soaking up the season: laken.

{laken from farmhouse}

Aren't guest posts fun? This last one is by Laken, another blogger I'm happy to also call friend. I'm adding her summertime resolutions to my own list. (Oh, and Laken: if you need a road trip destination, you've got a place to stay in Tallahassee.) Happy summertime, everyone. Here's to soaking up every minute.

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Remember summers when you were a kid? They felt endless, like August was years away. The days could be filled with anything you pleased – in my case, swimming pools, homemade ice cream and stacks of library books. You were hardly ever in a rush, because if you didn’t get around to it today – it was still going to be summertime tomorrow.

I’ve been thinking about those summers a lot lately, those days of true leisure. Maybe it’s because right now my days are filled with graduate school and my nights are filled with homework -- but I’m longing for that feeling of slow-ness.

This is something I try my best to focus on: slowing down and being content in the moment. I even made it my New Year’s resolution to try to be more present, less in a rush. In January, I said I wanted to live simply and deliberately. I feel like I’m doing pretty well with living simply – but I’ll admit that living deliberately could use a little work.

So in honor of Annie’s revisit to her resolutions and of all of those childhood summers gone by, I’ve come up with a list to help me live more deliberately this summer – to really slow down, take care of myself and soak up every bit of the season.

01. Pick berries. I’m not one to get preachy about eating local – but there’s just something about picking your own fruit during the summer. Whether you can it, cook it or eat it still standing in the field – it’s gratification that can’t be found in a plastic container. (PS: If you don’t know of anywhere that has wild berries, every state has listings of you-pick farms.)

02. Make homemade ice cream. Or homemade popsicles. Or both. Preferably to be eaten outside, after a late meal, near a body of water.


03. Hone my sewing skills, to be reserved for rainy afternoons indoors. I always have intentions of making homemade gifts for birthdays and holidays – but my inability to master a sewing machine gets in the way. So in preparation for the countless baby showers and birthdays that I have coming up, I want to take on a few summer projects.

04. Start a morning running routine. Because I want to become more of a morning person – but mostly because the thought of running outside, during the day, in Alabama’s summer heat makes me want to curl up and wait inside until October.

05. Take weekend road trips. To the beach, to the lake, to a friend’s pool, to a food festival, to a historical landmark, to another state just for the fun of it, to anywhere -- it’s okay, as long as the windows are down.