Summertime Princess

Step 1: Open old paint cans.  

Step 2: Stir in copious amounts of kitty litter until paint solidifies.  

Step 3: Haul the whole wretched mess to the dump. Ba-dump.

For the better part of June, I lived the life of a summertime princess.

Slept in.
Took naps.
Read books.
Basked in the sunshine.
Watered my gardens.
And wore nice, clean outfits all day long.

This, my friends, is a lazy life and I looked forward to it all school year long.

But after three weeks, boredom came crashing in, as I always knew it would.

I can maintain that regal bearing for only so long until my work clothes whisper to me and my heart yearns for a big, messy project.

So. This week, I forced myself to take on the most distasteful items on my summertime chore list.

Upwards of fifty stubborn dandelions lost their lives to my new hori-hori knife. 

Fourteen bags of mulch upended into the garden, though a good share of the splinters ended up in my hands.

The garage. Oh, the garage. It's way past organizing; what it's getting is a good gutting. So far, there've been three carloads of donations and one deliciously satisfying trip to the dump.

And today, just for fun, we cut down a major section of overgrown hedge, and committed ourselves to the unenviable process of digging out all the roots.

Step 1: Chop away every living inch of the front hedge.  

Step 2: Marvel at the newfound light and lovely openness. 

Step 3: Remember that you still need to complete Steps 4-97 before this job is actually done.  

Step 3.1: Check the bank balance to see if there's money to hire someone else to finish this miserable job.

So, to summarize:

My fingernails are all cut back from vacation glamour length to a hard-working minimum.
My books are gathering dust as I fall asleep as soon as I open them at night.
My Vietnamese beach glow is looking way more American farmer tan.
My real clothes hang forgotten in the closet as my work ensembles enjoy constant rotation.

In other words, my real-life summer is finally ON. And this summertime princess couldn't be happier.