Summer Time

Despite having been out of grad school for 11 years now, I still miss the feel of summer breaks. I think after all those years of schooling, my body got into a rhythm of studying hard and knowing that there'd be mandatory respites carved into the calendar.

Now, summers are usually one of the busiest times at work, and I seldom take off for a real break without combining it with a continuing education seminar. And so it feels like summers just slip away.

But I've realized that I need to make my own "summer time." Even if I can't take three months off, I can still enjoy summer's fun activities. I just need to be more intentional about scheduling them on evenings and weekends.

And while I was pondering this, I came across this list of "101 Bits of Summer Fun," thanks to Ann Voskamp, and had the perfect starting point. I love that the list includes service-oriented bits of fun, like taking books to a children's hospital, working in a soup kitchen, and taking cookies to a fire station. I've picked out some of the "bits" from the list and added some of my own.

I've penned the date-specific activities on the calendar and the rest I'll pick and choose from each week. I'm hoping that these last eight weeks of summer don't speed by as quickly as the first four did!