Pop Quiz: What Do You Love About Summer?

Thank you for this post!! We’re about to have our first baby (due June 16th!) so that has dominated my thoughts of summer this year. Planning to spend lots of time with my parents and sisters and the new baby and my husband, and I was just re-reading Cup of Jo’s post on parenting books. I’ve been very anxious (as well as superstitious) up until the last two months or so of pregnancy and have shunned pregnancy/baby books of any kind. On my “to read” list is: The Sleepeasy Solution and Great with Child, both reccos by Joanna. On my “to eat”/to-drink list is: tacos (to be eaten outside), ballpark hotdogs, ROSE and malbec (finally!), peaches and cherries (!!) and blueberry/peach crumble, on my “to do” in Boston list is: many walks with the new beb around the Charles and through the Boston Public Garden, and as many sunsets as we can fit in.

I’m looking forward to a hut to hut trip along the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia. It’s been so much fun planning and I just can’t wait to hike, SUP, kayak, and One of our traditional hits of the summer is the long awaited arrival of Palisade Peaches. They grow in Northern Colorado and are absolutely luscious! I’m so looking forward to reading Educated. Summer for me is always about slowing down a bit and enjoying the simple things that bring the most pleasure.

Aghhh! Thank you for this post! I am in the middle of chemo for breast cancer and while pre-diagnosis my bffs and I were SO looking forward to a fun summer (no more nursing! Babies are big enough to leave for more than a couple hours!) now it has been filled with dread: mastectomies, radiation, ugh.
But this post and readers comments were a reminder that it’s the little things people look forward to most! Things I can still do! Eat cherries! Sit on the front porch with my babies, go for a walk in the warm evening. There is still so much to look forward to.
*Now ladies, please add checking your boobs to your lists! (I’m 39 and never could have imagined this would happen to me.)

Letting the kids stay up late with the sun, evenings at the farm listing to local bands and drinking smuggled in rose and snacking on whatever we could scrounge up in a hurry from the fridge. Oh! and picking blueberries and pulling over for roadside blackberries which we eat while driving.

I live in a college town and its bliiiiss when all the students leave for a few months.
I’m looking forward to drinking a lot of Negroni on patios, and kayaking down the river with my friends. I also can’t wait for tomato season to hit. I love making gazpacho from market tomatoes, and I really want to try a peach mouse cake from the cover of Martha Stewart mag.
We are wrapped up in Westworld, and I’m reading heavy books about race. Finishing Go Tell it on the Mountain. It’s beautifully written.
All good things!

Planting as many roses as I can fit in my garden
Watching Broad City
David Sedaris’ new book Calypso
Fish tacos and my husband’s homemade wine

Late night walks are the best thing about summer!
Looking forward to lots of hikes, lake swimming, iced coffee and a book in the park mornings, and just plain being outside (Seattlite here – We all flock outdoors as soon as June hits).
Just finished Homegoing and Adrift (I want to move to Tahiti now!), and just started Educated. Also have Veronica on my list.
Rose and tacos. And ice cream, always ice cream.

This is so much fun- I love seeing how people in different locations are spending their summers!
– What summer activity are you most excited to do?
Hopefully escaping London a bit. I’m excited to spend weekends with friends and family in the countryside, and at the beach. Picnics, and supper in the garden. Beer gardens. And starting a new job in August!!!
– What TV shows or movies are you into watching?
Hahaha I’m very ashamed of this, but in the UK, we have this programme called Love Island which is APPALLING and BRILLIANT all at the same time. A group of good looking singletons are put together in a villa in Mallorca with the intention of them all hooking up/ finding relationships/ etc. I IMPLORE you to look it up. I got so sucked in last year, and it’s just started up again and I am loving it already. It screams summer!
– What’s on your summer reading list?
I’m off on holiday with my mum in a couple of weeks and need to get some new books. Swing Time by Zadie Smith is one I own but haven’t started, so that’ll be coming, but I think I need another two or three to last me the week!
– What summer food (or beverage) can you not wait to consume?
I’ve been eating absolutely tons of strawberries, cherries and apricots already. But really, I’m just excited to eat loads of ice cream!

The taste of the first local strawberries here in Ontario is one of the best tastes of summer to me. They literally taste like sun in a field. I can’t wait for more: cherries, peaches, corn … I am also excited to hang out at the wading pool in a Muskoka chair (Adirondack chair for you Americans) with my daughter. As for reading, I just picked up Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill and Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward which I am excited to read on an upcoming vacation!

LOVE that you watch RHONY. I’m obsessed.

I just started watching “Felicity” online (on ABC and maybe Hulu)…sweet drama with great flashbacks to the 90s and early 2000s and living in NYC. I’ve seen episodes here and there but never watched the whole thing through.
Loving evening walks/runs too!

