem to universally love.
9. Go see Eclipse. I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile. It comes out June 30. My goal was to lose 50 lbs. by the time it came out. I’ve already done that (yay!), so my new goal is 60 lbs. I think being 50-60 lbs. lighter is going to make the movie much more enjoyable. And, honestly, I’ll probably go see Eclipse a few times this summer, hopefully at least one at an IMAX theater.
10. Turn 40. *sigh* Not much choice on this one, but you know what? I was thinking I dreaded this birthday a little bit, but I’ve decided to embrace it. I’ve heard people say that “40 is the new 30” and I believe that. Add to that the fact that I’m in the best shape, physically, that I’ve been in in at least 11 years and I see no reason for me to dread turning 40. As a matter of fact, I’m actually looking forward to it. Maybe a new decade represents something of a new slate like a new year does. If so, I hope to make this my best decade yet, starting this summer!
What’s on your summer to-do list?
camera and eclipse images courtesy of google images
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
I love this idea! Have fun with your camera and good luck losing weight! That will be my goal next summer once my nurslings weaned 🙂
That's a great list!! I haven't even thought about it yet. We're still in school mode right now. :)Too many imprompto vacations.
*Tsk tsk* Your friend Angie must be really mad. She might even demand that you take this post down. Bwahahaha! No, you know your friend Angie doesn't care. 😉
Your list sounds great! Sounds like we're planning to try to do many of the same things — hopefully that means that by the end of the summer, we'll both feel refreshed and ready for school to begin again. (Yeah, right.)
I had lost all of my weight by New Moon…My goal was 31st Birthday, and I made it. Original goal, was 40, I lost 78!! I can't wait for ECLIPSE either!!! WOOHOO! We are going through the summer with school here, and working out around all the other stuff is sometimes very hard! Go you!
Love your list. I need to lose about 70 pounds, too, so I really admire you for that!!!
Thought I would share my cleaning "schedule". It works for me.
Monday ~ Mounds of Laundry and Mop it Monday (I do all my laundry from the weekend and clean and mop my floors. We have mostly stained concrete floors and four dogs. Yuck.)
Tuesday ~ Toilets Tuesday. I clean all of our bathrooms.
Wednesday ~ Wipe it Wednesday. I dust the house (at least the downstairs) and disinfect my countertops (although I actually disinfect several times a week. But, this is a good one where I actually move the toaster, etc.)
Thursday ~ Tidy up Thursday. This is where I move those piles back to their real location.
Friday ~ Finish up Laundry and Floors Friday. I basically redo Monday's list, but instead of mopping I do my vacuuming.
That's pretty much it. It gives me a goal. If I don't get it done this week, I just do it next week.
Now, please share your hands-on activities list! My kids love that, too!
Nicole
You are the only other homeschooler I know who has the late start time, besides myself. I have felt really awkward and out of place with it, but it's worked for us until this coming year, so I am also re-planning. I love your list and may borrow the idea for blogging on Friday or Saturday.
mychildsview.blogspot.com
@ Chick Hatchers — Hey, you do what works for you and your family, right? Up until this year, when our afternoons got so busy, a late start worked for us. We're just not morning people at all. Luckily, I have at least two other IRL friends who also start late like us, so I've never felt really awkward about it. I'm not sure I would have felt awkward about it anyway, though. That's your permission not to feel awkward about it. 😉
Your summer to-do list sounds like my life-goals list! 🙂
Jenny
Wow. Sounds like a busy but productive summer. My summer to-do list contains cleaning, decluttering, school planning, weight loss, reading and hopefully, sewing. I hope your summer goes as planned so you're ready for an awesome autumn!
Thank you for giving me permission to not feel awkward about having a late start. The only reason I do feel awkward is because everyone I know is up early and having lunch at 11:00 or noon. It makes get togethers, play dates, outings more difficult. I feel like my family is on a time zone 2-3 hours later than everyone we know. It doesn't help that hubby works so far away that he doesn't get homne until around 7:00, so our dinners are later and the kids are up later in order to spend time with him. It does work for us, for the most part. It just doesn't work well within our local homeschool community. That's why I turn to the lovely support of the online homeschool ocmmunity. Thanks for being a part of it!
mychildsview.blogspot.com
Love your list too, btw!!!
I love your list!!! I just turned 40 too and wanted to lose 60 lbs. But, hasn't happened yet 🙁
I can't wait to go see Eclipse either! Maybe, I can do baby steps and lose 5-7 lbs by the 30th? 🙂
I can tell that I am really going to enjoy your blog!!!