Summer To-Do List

June 1st is here already?!  I suppose it's time to kick off our summer.  I am looking forward to being home for the next 10 weeks with my sweet baby girl, but am also hoping to use the time to get some things done around here. 

I feel as if I'm always making grand plans, and my to-do lists are miles long.  The problem is that I can't get things crossed of my list as quickly as I would like to.  I thought I'd pick just a few things that I want to accomplish this month.

1. Declutter the house -- I feel like we always have piles laying around, and unfortunately I married a wonderful man who is a little messy.  The rooms I specifically want to declutter are the guest room (this becomes a "catch-all" for everything that we don't know where to put), the nursery (yes, it already has piles of things that I never got around to putting away!), and the kitchen (I love the look of a clean countertop!).  If you remember back to this post, I had wanted to work on cleaning out my storage room in the basement.  I'm proud to say that I DID get this done during my maternity leave, and we gave away TONS of stuff to charity.  Yay!

2.  Find daycare for Natalie for the fall.  GULP.  I'm very anxious and nervous about leaving Natalie with anyone other than family.  Planning to do a post in the future about how the search goes.

3.  SAVE MONEY!  We are on a pretty tight budget this summer because of the paycut I took with taking 12 weeks of maternity leave.  We had saved up money in anticipation...but then a termite infestation and Mark's truck trouble sent nearly $3000 of our savings down the drain.  So, we are on a strict spending freeze right now so that we can make it through the summer without having to eat ramen noodles every day. :)  Any tips on how to save money??  We have cut eating out and are grocery shopping more carefully to take advantage of sales.  I'm also considering selling some things on Craigslist...

4.  Summer-ize my living room shelves.  As I showed you here, I had decorated my built-ins really cute for Spring.  Well, now summer is here so I suppose the bunnies and easter eggs should probably be packed away. :)  As I mentioned before, there's no money in the budget for this - so I'll have to scrounge around the house and see what I can find....I know I have some seashells and sand from my vacation last year.

I hope I can get through these things this month...among doctor's appointments, a class I have to take for work, birthday parties, Grace's dance recital, Father's Day, and all the normal chores/duties that the day-to-day brings my way.  I have a feeling this summer is going to fly by!

And, because I can't help myself...

I guess I better get moving while my little sweet cheeks is taking a nap!