Easy Summer Bucket List | Cup of Jo (2024)

Lovely list :) I’d add enjoy stone fruit!

Aperol spritz on the beach, coffee on the dock, burgers, lobster rolls, cuddling on the beach, watching the stars, playing cards with family, roasting s’mores, swimming in the lake, relaxing on a floaty, watermelon salad, corn on the cob, fresh blueberries and peaches!

Pimm’s cup with fresh cucumbers and mint from my garden
Fresh corn on the cob on the grill
Eating an open faced shrimp sandwich on an island in the fjord (Oslo)
Fjord swimming and river swimming as much as possible
Gelato
Visiting Little Free Libraries to exchange summer reads

Over the weekend I ate the first tomato of the season from our garden, and while at the pool with my daughter and her friends I indulged them and dove off the diving board again and again and again and didn’t care what anyone thought!

Going for a jog, then a dip in the ocean afterwards.
Sex in the afternoon
Going to the farmer’s market for flowers, vegetables and brownies
Wearing my new jumpsuit to co*cktails in town
Eating all the summer fruits I can get my hands on

Plenty of iced lattes, fresh off the vine tomatoes and of the husk corn, and floating on an inner tube on a hot day!

Eating juicy fruits outside while soaking up the sunlight

When a Summer Rain Shower is within sight, I find a reason to do something outside. It may be clipping a few flowers or checking to see if the garden needs some hoe work. Today I cut some of the last spears of asparagus and pulled some weeds. Being outside keeps me very aware of the passing and approaching seasons. It is now time to let the asparagus bed ‘go to seed’.
The front-edge of a rain also gives me a wonderful chance to enjoy petrichlor; nature’s perfume.

Haha–lovely, achievable joys of summer! Love Grace so much!

I’ve done all of these this year, some multiple times already, I must be doing life right!

Tending to my tomato plants (grown from seed by a most anxious gardener) and filling up the old tin bath with the garden hose to cool my feet.

Knitting under the pergola.

– Walk barefoot
– Have a grilled cheese by a swimming pool
– Spend a day inside in pyjamas even (especially) if it’s sunny and everyone is out doing stuff
– Watch Wimbledon whilst eating strawberries and cream

All My Mothers by Joanna Glenn 💙💚

Eating something (lettuce, cucumbers, herbs, berries, zucchinis, apples) from the garden for every meal, bike rides, evening swims, farm visits, reading in the sun, do-nothing days.

Making herbal sun tea in a glass jar to see the beautiful color.
Standing in front of a fan with wet hair and damp skin.
Passing by a yard where little kids are running through sprinklers.
Going for a dawn walk and needing a hoodie.
Outdoor concerts.

Letting random “volunteer” plants grow in my garden. This year’s is, I think, a pumpkin plant (some sort of squash, anyway) and it’s hilariously gigantic.

Night showers!! Washing away the sweat & sunscreen & slipping into bed clean and deliciously exhausted.

Dominate family card game (spoons!)
Publix Subs at the beach.
Hair mask.
Buy a box of sparklers/pop-its.

Ok, now I feel better about the fact that I can’t find my missing (fake) Birkenstock anywhere! Crossing that off my summer bucket list ;) One thing I’d add is making different flavors of infused gin. It’s so easy! I made a delicious pink rhubarb gin (using my parents’ heirloom rhubarb), have an elderflower gin currently steeping (the results look…questionable), and I’ll be picking wild black raspberries to make black raspberry gin. I use the rhubarb gin recipe from The Boy Who Bakes and use half the amount of sugar. https://www.theboywhobakes.co.uk/recipes/2017/2/23/rhubarb-gin

I’ve declared this the summer of ‘big salads’. Random leftovers, tossed with lettuce, cheese, whatever bits and bobs I’ve got in a the fridge. Easy to eat on hot sunny days (or since I’m in Toronto, smoky days). It’s always an adventure, always tasty and a nice change from my same old same old lunch of a quick quesadilla.

Love this list
I hope I find my straw and rope handle purses before autumn. My summer uniform isn’t the same without them.

Making sun tea on the back patio.

Dozing in a hammock and making sun tea. Sitting on my stoop just to soak up sun and get brown.

On a hot lazy summer afternoon sit down after lunch and fall asleep. Feeling the warm breeze on your skin, children who are not your responsibility, laughing in the distance, bees buzzing in the flowers stay deeply asleep all afternoon. Wake up at supper time when it has started to cool down, open a cold beer, put burgers on the grill, serve with potato chips and strawberry ice cream!
Perfection!
I would recommend something to read, but on summer afternoons I tend to fall asleep-see above!

Listen to the waves at the beach
Sit in the grass on a warm afternoon
Have a cold sparkly drink (seltzer counts!) outside on a light evening
Listen to live music
Enjoy the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms on your evening walk (depending on where you live)

Carrying a big summer tote or basket. And wearing sandals.

Love the low-keyness of this, but my drawing would be one big scramble of teen life: “Drive kid to job. Pick up at job because they can’t drive yet. Encourage online classroom driver’s ed training. Try to keep kitchen stocked. Assign chores via text,” etc.

Getting into bed before it’s dark out!! Simple pleasures, especially in my current season of trying for a baby/the two week wait dance. But truly recommend this indulgence for anyone at any point in life!

My sister and her two little boys and I left our flip flops on the sand at the beginning of a beach walk last summer and the tide pickpocketed the dune before we returned. I hunted for them when the tide was back out the next morning and, huzzah, found all eight sandals tangled up in a pile of sea grass and flotsam. I came back so proud: “Theo and Bax, look, the mermaids took our sandals dancing but I got them to give them back!” “Aunt Lauren,” they said patiently, “mermaids don’t have feet.”

Make a batch of fresh lemonade and enjoy on the porch!

The smell of pine trees near the beach and wild rose bushes <3

The Neopolitan series by Elena Ferrante. I’m reading Dominicana by Angie Cruz and am loving it so far.

My bucketlist: morning swim in the lake, sweaty jogs in the neighborhood, eating salads outdoors flushed down with cold white wine, checking regularly whether I dare to let my zucchinis grow a bit more (with the risk of becoming ‘B52’-size… ), plein air painting…

Especially salted caramel gelato!

I wish I could feel elegant in linen, I really appreciate people who look relaxed and put together in linen but I feel like a crumpled wreck when I try to wear it.

Can you recommend some good summer reads?