Excuses, Excuses

I told myself that over the summer I'd be more consistent with my blogging and minimum post at least once a week. Well, summer is two weeks in and I'm barely staying afloat with that promise. I have excuses, though, so I though I would share some of my non-school related summer projects with you. I mean, a teacher can't spend her WHOLE summer prepping for the next school year, right? Summer is our time to get caught up on all of those other projects we don't have time for during the school year.

The first of my summer "projects" was to try to get in better shape. Now, I workout all the time during the school year. In fact, going to the gym with a good magazine and my iPod is one of my favorite ways to unwind after a long day. The problem with my workouts is that I do the exact same things all the time and don't really challenge my body in new ways. So, a friend mentioned that she's doing Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred... I went to good 'ol Target and picked up the DVD. I've been doing it for about 6 days and I can actually tell a pretty decent difference. It's only about 25 minutes total, so time wise this is something that I can continue through the school year if I want to. (I've also been doing this in addition to my regular cardio at the Y. Typically a hour consisting of the elliptical and treadmill. Heck, I've got time to workout an hour and a half a day right now, so I might as well!) The numers on the scales haven't changed dramatically (I'm building muscle and burning fat so it's kinda evening out right now I think....) The biggest proof for me was my last trip to Banana Republic where I went a little crazy with their extra 25% off sale items deals. I found these two really nice silk shirts that I'd tried a few weeks earlier, but that hadn't quite fit the way I'd prefer. They were marked down to about $15 each (reg. $69.50!) so I thought I just give them another try. They fit just right this time and will still be okay if I just so happen to shrink a little bit more!

The next big summer project was to have a garage sale and get rid of some JUNK! I've lived in my house about a year and really tried to weed out a lot of crap before I moved here, but somehow in the process of moving from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house my stuff seems to have exploded! I got to a point earlier this year when I decided I just needed to get rid of some things and I might as well try making some money off of it. I think my conscience won't be yelling at me quite so much when I go shopping if I get rid of some of the things that I don't use or wear anymore. This was also one of my end-of-the-year school projects. My car was full of junk that I had at school that was just collecting dust in my classroom that I am going to attempt to sell. What should I be working on right now? Oh yeah, buying stuff to label my sale items and make posters...

My final (ha ha ha) project of the summer is to actually make my downstairs bedroom an office / guest room that I'd actually want to use. Right now it's pretty much just a giant closet and collecting spot for my random junk that I don't want upstairs. I'm thinking about painting my desk furniture that I've had since high school and decorating that room with my random assortment of home items that don't currently have a place to live.

So, there you go... That's what's on my summer list! We'll see how it all goes! So far so good, but I'm also only into my summer vacation about two weeks.

What are YOUR personal projects for the summer???