Summer 2025 Bucket List and Goals

Sweet bucketeers, it has been exactly a year since I excavated my bucket list and seasonal goals series from blog posts of the past.  You can read that post, here.  My hopes for last summer’s activities were dashed when I broke my heel.  But I rallied – slowly – and by autumn, I was back to making my list and setting my goals.  And have done it each season since.  You can find winter’s possibilities, here, and spring, here.

If you go back to check out those previous posts, you will see that a number of activities have been bumped from one season to the next all the way since last summer.  Well, I am here to tell you, those activities – 👀painting the baseboards, I am looking at you 👀 – are going to happen this summer.  Hope you will stick around to cheer me on.

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Summer 2025 Bucket List

 

As of yesterday, summer is officially underway.  But we have had all the summer vibes around here for weeks.  I think high temps last week were in the triple digits every single day.  Which would mean we have had more than a dozen days of 100*+ heat already.  With less than an inch total rainfall for the YEAR!! So we have been well into summer for weeks.

Starting this week, the desert monsoon rain arrives…I am thrilled.  Our yard is thrilled.  Our struggling raised vegetable garden is thrilled.  Of course, the rain hasn’t fallen yet.  But the weather forecast shows precipitation every day this coming week.  It better rain.

Rain or shine, here are the activities on my bucket list for summer.  I will use this key to indicate my progress on various activities in my update posts.

Key to my Progress:

• ⏱️ = work on goal underway
• ✔️ = goal met
• ❌ = goal not met

 

• baseball:  bumped from spring.  Had hoped to surprise PC with tickets to a game early in the spring but the season sailed by and we didn’t get to a game.  With the hope of rain and afternoon highs in the 80s, this coming week might be the perfect time to earn this checkmark.

• beach huts:  bumped from winter, then spring.  I purchased the video and online directions for this collage craft project a year or more ago through Jennifer Chamberlin at the Maker Beehive.  But haven’t sat down long enough to get this collage started.  It’s gonna happen this summer.

• book challenges:  ongoing activity.  I have signed up for 3, yes, THREE book challenges this year.  I have signed up for the 52 Book Challenge, the historical fiction book challenge, and Goodreads.  This will be an on-going bucket list activity throughout the year so I will add this to summer.  Continuing progress on all 3 challenges.
• breakfast and book on the patio/balcony:  bumped from spring.  I have enjoyed doing this several times but going to up the ante by saying I need to do this at least once a week all summer…and possibly beyond.  Took this photo below last week.  My friend Dani laughed that I had on socks sitting outside on the patio.  I explained that I was about to put on my shoes when I decided to sit on the patio instead.  Next time I will be sure to take off my socks first!!

And What Else?

• summer flag workshop: I love to scrapbook but I like painting and other crafts, too.  If you watch on Facebook there are a number of very affordable online craft courses offered.  Jennifer with the beach cottages, above, is one of those artists.  Tricia Robinson is another.  Tricia is sponsoring a summer flag workshop, here.  Only $10.00.

• Ft. Worth and fishing trip, inaugural boat launch:  this is a lot of stuff rolled into one short road trip.  We are going to visit Brennyn and family in Ft. Worth the end of July.  While we are there, we want to explore some lakes near her home.  And we are going to take PC’s brand new Father’s Day inflatable boat with us.  On our way back home, we are spending the night at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and fishing a lake there.
• Goodwill date night challenge:  bumped from winter, then spring, this is something PC suggested. I think it will be loads of fun.  But guess what?  Yup, still hasn’t happened.  I really, really, really, really want to do this…so, onto the summer list it goes.
• new restaurants:  going to say we need to try at least 3 new-to-us restaurants.  When I was on jury duty this spring, the jury members all enjoyed pizza at La Bang Bang next to the courthouse.  The pizza was sinfully good.   Would like to go back with PC.  Also want to check out Gozos Ice Cream downtown.  And maybe a new breakfast restaurant Toastique.

Plus

• try to grow an orchid:  for our recent Tell Us About post, my friend Sue suggested we write about ‘blooming.’ You can find my post, here.  Sue used the prompt she had selected to talk about anticipating the bloom on an orchid she had about given up on.  Her post is so uplifting.  I hope you will check it out, here.  While reading it myself, I was reminded of the orchid I brought home from Mom’s after she died.  I knew absolutely zero about orchids but thought I could surely give it more attention than my sweet mama had been able to in the last weeks of her life.  Well, you can probably guess what happened.  I killed it.  In record time.  But in honor of Sue and in memory of Mom, I am going to try to grow an orchid again.  Brennyn grows beautiful orchids.  Maybe if I get mine now, she can bring it back to life when we go visit her in July.

