Hello friends!
It’s that time of year again though, what a doozy of a year we find ourselves in. I won’t call it ‘unprecedented’ and I won’t use the word ‘uncertain’. Enough of that. We’re living through everything all at once. Truly. But we always have – we’re just feeling it more. We can take it and we can make moves from it. In all that – we have summer. A time for sunning and reflecting and playing and being in love. We’re going to do it all, or exactly as much as we can handle, in masks, washing our hands.
This is my fifth year of Summer Bucket Lists. If you aren’t familiar with our tradition:
BUCKET LIST buck•et list (noun): a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have accomplished during their lifetime. Also, a 2007 comedic film featuring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.
SUMMER BUCKET LIST sum•mer buck•et list (noun): a list of things that a person would like to accomplish and experience during the summer months. If done correctly, should involve water-guns, pool time, and roller-skates.
Here’s my Summer Bucket List. Please please write your own and share it with me on Instagram @joythebaker. We’ll get through this season together and maybe even dare to thrive.
1 • I’m going camping. I still not sure I want to be around a bunch of folks at the beach but I’ll tell you what – I know how to pitch a tent :), build a fire, and I’ll tell you now that I make the best campfire breakfast around. #GirlScoutForever
2 • Mississippi blueberries are so close but I’ve never gone picking! I’ll fix that soon. There will be pie: Peach Blueberry Pie.
3 • My friend Katalina just moved to Florida which is a tremendous excuse to go Florida cave swimming.
4 • I’m absolutely making peach cobbler over a campfire and I’m going to make it into a whole little IGTV summer show for you. I’ll tell you more about that soon but just be ready to dig a hole in your backyard, line it with bricks, build a friend and make a peach cobbler? Are there easier ways to peach cobbler? Yes. Are there more fun ways? No.
5 • Ginger beer. I’m sure this has been on previous Summer Bucket Lists but honestly, I’m too embarrassed to look. Sometimes you write something down on a summer list and you don’t know which summer you’ll get to it. It might be three summers from now. That’s cool – go easy.
6 • Oh honey we are out here glowing this summer! Why? Because we drink almost a gallon of water a day and our shine comes from the inside. There are no mistakes with this shine.
7 • The Bakehouse is having a New Orleans Bake Sale on June 20th to benefit MiNO and Grow Dat Youth Farm. More details will be found on The Bakehouse site soon and Instagram next week.
8 • I add a pep talk to every list I make these days. Just a reminder that we’re doing our best and wow – that’s a solid something.
9 • Love – we’re always going big with it. No rationing.
I’m also 100% making a pot of Root Beer Baked Beans and we’ll have summer water on tap (I mean… I don’t have a tap but ya know). We’ll do good. We’ll be good. We’ll take it all!
Summers past are here:
Summer Bucket List, 2018, 2017 (I finally got the piano), 2016, and 2015.
I can’t wait to see your lists.
My love to you.
xo Joy
Ellen K
Joy – I love your Summer Bucket Lists every year. Yes, all the blueberries.
Your final note about BIG LOVE is one I am focusing on too. You should check out Heidi Rose Robbins. She is an amazing Astrologer Poet who posts a daily Moon Note on the gram who has inspired me.
@heidiroserobbins
Happy Summer!!
Katie
What a great list. And beautiful watercolors! You are a woman of many talents!
Aimee Wimbush-Bourque
I’ll be waiting for that peach cobbler! I do a big triple berry crisp in a skillet over the campfire and it’s the best.
Aisling
Ooh making ginger beer is on my list too!
Barbara
Hmmmm think I have to make the rootbeer baked beans. Am vegan, so will use a little liquid smoke to get the idea of bacon and will use a little oil to make up the fat. These look so good..
Marisa
This is my favorite post of yours every year. My 2020 list has been marinating in my brain for a bit and I’m excited to get it on paper. I have no grad school, no continuing ed, no weddings (!!!), just the summer of me this year and I am here for it!
Briel K.
I wish I could go camping with you! Wanna come to SoCal and do it here? haha
Looks like a good and doable list! The only plans I have so far are spending my birthday in Joshua Tree with my parents, sister, and two nieces. No camping but looking forward to the night sky!
Sara
You are just the best of humans! Thank you for sharing your words and your joy!
Libby
Thank you for supporting Grow Dat farm. We have been eating oven-roasted shishitos from them for the last two weeks, non-stop. I’m in on the cave swim! I’ve always wanted to explore the natural springs of FL.
Emily
Love that peach blueberry pie recipe–thanks for the reminder! I made it several years ago and it was great. With it being pandemic summer 2020, I’ll be home in my lovely kitchen instead of at my summer job (RIP) without access to an oven, so that pie is definitely on my list for the first summer in like 8 years. Thank you!
Kiersten Hickman
Wow, I really love this. I’m going to make one tonight, thanks for sharing.
JessicaD
This is so, so good. I’ve always had Summer Challenges (I think challenges may be my Love Language?), but am seeing the need to move beyond and find the Bucket List. My little family is breaking apart for most of the summer in order for older daughter to see friends and experience more of a normal summer seeing friends repairing mental health after a rocky spring (she will head to Maine with my husband) while my younger daughter and I stay a bit more south but still in New England. Need to keep telling myself that there is still fun to be had despite scary pre-existing conditions and health issues that we can overcome with strong social distancing and hand washing and masking and people not being jerks (people are generally not jerks). On with creating a list with my sweet little daughter. Thank you for this!
Katy
Joy, I always love your summer bucket lists!! I will be honest, I have not made one in the past, but given this doozy of a year (and thank you for avoiding the “Un” words — you’re right, we need to start moving past that), I think I will do one. Based in Chicago, so mine might include going back to the family farm in Ohio (I haven’t seen my family since Christmas), actually going to the lakefront, volunteering with an organization in person rather than just donating money, and watching the sunset from a rooftop. (And also figuring out how to spend my 30th birthday.)
Thank you so much for your posts – you are a constant delight in my inbox.
Katy
OH! And lots of pie and cobbler — it is the season!!! <3