Five Things I Won’t Be Doing This Summer (And Five Things I Will)

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Every summer, I make a long list of things I am going to accomplish. It usually includes serious de-cluttering, getting in shape, reading 1800 books, teaching my children something extraordinary, learning to sew, making a bunch of homemade household necessities, and saving the world.

Every summer, I cross nothing off my list.

Despite my greatest intentions and desires, Summer always wins. I love her long, lazy, unplanned days; her blithe and merry invitation to play. My body craves the sun and the increasing amounts of daylight. Even writing this post, I’m mournfully looking out at the setting sun, wishing my laptop battery could still hold a charge.

For our family, summer is an unscheduled, spontaneous affair. I fight it every year, swearing “this is the year I get something done.” So instead of the annual fight, I’m going along with what will inevitably happen anyway.

Five Things I Won’t Be Doing This Summer

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1. Scheduling. In years past, our days, minutes, and seconds were (over)scheduled. Not this summer. I’m sticking with intuition to tell me what’s next on the agenda.

2. Planning. From September to May, I love planning out all the minutia of our lives for the next 25 years. But when June hits, the future is nothing but an ethereal conception. I am embracing this reality for the season.

3. Traveling. My baby is healing from some gut issues that have been present since birth, so we decided to take a little travel hiatus. With a baby on a stricter-than-strict diet, traveling is exhausting and the recovery period is lengthy. I’m disappointed we are missing out on several important and much-anticipated events, but I’m also breathing easy just knowing we’re staying home.

4. Home schooling. I want to start Joy School with my 4yo, but every time I look at the lesson plans, I think “that can wait until it’s snowy outside.” So it will. This also includes the summer school courses at the university that I signed up for and subsequently dropped.

5. Feeling Guilty. Technically, “accomplish nothing” is my summer goal. So I don’t have to feel bad about accomplishing nothing!

Of course, we will be busy this summer. With two Littles, it is improbable that every day will be spent in a bubble bath painting my toenails. And surely the quality time we spend together won’t really fit in the “accomplish nothing” category.  But since we won’t be task-driven and goal-oriented, what will we do with all of these excess daylight hours?

Five Things I Will Be Doing This Summer

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1. Rolling in the grass. I lived in Houston for 5 years and this is my first summer away. If you’ve been there, Houston grass is crabgrass–crunchy, stiff, painful, and full of fire ants. No rolling around in that green stuff. I look forward to taking advantage of the soft Kentucky blue.

2. Going to bed with the sun. Sleep is important, but it’s always on the backburner because of all the goals I want to accomplish. With my dwindling to-do list this summer, I already have a lot fewer things left on my plate after the kids go to bed. And instead of creating more with all this extra time, I’m going to sleep.

3. Picking tomatoes from the garden. Not a bad way to spend several afternoons.

4. Walking around barefoot. I am a big believer in the barefoot movement for bone structure and for the earthing component, though it all seems kind of hippie-dippy. I recently hiked Zion without my shoes and despite the looks of bewilderment, I felt so alive simply touching the Earth.

5. Dancing. A fast way to bring a lot of joy into our home. Now if I can figure out how to get surround sound at the park, we will be set all summer.

So there’s my ultra-non-ambitious summer to-do list. We  started a few weeks ago and I’m a happier mama for it. I can’t wait for tomorrow when I can continue to accomplish nothing.

Are you overbooked, simplifying, or somewhere in between this summer?