After weeks of non-stop traveling and extra-curricular activity, I can very much say (while simultaneously sighing) that I am sooo glad to be home and to be slowing down. Annapolis was wonderful and I will always treasure those memories with my husband, John's wedding was also wonderful and I fell in love with my husband all over again as he officiated, Branson was exhausting but our kids had a blast and Vacation Bible School was--well you know all about Vacation Bible School... Let's just say that I am really hoping for some down time at the pool this week. As I do every year, I have a list of personal summer goals--things I want to accomplish before school starts back up at the end of August. Each summer, I always "bite off more than I can chew," so to speak, but as the old saying goes, "If you aim for nothing you'll hit it everytime." I am hoping to: 1. Paint both of the girls' bedrooms. We've lived here for 4 years and their walls are STILL white. (I hate white walls!!!) Part of that is because I knew from the beginning that we'd be adding rooms downstairs and switching everyone's rooms around... 2. Finish the bathroom wallpaper project that I started 3 months ago. I started the day before this happened and haven't been back since. It will only take me a couple of hours if I can just GET IN THERE!!! 3. Teach Anna the President's chant and the Westminister Catechism for Young Children. My older 3 kids could say all of the presidents and the entire catechism by the time they were her age--don't want to slack off with my little ones! 4. Totally clean out my walk-in-closet. It has become a catch-all. I just hate that! 5. Totally clean out my kitchen cabinets. Like I said, we've been here for 4 years. A lot gets accumulated in 4 years. 6. Sew a cool apron for myself. You all know about my craft/sewing limitations, so this is a biggy!! Still, I wear an apron with very large pockets everyday as I work around my house and my current apron is looking rather grungy. I want something fun and cheery!!! 7. Get the rest of my photos in photo albums. Last year,I started buying the red leather photo albums for $6.50/ea at Hobby Lobby so that there would be some uniformity to my ever expanding photo collection. I'm about half way finished. 8. Buy file boxes for all my children's memoribilia. Right now, every child haS a couple of Rubbermaid boxes for every school program and piece of art work that has ever passed through their littles hands into mine. I started putting these things into scrapbooks last fall--but I could quickly see that this task was much too great for me. I'm thinking file boxes with dividers now. This is probably too grand of a list for a mother of five. I've always said that live-in-help is the answer. Any volunteers??