Summer at Rancho Cherry-O

Today was the first day of summer. Not by the "longest day of the year" rule, but based on the kids being finished with school for the year. It feels like a new beginning, even though it was just a Thursday.

I enjoyed a nice breakfast with the lovely Rikki, in town from Kansas for a tech conference. Meetings, phone calls, meetings. Then skipped out of work at 4pm after an off site meeting and took the kids to Trader Joe's. (It always surprises and amuses me that my children love grocery stores so much.)

The Star wrote a long list of things to do this summer. What a planner.

Here's a few of mine (no particular order):

1. Log at least 18 more hours for Ooligan Press, so that I've earned the "A" in Publishing Lab that they've already given me.
2. Reupholster both the orphan dining room chair and the corner chair. Already have purchased Anna Maria Horner's Pressed Flowers for the first one. Want to use her Sketchbook fabric for the other, but am concerned that my hairy black dog will ruin it.
3. Participate in Declaration Editing's Super Short Summer Serial Challenge. Look for the first episode on Friday, July 2.
4. Paint the wall in the kitchen. I already own the paint and the wall is only about 75 sq. feet.
5. Finish organizing/unpacking the house while I can still call it the "new" house.
6. Sew curtains for most of the rooms in the house.
7. Take a nice vacation.
8. Learn to run.

Note: I've always wanted to live in a house that had a name. For several years before I knew him, The Artist and several of his friends lived in an old house in Lawrence, Kansas that went by the name, "The Ship of the Devine Retribution." He always spoke fondly of "The Ship" and it gave a lot of credence to the kids' beliefs that he used to be a pirate. So blog-wise I'll call my house Rancho Cherry-o, although it will never stick and is a little silly.