(via Ash Imagery)
Last year, I got really depressed during the winter months. Thinking about how hot it gets in the summer, I look back and think – how incredibly odd. Winter is when I should be kicking up my heels and feeling grateful I live in a place everyone wants to be in winter.
But I did not feel that way. So I thought that maybe, it was the list of ideas that I didn’t create that made it seem there was no light at the end of the tunnel. So this year, I changed that.
I made a big ol’ list of ideas, adventures, and goals for this season. Preferably no sitting (unless it’s in a photobooth!)
- Hiking at least 2 state parks I have not visited before
- Make a blanket (maybe a t-shirt one, if I get all ambitious) in time for winter
- Monthly camping trips to escape the city
- Make lots and lots of popsicles, including some new flavors (avocado! Fruit chunks!)
- Draw up a container garden design and get to planting my kitchen garden
- Find and paint outdoor chairs in mismatched, bright colors
- Outdoor movies in the backyard
- Weekly trips on bike to thrift store/record shop/grocery
- Racquetball as exercise. My new rental is right down the block from a park with courts open at all hours.
- Dinner at a drive-in burger joint (or maybe just slushies)
- Bike everywhere that we can
- Dinner at the local open air restaurant on the lake
- Lots of games of scrabble, slapjack, crazy 8s, apples to apples
- Make lots and lots of new spring/summer foods–pizzas/fruits on the grill, kebabs, salads, pies, ribs, creative sandwiches–for hiking picnics and al fresco dining
- Catch a cover band (Local Beatles cover band, Apple is one of my faves)
- Attend a neighborhood Art Fair (or create a backyard art gallery)
- Catch some open air movies in the park
- Stone skipping
- Map and plan night picnics to watch some astro-happenings.
- Put the finishing touches on my letter-writing mini zine and sent to members of Letter Writers Alliance and Order of the Envelope, and work on the summer zine (essay about lightning bugs, classic playlist)
- Make a summer mix for my dearest family + friends
Peppered Thought 
Jessica, where are you living that you’re near an open-air restaurant on the lake? And local stuff? I love your list!
It’s a pretty ambitious list, but a lot of them can be held over for summer too. The Dillons restaurant on Lake Pleasant seems really cool, when it’s not filled up with drunk “lake folk.” http://dillonsrestaurantscorpionbay.com/index.html