To celebrate summer vacation when my kids were little, we used to go to the local coffee shop on the last day of school.

I would ask each of them what they wanted to do with their time off.

A summer bucket list.

It gave summer a shape, filled with time to do nothing and time to do something different, something they couldn’t do while they were busy with school.

It marked the difference between school days and freedom.

Whenever I hear a particular bird singing, it reminds me of summertime when I was a kid.

I know now that the bird I heard was a mockingbird. (Shoutout to my friend who is slowly educating me about birds.)

That song never fails to remind me of those lazy summer days that stretched in front of me when I was a kid.

And then as I got a little older, it was summer jobs, suntans, hobbies, and late nights.

What about summer soundtracks?

Alan Parson’s Project will swoop me right back to carefree summers.

Summer flavors: Peppermint ice cream and really good grapes will transport me, too.

Oh! and the ecstasy of plums!

Remember your blissful days of summer.

Once we graduate, the shape of our summer days changes.

It’s hard to tell the difference between spring to summer to fall.

Our routines are set.

Life lifes (as my Writing Group friend says).

But we owe it to ourselves to toss in some summer bucket list items so it doesn’t life away too fast.

Here’s my plan, including my usual things to do with a few summery things sprinkled on top.

• Finish editing a manuscript
• Drive with my daughter to our old stomping grounds
• Begin writing a new story (a cozy mystery for kids)
• Go see the new “How to Train Your Dragon”
• Continue querying another manuscript (five queries a month!)
• Make a cake with my husband for my birthday
• Celebrate my SIL’s birthday
• Coffee at a new-to-me coffee shop with my friends
• Watch a sunrise from start to finish
• Sit outside—as soon as we get some sunshine in our neck of the woods—and daydream
• READ! Whittle down that TBR list.

Here’s what’s on that TBR list so far:

Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe;

Dickensland by Lee Jackson;

Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison;

Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar;

How to Write a Cozy Mystery by Natasha C. Sass.

And those are just the books sitting at my elbow on my desk.

I have Kindle books to read, too, including a Ken Follet novel I’ve been wanting to read for months.

Before I go away, I want to tell you about a book I just this minute finished reading and actually said, “No!” when I turned to the next page and saw that I had read it all.

It’s called Seeing the Blue Between.

It’s a compilation of “Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets.”

I AM NOT A POET!

I don’t even really care much for poetry.

But this book goes beyond poetry.

It’s a book about the wonders of life, the magic at our fingertips, the beauty that we can grasp as it flies past us.

I recommend it for writers, non-writers, people who wake up in the morning and say, “Yes!” and for people who wake up in the morning and say, “Not again.”

It’s the perfect book to read a (super-brief) essay a day to get you excited for these (super-brief) summer days.

Okay.

That’s me.

What’s on your summer bucket list?

If you don’t have one, stop reading this and make one right now.

Enjoy your week,

~Gail

(Tick tock)

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