What's Left In The Bucket?

Newsflash!!! It is still summer. I realize the kids are all going back to school, we are getting hints of fall weather and the grocery stores are all setting up displays of Halloween candy...but it is, its still summer.  :)

In the spirit of still having time and living in the now instead of the near future....here is what is still left on my .....

2013 Summer Bucket List.

1. Take the boys fishing
2. Ride a ferry
3. Pick peaches and blueberries, maybe bkackberries.
4. Plan my homeschool curriculum for this year.
5. Lie in the hammock in the back yard and read a book.
6. Go crabbing.
7. Make my traditional plum tart.
8. Assemble an Herbal Medicine Chest is preparation for cold weather and sickness season.
9. Go to a festival.
10. Can tomato sauce and peaches
11. Paint the front porch portico.
12. Make a new friend.
13. Bake a lemon meringue pie.
14. Make a big, vivid abstract painting to hang above my bed.
15. Hang the hummingbird feeder.
16. Oil my cutting boards with beeswax and lemon.
17. Listen to country music with the windows down
18. Get the boys a playhouse and some stumps for their corner of the yard.
19. Call a junk man to take a load to the dump
20.Do henna designs with Lucy.

Summer Aspirations

Making a list today. Summer is finally here for sure...there's barbeque on every neighborhood breeze and I'm checking my tan in the mirror. So its time to start earlier than I did last year and begin to scribble a list of all the summer stuff I want to do before we smell the first crisp wafts of fall. This is how we actualize folks! Its also how I get all the stuff out of my head that is in it. :)

Things To Do Before Summer Is Over

Pick peaches and can them.

Make apricot jam

Eat a BLT.

Swim more.

Go to a county fair. 

Eat a s'more.

Sit around a campfire.

Go fishing.

Lay on the grass and watch the stars.

Ride in a pick-up.

Eat a popsicle on the porch.

Make a key lime pie.

Feel cute in shorts.

Sit and read in the sun.

Go on a picnic.

Go skinny dipping.

Walk to a store with a friend.

Shoot someone with a squirt gun.

Have astounding sweet corn.

Climb a tree.

Go for a long, wandery beach walk.

Make a daisy chain.

Draw with sidewalk chalk.

Stroll along a pier or dock.

 

 But there are a few things I can already check off. Its worth mentioning to myself again what I have already done!

Things I've Already Done

Eat a lobster.

Pick strawberries.

Go to an outdoor Shakespeare performance.

Grill some good BBQ.

 Sing loudly to the radio with the windows open.

Make a killer salad.

Buy flip-flops.

Run through the sprinkler.

Eat fresh watermelon.

Watch the kids do sparklers.

Find a good book.

Go beach combing with the boys.

 

 

 

Swimming In A Waterfall

Number 38 on my Lifetime Bucket List, "Swim in a Waterfall"..........Check!

Pretty incredible feeling. We found this local spot via this amazing website I just found. Wanna check out your own local swimming hole secrets? Check out the amazing lists and scoops published and reviewed by other local swimmers at Swimmingholes.org.  What a really fun find! A and I thought it was a beautiful place to cool off together in the water after a picnicky date night out without the kids

Swimming area in the river, above the falls.

Playing with the feel of the waterfall. Pretty amazing.

I feel like we've put a pretty fabulous gold star on our summer activities with this one. It's not every day you discover secret, romantic water hang-outs. I felt like a character out of a mermaid legend, letting the water tumble over my hands. Major kudos to whichever romantic soul set that sturdy stump up under the waterfall, my Bucket List says thank you.

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?