life + happiness

Right around Memorial Day weekend, my blog reader and Instagram feed fill up with beautiful pictures of picnics at the beach and glamping trips in the woods. The images are beautiful, and the people in them are gorgeous, and they all focus on making this the ‘best summer ever!’

These posts end with a call to create a summer bucket list (and many of them have a cute printable). The idea is so that you can put down all of the fun things that you would like to do this summer to make sure you take advantage of the fleeting days of summer.

I am a list maker and planner by nature so summer bucket lists should be right up my alley, but dear Lord do they ever create an impending source of doom and a considerable amount of FOMO.

I hate that shit.

For the majority of us, the summer does not change our work schedule. Summers, at my day job, do not consist of Taco Truck Tuesdays and Early-Out-Fridays. We slow down a bit, but a Wednesday in July and Wednesday in February are usually pretty similar.

Gang, I want you to have the best summer ever, but if you are running around desperate to check things off your summer bucket list, you are not going to enjoy any of it.

This summer, I want you to try something different:

• Take some extra time off of work (if you are able).
• Go on a spontaneous road trip.
• Plant something.
• Go camping/hiking/biking at a state park near you.
• Sit outside in the sunshine with a book or magazine.
• Invite friends over for a super low key dinner.

Basically, I want you to make no plans. Accept invites if they sound fun, say no if they don’t.

And love it.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means if you click through a link and buy something, I get a small commission and it doesn’t cost you any extra. Awesome, right?!

Spring means one thing in the midwest – mud.  And also dirty piles of melting snow.

So two things, spring means two things!

It is not my favorite time of year, the weather is volatile, and the cabin fever is high.  And right now, I am so close to being able to plant a few veggies, and I can taste it. So I am doing everything I can to keep my sanity.

Keeping track of the things that are saving my life throughout the year was something that I picked up as an exercise of self-reflection as an avid reader of Anne’s blog.  It is easy to remember what is driving you crazy but to pick out the little things that are saving you take a bit more thought.

Here a few of the simple, everyday things from my list.

Kickapoo Coffee

I picked up a coffee grinder during the holiday sales and used that as an excuse to upgrade our coffee.  The world of coffee (and coffee snobbery) opens up to when you start grinding your own beans.  I have even started going down the pour-over road, but that is a discussion for another time.

Kickapoo Coffee is a Wisconson based company (and that makes it local for me) that focuses on great tasting coffee and fairness to farmers.  They are also the country’s only solar-powered roastery.

I usually pick my beans up at my local coffee shop, but you can order it online and they also have coffee subscriptions!

Grocery Pick-up

My go-to local grocer finally offers a grocery pick-up.  It has been a game changer for me.

I sit down with my notebook for meal planning, my cookbooks, and my Pinterest boards.  As I choose the recipes that I am planning on making for the upcoming week I add the ingredients to my cart on the grocery store website.  All I need to do then is choose the date and time of pickup, and check out.

They require a 4 hour lead time and charge $5 for the service.  And it is so worth it.

The Calm App

I am going to be straight with you, mediation is weird.  But it helps.  It helps so much.

I read Dan Harris’s book 10% Happier a few years ago, but it didn’t really sink in until late last fall.  I was so stressed out (because of the day job) I just wanted to cry.  After reading a couple more stress management books and some google searching I came across the Calm app.

Right out of the gate I loved the soothing tones of narrator Tamara Levitt’s voice.  I also fell in love hard with their Sleep Stories, where they have a variety of narrators tell you soothing tales for you to fall asleep to.  You can download the app and try a few of their beginning series out for free.

Toby

At any given time I have anywhere between 10 and a million tabs open.  That might be a bit of a stretch, but not by much.  Toby is a chrome (and Firefox) extension that helps you index your open browser tabs.

That might be one of the nerdiest sentences that I have ever typed.

Check out the Toby website and watch the video and you will see what I mean.

What is saving your life right now?  Let me know in the comments!