I recently published the following in my newsletter:
...it’s time to Design My Summer. This is an idea that comes from Gretchen Rubin. She’s talked about it for years on her podcast - Happier. The idea is to decide what you want to do and plan it so that you don’t get to the end of the season and regret getting together with friends, going to a favorite park, or starting a new family tradition.
I’m still working on my list of things I want to include in my summer this year but here are a few that I have been thinking of including:
- Take a picnic lunch to Fort Harrison one weekday
- Use my firepit and read outside several evenings
- Read at least two books by C.S. Lewis
- Pickle my own cucumbers and cherry tomatoes
- Use some of my cherry tomatoes to make slow roasted cherry tomatoes to serve caprese style
- Go to the pool mid-day on multiple weekdays
- Reach out to at least five new/potential clients each month
- Plan outdoor coffee and dinner meetups with friends
- Cookout with the family
- Move newsletter to new publishing platform
This weekend, I got to check off cookout with the family as we met up at my niece's house last night for a cookout and at my other niece's house today for a pitch in that also included the kids in a water balloon fight.
This has been a beautiful weekend with my family. My nephew is home from New York so we've gotten together more than normal. I've also spent the entire weekend plus a few days at my dad's house which means Kona has some extra playmates and a wonderfully big fenced in yard.
We also stopped in at a couple of cemeteries so I could do some more work on my long suffering genealogy project. These are a few graves of my mom's cousins.
Finally, I enjoyed a visit through the Richmond Rose Garden which I'm going to share in more detail in an upcoming Wednesday Walk but here is one of my favorite images from that walk.
I hope you had a lovely weekend and a sublime Sunday. What would you add to your design your summer list? Have any favorite summer traditions to share?