Summer 2021 Fun List
This essay originally appeared in the Monday morning newsletter on 5/24/21.
“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James
With the Memorial Day three-day weekend on the horizon, we have officially made it to summer.
After the blustery throes of winter, we’ve made it to the time when the days are the longest and the nights are the shortest. The time when we have bursts of energy that we don’t have in other seasons. The time when work (hopefully) slows down a bit, offices adopt “Summer Friday” schedules, and we have the freedom to switch up our routines a bit.
With how things are progressing, I am really excited for summer this year. I’m excited to be in Chicago for the whole season (last year I was still in Florida until late June!). And I’ve also realized a few things that will make this summer unique for me. For example, I’ll still be working remotely all summer, but that likely won’t be the case next year.
Even with how excited I am for summer, I do also have a hint of sadness knowing the time will go by so quickly. As quickly as summer will soon start, it will fade just as fast.
So, this year, in hopes of really savoring the season and making it memorable, I decided I would make a “summer fun list,” which is an idea I cribbed from author Laura Vanderkam. The intent is that you spend some time thinking about the things you want to do that make summer feel like, well, summer. And then you make yourself a list to remember. The hope is that when we get to Labor Day Weekend, we won’t be thinking “where did the time go?,” but rather, we’ll reflect on all our new summer memories.
I did this activity this weekend and it was really fun! Since there are 14 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I decided to include 14 things on my list. What a fun summer it would be if I checked off one of these every week!
Sharing my list below in case it prompts your thinking about your summer, and if you make your own summer fun list, I’d love to hear about it!
Summer of 2021 Fun List:
- Read from a themed summer reading list. Throwing it back to school days with the idea of a summer reading list. Not sure if I’m going to do beach reads (quintessential summer requirement!), books by a certain author or titles from the same time period. Any ideas?
- Be a tourist in the city. This summer (4th of July specifically!) marks five years of me living in Chicago – I can’t believe it! There’s nothing like summertime CHI, and there’s still some Chicago-specific activities I haven’t done yet.
- Treat myself to an ice cream cone on a random afternoon during the work week. Just sounds fun. 🙂
- Host a rosé wine tasting with friends. Ditto on the above – sounds really fun!
- Go to the Wednesday Lincoln Park farmer’s market. I’ve never been since I would typically be in the office.
- Get a few new pieces of fun, summer activewear that also double as great WFH outfits. More on this below. :_
- Enjoy golden hour at at least three rooftop bars. And, hopefully many more 🙂
- Go to three street festivals! Same sentiment as above – hopefully many more, but definitely at least three. The free street festivals are one of the best parts of a Chicago summer.
- Try a running group at least once. This is an item from my 21 in 2021 List – no excuses not to get this crossed off this summer!
- Master making the perfect spicy, skinny marg. My friend Sabrina is on a quest to find the perfect spicy, skinny marg in Chicago, so I am going to own the at-home version to cover all our bases 🙂
- Plan a long weekend staycation. Sounds relaxing!
- Get fun manicures. Getting my nails done is my favorite indulgence, and around my birthday this year, I got a manicure with varying shades of pink. It brought me SO much joy, so I want to take advantage of the fact I’m working remotely to have some fun with my manicures this summer.
- Go to a concert!! Cannot remember the last time I saw an artist perform live.
- Go on dates and have fun with it. I know I’m not the only one who thinks it’s been a weird time to be single and dating. Looking forward to summer making it feel a bit more normal (fingers crossed at least :)).
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