Summer Bucket List 2015 – Keeping it real and doing this in two parts. Part 2

Last week, I posted Part One of my Summer 2015 Bucket list and wrote about how I’m a list maker. Well, now, a week later, I’m finally back with part two. Why a week later, you ask? Well, confession time. I broke my cardinal rule of list making. I deviated from my notebook method and wrote my very important bucket list on a couple of sticky notes. Sticky notes! What was I thinking? Those things are so stinkin’ small that it’s taken me until today to find them again. So, this time it didn’t end in disaster, but lesson learned. No more winging it and using scraps of paper to jot notes on, write lists or record anything else I may need to reference again. At any point in my life.

So now, with fewer than three days left in our school year, and again in no particular order, here the final 10 items on my Summer 2015 Bucket List:

1. Create, frame, and hang individual chore lists for each of my minions.
They all want to help. They all want to do things around the house. Then they all want to fight about who gets to do what until I toss them all out and do it myself. Clearly this system is lacking. And they are either absolute genuis’ and figured out how to get out of doing just about everything or else they just need a little bit more direction on how we’re going to divvy the fun up.

2. Go for one lunch and one dinner picnic each week.
This one needs no real explanation. The kids LOVE eating outside and we all love a good park BBQ, so I need to make this one happen. Lunches will be less fancy than dinners, consisting mostly of sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, and water. 😉

3. Blog twice a week.
This needs to happen. I feel better when I blog. It makes my heart happy. It makes me feel more productive and competent. I tend to over complicate my blog posts to the point that I write myself into a corner and then retreat and try to figure out how to bring it around again. I’m going to work on simplifying things and just getting the posts out there.

4. Set up a new bed for Pax, re-arrange the furniture all the minion’s rooms to optimize their spaces.
It’s time to replace Pax’s bed and it’s also time to re-assess what each of them needs in their rooms vs. what is currently in their rooms. Everything may change or only a few things may change. Or not much more than a good purge and organization may happen, but either way, all good things.

5. Make sure we get some family time at the cottage.
This aims to be our main family vacation this year. Last year we took Cape Cod by storm, but the Canadian dollar is being an asshole this year and keeping us north of the border and away from my beloved Aldi’s, Big Lots, and L.L. Bean. BUT, the upside is that this means that we’ll be able to have a longer than normal block of time at the cottage (and the frites stand!), which we are all really looking forward to and really, really need after the busy year we’ve had since getting home from the Cape.

6. Read one book a week (for myself, no pictures, no large font 😉 ).
I was always a voracious reader. I would read all day and night if I could. And then, once I had more than one child to care for, reading became a thing of the past. Unless there were pictures, rhyming phrases or tactile 3D images to feel, I all but stopped reading it. And I love books. I love turning the pages, I love having a story unfold in front of me and awaken my imagination. So, I’m going to make the effort to bring this back into my life, as my life is now – not as someone who can afford to read for 12 hours straight, but rather someone who is crazy busy, has eleventy-billion things to do at any given moment but who also realizes that part of raising readers to lead by example, and let them see me READ, quietly, to myself. Good example and self-care at the same time = one multi-tasking mama!

7. Go for nature walks weekly.
My smalls love the forest. They love nature and they love family walks. So we’re going to roll all of that love into one and start walking the forest paths. It’s so lovely in there and we usually take a plastic bag so that  we can pick up any trash we find and dispose of it properly.

8. Wash the car with the kids twice a month.
This is something that Mr. KB usually does with the kids, but this summer, I think the smalls and I will tackle this chore a couple of times a month, shine our ride and all that. And maybe have a bit of water play at the same time. 😉

9. Re-vamp the basement space.
The basement has become a catch-all. It houses the dance room, winter coat storage, a kids play area, the pantry, pellet stove, workroom, and more. And this space needs to be re-organized to make sense and to make it more useable.

10. Crochet blankets (lapghan or better) and/or scarves for my minions.
I have the wool in all of their favourite colours. I have the tools that I need (if not the skills, but that’s another post). I have the minions who want blankies and scarves and hats and whatever else I can figure out. So, it’s time to power through and get something made up for them. This is on my summer list, but in reality, I expect this one to take until December – just in time for Christmas?!?

So, while there are so many things that I want to do and get done, if I accomplish these 20 things, I’ll consider it a summer well done 🙂