Being able to go barefoot everywhere!! Might be helped by living on a beach for the summer haha

xx

Summer activity: vacation somewhere with an ocean (midwest resident here!), go for long evening walks (one of my fave things about summer!)
Books: Currently The Lathe of Heaven, can’t believe I haven’t read this one yet!
TV shows: Been watching an old one, The Saint, and loving it! Newer ones that I love though: The Good Place, Dear White People, Legion, Atlanta
Food/drink: grilled pineapple, grilled corn, avocado everything, sparkling lemonade from TJs

What could have been a simple post of questions to readers feels so much more fun and exciting thanks to your opening paragraphs! Love your description of “standing on a bluff” – how true! Wish all goes well with your ambiguous relationship!

Love the ideas in these comments!
I just had a baby last week so we don’t have big summer plans, just planning to get through the newborn months and also get our 22 month old outside as much as we can. There is also a good chance that we may end up needing to move this summer for my husband’s work – another reason we haven’t made any significant summer plans.
During my last trimester, however, I was seized with the idea of us having our own Summer 2018 cocktail. A drink to enjoy outside in the evening after surviving another day with a newborn and a toddler, that would be forever reminiscent of this time in our lives. We settled on a vermouth spritz ( easy to make, can keep an open bottle in the fridge long enough for the two of us to finish it, and a not too high alcohol level for me to fit in between breastfeeding sessions once baby and I get a bit of a routine going). We bought a nice bottle of vermouth in my last month of pregnancy and are looking forward to starting our new summer tradition soon!

I’m a summer worshipper, too! It’s my first full summer in Denver (moved here from Michigan last August), and it’s already dry and toasty, but I’m loving it. This city has an unexpectedly chill and wide-open vibe with the arrival of warmer weather.
1. I’m most excited to tackle some more 14ers and hike my little heart out!
2. I’m in a long-distance relationship, and my boyfriend and I love watching Westworld together/apart. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do, I choose something big and meaty.
3. I’m currently reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. It is SO GOOD. I try to choose one classic per summer, but my previous choices have been a little dark (The Sound and the Fury, In Cold Blood). Looking forward to choosing something a little on the less soul-crushing side. The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott is on deck.
4. I love grilled food, because I am a human being. Also, Michigan sweet corn, Palisade peaches, cherries, berries, and sungold tomatoes. I live for this season.

TV Show — WESTWORLD

Books — Everything I’ve been reading has been SO SERIOUS, and with a newborn I’m trying to find something light…but right now I’m reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Events — Summer Nights in LA presented by KCRW. My husband and I go to free concerts during the summer, and are now planning on trekking along with our newborn son!

Brunch — Summer salads, fruits, seafood, along with perfect fruity cocktails

Other favorite summer activities: BBQing by the pool (we’ve been ALL OVER Beyond Burgers from Whole Foods…highly recommend for those looking to cut back on meat or cut meat out entirely), drive-in movies, beach days, hiking!

When summer hits the PNW, everyone comes out of the woodwork. I try to stay active and play outside year round, but man, when it’s warm out, my family lives outside. My daughter takes baths in a bucket in the yard, we eat most meals on our deck, friends/family come over for BBQ’s almost every weekend, sometimes more than once/week, hikes, and lots of weekend trips to mountains/lakes/beaches. By the end of summer my husband is ready for winter so he can rest and hibernate for a bit.

One thing I’m looking forward to this summer that I haven’t done before: crystal hunting. Apparently it’s a thing around here and I’ve seen pictures of things people have found and I’m excited to go.

– What summer activity are you most excited to do?
Girls night dinners on weeknights (feels different during summer for some reason!), Rooftop cocktails, Grilling and spending time in the backyard with my husband, dining al fresco

– What TV shows or movies are you into watching?
Succession on HBO, Cant stop watching Vicky Christina Barcelona- my favorite summer movie

– What’s on your summer reading list?
Option B by Sheryl Sandberg, You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero, Radical Candor by Kim Scott

– What summer food (or beverage) can you not wait to consume?
Pesto, grilled corn and ALL THE ROSE AND FROSE

I love camping and hiking and hitting the beach with a good book in the Summer! Also drinks on patios and rooftops and grilling in our back patio. AND Outdoor Yoga and running in the mornings before work. I’m headed to Acadia next weekend and am so excited for that! I love lobster rolls (It’s june and I’ve already had 2 this season!), ice cream and watermelon in the Summer. Tonight our book club is meeting over The American Marriage. After that I’m onto The Couple Next Door and North by Scott Jurek. No TV shows right now but really enjoying the comedy specials on Netflix, particularly Tig and John Mulaney. LOVE SUMMER.