Summer Bucket List

Whenever I get to midsummer I always feel like things speed up a few notches. Suddenly, everything is a big fuzzy blur full of manic days and kid-filled zaniness. My thumb-in-the-dike plan for stopping the overwhelming urge to cancel everything for the next month is to write a list.

Here's what I am dreaming of doing before the warm weather leaves us, Autumn takes over and Summer has officially "kicked the bucket." Sometimes printing a list like this and putting it on the refrigerator can give you ideas when your family is searching for something to do or when you're trying to remember all the things you wanted to make for dinners while the garden produce was still rolling in.

My Summer Bucket List

1. Make lemonade from scratch
2. Have a picnic
3. Go camping
4. Paint three rooms in the house
5. Harvest our first sweet corn
6. Make fried chicken
7. Attend a Shakespeare in the Park production
8. Catch fireflies in the backyard with the boys
9. Go swimming at the local river swimming hole
10. Make a lemon merengue pie
11. Watch the sunset on a beach
12. Stay up late giggling with my sisters
13. Make my annual plum tart
14. Sell a painting (EEP!)
15. Insulate the attic
16. Make a sand castle
17. Go to the zoo
18. Make ice cream
19. Sing along with The Beach Boys
20. Kiss on a bridge
21. Read a great novel
22. Fall asleep in the grass
23. Blow bubbles in the yard
24. Pick peaches
25. Raise a Monarch caterpillar
26. Make tomato sauce
27. Eat a popsicle on the front steps
28. Make s'mores over a campfire
29. Draw on our sidewalk with chalk
30. Hang our flag out.

So, that's what's on my summer list. Glad I got that off my chest, it's good to write these things down instead of staring at the ceiling in the wee hours telling yourself over and over, "I have to remember to...." What would be on your bucket list?