Summer projects, and I can't blame the mess on Seth!

As you've grasped by now, I have a to-do list that could easily rival Santa's naughty and nice list, so I thought I'd show you how it's developing on the exterior of our little cottage. Kind of the before so the after will be that much more stunning. ;)

We're about to paint the house, but it's taking forever to get the right color.

I had to get a glimpse of the color samples in different light, so this is all in the back of the house, different angles. Check out some of the branches from our massive pine trees in the back that are serious hazards (that's NOT on the personal to-do list. Professionals will have to tackle those giants). The bits of paint on the bottom of his bedroom window are from Seth's "help." It didn't last very long, especially once Eliza wanted to get in on the action. I have no clue what those wires are for, but it just goes to show how old my house is that they had to externally add wires to keep up with technology or something.

The otherside of the garage. Oh...looks like we still haven't put a door knob on the new door. I guess I'll be adding more to the list!

Back to the paint. So what did I decide on?Valspar's Churchill Hotel Olive. At least for this week.

I realized after downloading that this is a super crappy picture of it because it looks so gloomy! Anything's better than the awful, peeling gray that's on there right now, though, and I'll show better views of it later on.

We'll also be replacing the embarrassingly puny and outdated light fixture with a new one, only it'll be directly above the door.

You can see a bit of my honeysuckle waiting for the arbor to climb on that Chris has yet to build.

Don't think I've given Chris enough to do this summer? Well, here's what I'm in charge of now.

One on-going project is our garden that (finally) got planted on Monday. Chris's work is pretty much done here.

We planted (l-r) tomatoes, chives, sage, red onions, beets, radishes, a salad mix (Chris thinks it was a waste of $ and I only bought it because it said "gourmet treat" on the package under the picture...so, maybe I did but it's not going to be a waste!) carrots, green beans and in the back, mounds with squash such as sweet meat, dark zuccini & crookneck. I'm SO excited!

One huge bonus was that Mother Nature provided for us nearly a day's worth of awesome rain a few hours after we planted, so we're grateful she approves.

Where the shadow of my head is, that's where our squash mounds are.

This is what it looked like today, Friday. No, you don't need to adjust your glasses. You're right. It looks the same. I'm not very patient and was hoping for a bit of a difference, but I guess I'll have to wait a while longer and keep up on the watering!

Whew! I better get back to the projects at hand so I can get going on some "After" pics.