August was a return to both kids in school and our annual trip to Wisconsin- which was so nice to get back to our traditions. On the house side of things, we got a few small projects done and good planning done for our next major project. As we have sought out balance for out life going forward we’re trying a schedule of having two project weekends per month with the other weekends being either relaxing or what we’re calling ‘small project’ weekends. ‘Small project’ weekends are usually fixes, maintenance, errands or other activities that may move us along for a larger project (shopping or planning type activities).

We’ve only done this in July and August, so I imagine at the end of the year we’ll take a look back and see if we like that balance or if something else would fit us better. We have a tendency to just keep plugging (toiling?) away and then we’re drained and wishing we could actually have downtime on the weekends- like normal people. What ‘relaxation’ looks like might change from month to month. It might mean mostly lazing about or it might be a vacation/weekend away. For August we used our annual trip to Wisconsin as our ‘relaxing’ weekend, it wasn’t 100% relaxation either, but closer than working on our unending to-do list.

But here’s what we did manage to get up to for August:

• tack up the cable internet wire onto the siding (it was just left lying in the grass after grading and seeding last summer and I was always worried we’d cut it mowing)
• built, painted and installed a shelf in the mudroom to hold all the masks and bring a little more functionality to that space
• buying tile and wood for our upcoming fireplace surround/mantle project
• complete the fireplace wall design
• install lazy susan’s in our corner pantry (the usability has increased SO.MUCH!)
• install our final door! The pocket door in the primary bedroom for the bathroom

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September is going to bring a big change to the living room with the start of the fireplace surround/mantle, which it is my dearest hope to have complete in time for Xmas decorating. What we have done so far looks amazing so I’m super excited to show you our progress.