June is over, and with it went one of my most enjoyable challenges. I attempted to find a geocache in every county in the state. Did I achieve my goal? No. I did hit 19 counties, which is roughly 26%. I'm not too disappointed in myself, though, because I found 18/25 caches I searched for, for a 76% success rate! My work schedule unfortunately made it difficult to schedule trips to the far reaches of our wonderful state, and coupled with my extended road trip to Gettysburg in May (over 2,600 miles) I just didn't feel like spending lots and lots of time in my car. I did go to a special effort on several occasions to find geocaches, however. I forced my dad to go caching with me one weekend at the cottage. We both got terribly bug-bitten, and I didn't dress appropriately to search so he had to walk through the tick-ridden woods for me while I stayed in the safety of mowed lawns. I went to visit my dear friend Claire and her beautiful family in Madison, so I nabbed several caches on the way down there. And finally, I talked my friend Christina into driving to the outlet mall in Kenosha with me. I had the honor of introducing her to the hobby of geocaching. It was a great day- we found 100% of the caches we looked for, including 3 that Christina the geocaching-rookie located! I have decided that I am going to make this a lifetime goal, because I get an immense sense of accomplishment coloring in the counties on my map.
And now, onto July's goal...Drumroll please...
My July goal is to finish all the little half-done projects around my house. There's a bunch of things that have driven me crazy for a long time but never get done, mostly because it involves a trip to the basement for the appropriate tools. Well, those projects are in serious danger of being completed. Thus far my list includes the following projects:
1. Finish touch-ups in my upstairs apartment so it's ready to rent (I'm 90% completed with this goal already)
2. Attach the screen to the south side of my porch that was removed 2 years ago
3. Repaint my front porch, hopefully with a paint that lasts longer than the Dutch Boy Porch Paint I used last time, only 2 summers ago
4. Touch up paint in my bedroom, living room and dining room
5. Hang my Gone with the Wind puzzle/movie posters/pictures on the walls in my spare bedroom
6. Vacuum my basement, including the million spider webs
7. Fix the pulley ropes that snapped in 2 of my windows, leaving them unopenable
8. Screw mesh over the holes the starlings made in my roof so they can't get in to build a nest in my attic again next spring
9. Clean out my gutter that caused the basement to flood 3 times in a week
Ambitious? Certainly! Especially considering I have become very close friends with the nurses on 3 East and I'm trying to work there as often as possible (This statement is false. I am just typing this to test them and see if any of them read this). I am also going on a wonderful vacation to Montana with my parents in 10 days, so that eliminates a good chunk of the month. I think the satisfaction I get from crossing each project off the list will motivate me. At least I hope so, since staring at these unfinished projects for the past couple years hasn't been enough to get me going.