• wear hats:  who am I again?  I have about a half dozen cute hats that have a proper place at the top of my closet and never see the light of day.  Well, on our cruise, I was hardly without a hat – out of desperation, to stay warm.  But then when we went to Colorado, guess what?  I wore a hat.  More than once.  And wasn’t even cold.  So, I am going to wear my hats.  Maybe not all of them and not all the time – it is El Paso in the summer we’re talking here.  But I am going to wear them.

• writing courses:  I have registered for a couple of online writing courses this year.  One a children’s writing workshop by Judy Blume through MasterClass,  a memoir writing workshop by Joyce Maynard through CreativeLive.  And I signed up for the DailyOm’s “A Year of Writing to Uncover the Authentic Self.” For now, I have been focusing on this third class but will wind them all up before year’s end.  This is an ongoing activity but worked on my DailyOm course yesterday when we met with our writing group at  2Ten Coffee Roasters.

Added on 06.29.2025

• take the girls to Viva El Paso!:  musical, theatrical, dance production about El Paso’s history in the beautiful McKelligon Canyon

Summer 2025 Goals

 

Several years ago, I realized making seasonal goals works better for me than New Year’s resolutions that I lose track of before the second week of the new year.  You might remember that I divide my goals into 2 categories.  Things that are external I categorize under Home.  Goals specifically affecting me, my body, my personality I categorize under Heart.  And I use the same emojis to determine my status on each one.

Home

• cleaning out photos on Google, deleting pictures and posts from the blog that don’t reflect the blog now:  my friend Leanne, recently wrote about her efforts to spring clean her older blog posts.  I thought that was a great way to organize things on my blog, too.  And to free up room.  My blog is very slow to load because of all the photos.  Time to clean house.  For inspiration, check out Leanne’s post, here.
• frame cruise and Colorado pictures, last year’s family beach photos:  for all my crying about wanting a family photo, I haven’t even framed the pictures we had taken last summer at South Padre Island.  And now we have cruise and Colorado pictures, too.  Need to sort through those, pick my faves and get them printed and displayed.
• hang bathroom mirrors:  I have several hand mirrors that I have wanted to hang in our tiny bathroom stall over the toilet.  Something like one of these, maybe?

• paint baseboards:  bumped every season for over a year now.  We have the paint but still no progress.  I got the paint out tonight.  This is going to happen, girls.  Bank on it.
• touch up wall paint inside the house and paint the pullouts on the front porch:  this is another goal carried over from seasons past.  Still hasn’t happened!!  Can you say…SUMMER?

Heart

• donate blood:  I did donate blood fairly regularly until I hurt my foot. Haven’t done it since.   Such a simple way to help others.
• get back to running at least a mile at a time:  have started running a little on the treadmill and did a mile the other day, getting up to running 6 mph.  Want to try to run a 5K by this fall.  Wish me luck.
• Photomyne photos:  bumped from winter and spring.  This is an app I am using to scan old photos and keep them stored for PC,the girls and me.   Check out Photomyne, here.   I just started working on this project again since we got home from Colorado.

And

• red light therapy:  carried over from spring.  Our Planet Fitness has something called the “Beauty Angel” that provides red light therapy. Have designated Wednesdays as red light therapy days but haven’t done it since!!  Going to be more consistent about this in the coming season.
• track my Weight Watchers points:  ongoing as I work to meet my goal.  When I weighed today I was 2 pounds from my goal.  Getting closer.  But we have also had a tummy bug again.  Need to make tracking a habit so the weight doesn’t sneak back on.
• use Rover.com and sub money to pay off Amazon card, and keep balance below $200:  bumped from winter to spring and now summer with no explanation required!!  I have been taking my extra money and making double payments on my card.  Still a ways to go but doing well on this activity.

Added on 06.29.2025

• delete old blog posts that no longer represent me or my blog:  got this idea from my friend Leanne at Cresting the Hill.  At some point, I will no doubt stop blogging but want to save all of my posts for ‘posterity’ – whoever that is!!  But I need to scale down the volume of the posts I would save.  Going through and deleting irrelevant posts and updating others.
• delete old photographs from Google:  this is something I have been working on bit by bit but need to step up my game.  Will try to delete the extraneous photos from the summers in 2020.