
What would you add? By the lovely Grace Farris.
P.S. Summer clothes and simple pleasures.
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!
I love this Molly!
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 cocktails 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.
Oh, that sounds perfect!
Knitting under the pergola.
Ditto – under the pop up canopy!
My mini mountain of dish clothes grows each day.
– 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.
Love this detail
Yes, this!
Dominate family card game (spoons!)
Publix Subs at the beach.
Hair mask.
Buy a box of sparklers/pop-its.
Publix subs are amazingly good, agree
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
Thank you!
I’ve always meant to infuse gin, but keep forgetting to do it. So I appreciate the reminder!
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.
Same Sara! I’ve bought myself a salad spinner and now feel like a salad supremo!
Sarah
Well this is hilarious I’ve declared this too. After too much hotdogs and burgers all ready I’m ready for a fresh summer salad!
Love this list
I hope I find my straw and rope handle purses before autumn. My summer uniform isn’t the same without them.
Found them last night. It will take me hours to put all the stuff I pulled out to get to 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!
“children who are not your responsibility, laughing in the distance” just hits different :)
Currently wearing my favorite yellow linen skirt while drinking an iced coffee while my kids are at home with my husband. I ate a warm quiche and didn’t have to share my strawberries with anyone. This is my bucket list.
Check!
Check!
Check!
Bec, I love this for you. <3
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.
Kitchen stock is impossible to maintain in summer!
YES! the driving of my teen to and from job and constant talk of driver’s ed- I thought it was just me!!! Tonight they have a 2 hour shift?? I may as well stay and work alongside him
To Sara: ” I may as well stay and work alongside him” – LOL!
If you’re not assigning chores via text are you even parenting a teen?
Ha, yes! We have a 12 year old and a just turned16 year old and groceries and driving top the list of summer activities. 🤣
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!
Rooting for you to get good news soon!
Good luck 🍀
Best of luck to you! That two-week wait is so hard!
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.”
Ha, ha, ha! I love the kid logic in your story, Lauren. Thank you for sharing!
This is so cute.
<3
Jo, please ask Lauren O. to be a 4egular contributor! Her comments are consistently awesome, and they often get spotlighted by you. I just want to know I will see a funny/charming story from her regularly! 🥰
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 smell of Maine….
I live in the mountains but love to go to the coast for this very thing.
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…
Haha, B52. If I lived close I’d take some of those guys off your hands, forgot to plant!
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.
My relationship with linen got a lot healthier when I embraced the rumple. I have a pair of whooshy linen harem pants I got in India a couple years ago that kinda look like I’m trailing my bedsheet (but make it fashion) even when they’re comparatively crease-free, and it doesn’t feel like a failure when they crease even more. Linen slacks and sheaths and I have agreed to stay out of each other’s way.
Kay, I am so there with you! What I have found is a love of shirts made with linen and cotton. These have been popping up in the past few years and they feel almost like light summer sweater weight that doesn’t wrinkle.
Useful German ohrase for you: Leinen knittert edel! (Something like: linen rumples (?) elegantly.)
Can you recommend some good summer reads?
fun question! so curious to hear readers’ ideas!
here are books I’ve loved overall:
https://cupofjo.com/product_sort/comedy/
including comedies, which would be fun for summer! https://cupofjo.com/product_sort/comedy/
and also this darkly funny novel:
https://cupofjo.com/2021/05/11/sorrow-and-bliss/
Anything by Emily Henry, especially Book Lovers.
Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes.
The Hating Game, Sally Thorne
Truly Devious, Maureen Johnson
Jane Unlimited, Kristin Cashore
As You Wish, Cary Elwes
Can you give me three books you have enjoyed in the past and I will based on those.
The Neopolitan series by Elena Ferrante. I’m reading Dominicana by Angie Cruz and am loving it so far.
Thank You For Listening by Julia Whalen was excellent!
Still Life by Sarah Winman. I didn’t want it to end.
The Rose Code
Remarkably Bright Creatures
All The Light We Cannot See