Hello lovelies! Today has been such a gorgeous day, and I've spent the majority of it in the garden, enjoying the sun but nonetheless complaining about the heat. I wish that hot weather didn't affect me the way it does; it drains me so quickly and makes my joints ache. I often get heat rashes and blisters, too. It sucks! However, it was still fun to spend some time outside, taking photos of birds and flowers and cute little beetles. Aurora, my sister's Shih Tzu puppy had her first ever haircut at the groomers this morning (check out my photo on instagram) and she came home looking adorable and so different! I played with her in the garden and ate ice lollies and it was just the best afternoon. It got me thinking about making the most of the summer and what I wanted to do to celebrate this awesome season.
I made a summer bucket list last year, but I was very enthusiastic and wrote down so many things! I didn't manage to do them all and I ended up beating myself up about it, so I've decided this time around to just focus on some main objectives. I've come up with ten goals that I want to achieve by the Autumnal Equinox. There are a few more things that I would love to do however as my regular readers will know, since February I've been going through a financial struggle. You can read more about it here, but basically I'm still waiting for my tribunal hearing date to appeal against the decision of the ESA benefits team, who decided I was fit to work despite the fact that I am struggling with severe mental health conditions and have doctors recommendations that working would put me at a significant risk. As a consequence of their decision, I have had no financial income at all for months and so can't afford to do some of the things I would like to :( I'm determined to achieve the ten goals I'm sharing with you all today though, and if I can tick off a few goals from last year's bucket list too. Wish me luck guys!
(1) Go for more walks
Last month I took part in the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild Challenge and although it was tough to get out all the time, I found it pretty therapeutic whenever I went on short walks with my camera. I thought I'd try to do this more often to see what impact it had on my mental health, and it would also be a great way to potentially improve my overall fitness. I love going on walks and observing all of the wildlife and flowers :)
(2) Read 5 new books
After recently watching the new series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and absolutely loving it, I am compelled to read the book as well as some other dystopian novels, including Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. As well as this, I recently had to deal with a few days with no internet access whatsoever and this gave me the motivation to start re-reading my Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin. I realised just how much I missed being lost in the pages of a book and letting my imagination run wild, so I would love to get back into regular reading.
(3) Improve my German speaking/writing
I've been learning German for a couple of months now, after being inspired by one of my best friend's and how great he's gotten with his Swedish. He encouraged me to download the language app Duolingo and give it a go since I've always been interested in learning the German Language. At first, I was really determined and did my lessons everday but then stressful stuff got in the way and I seriously need to up my game. Over the summer, I'd like to learn the days of the week, the months, a selection of colours and numbers, too. I can do this! One of my lovely friends has also given me access to his Pimsleur 60-Day German language lessons, which is great! Yay!
(4) Find a geocache
I've blogged about the hobby geocaching before but I thought I'd give a little information to those of you who've never heard of it before. Geocaching is a treasure-hunting, orienteering outdoor hobby where people search for caches that have been hidden all over the world by other members. Caches are containers that include a log book (to keep a record of how many people have found the cache) and sometimes even little trinkets and bric-a-brac, which you can take so long as you put something back into the cache in return. I think it's amazing how there are caches hidden all over the place, some locations which are very public, but you wouldn't even know they was there! I love this almost secret hobby, and I want to find more caches! If you're interested, you can read about my first ever cache find here. Have you ever been geocaching?
(5) Go for a picnic
My friends & I keep planning to go for a picnic in a park, but then the weather betrays us or we have to cancel because of other important things. So, I am determined to plan another picnic and follow through this time! I have never been on a proper picnic before, with the whole blanket and lots of food thing, and I have always wanted to. This summer will be the one!
(6) Bake more
There's so many things that I'd love to bake right now; I constantly keep seeing more ideas around on pinterest and such, and it's making me so eager to get creative and try some new recipes. Since the first half of this year has been tough, I've found that my depression has gotten so bad and my hobbies have been neglected. It's been far too long since I made something yummy.
(7) Visit to a new place
I love exploring new places, taking in all of the interesting new sights and sounds. I like documentating it all on my camera and learning more about my new surroundings :) I would love nothing more than to be travelling to new places and experiencing exciting new things, although this is kind of impossible when you have no money. I want to try my best to visit at least one new place this summer, whether it be a town or village, a museum, a zoo or farm park or anywhere! There's so many lovely places in this country to discover and I need to see more of it.
(8) Try 5 new fruits and/or vegetables
Something that I love about summer is all of the different kinds of fruits available in the supermarkets. The fruit and vegetable sections are so colourful and I'm curious about what all of these foods I've never tried taste like. Last month, I tried a new vegetable; I made sweet potato mash and it was really nice. As a fussy eater, I find it difficult to have a variety of food in my meals but I've always enjoyed fruit and veggies, so I'd like to find more that I can eat. The next fruit on my list is starfruit and as for vegetables, I want to see what all the fuss is about when it comes to asparagus.
(9) Make a tie dye t-shirt
I recently found a tie dye kit that I bought from The Works last year and since this was one of the things on my 2016 Summer Bucket List, it's about time that I did it :) I've always thought tie dye clothing looked fabulous and it's the perfect season to wear it. I also have a few tie dye crafty/DIY projects in mind too.
(10) Watch 20 new movies
As I said earlier, I've been struggling to do the things I love and one of those things is watch movies. I am really into horror movies and lots of other genres, and I'm constantly watching trailers and jotting down films that appeal to me. I was sorting through my phone to clear up some space and I found so many screenshots from youtube of movies I wanted to see, and it made me determined to get through my list before the summer is over. The hot weather means that all I want to do is lounge around and recover from the exhaustion it causes, so what better way to spend this time than watching movies :) I might even share some reviews on here; let me know if you'd be interested in reading those kind of posts.
So, there's my Summer Bucket List for 2017! I have until the end of September when the arrival of Autumn is nigh to tick all of these objectives off. I'm feeling optimistic that I'm going to achieve them all :) I hope you enjoyed this post, and that I've given you all some inspiration on things you can do over the next few months. I might share some updates with how I'm getting on with my bucket list :)
I made a summer bucket list last year, but I was very enthusiastic and wrote down so many things! I didn't manage to do them all and I ended up beating myself up about it, so I've decided this time around to just focus on some main objectives. I've come up with ten goals that I want to achieve by the Autumnal Equinox. There are a few more things that I would love to do however as my regular readers will know, since February I've been going through a financial struggle. You can read more about it here, but basically I'm still waiting for my tribunal hearing date to appeal against the decision of the ESA benefits team, who decided I was fit to work despite the fact that I am struggling with severe mental health conditions and have doctors recommendations that working would put me at a significant risk. As a consequence of their decision, I have had no financial income at all for months and so can't afford to do some of the things I would like to :( I'm determined to achieve the ten goals I'm sharing with you all today though, and if I can tick off a few goals from last year's bucket list too. Wish me luck guys!
(1) Go for more walks
Last month I took part in the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild Challenge and although it was tough to get out all the time, I found it pretty therapeutic whenever I went on short walks with my camera. I thought I'd try to do this more often to see what impact it had on my mental health, and it would also be a great way to potentially improve my overall fitness. I love going on walks and observing all of the wildlife and flowers :)
(2) Read 5 new books
After recently watching the new series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and absolutely loving it, I am compelled to read the book as well as some other dystopian novels, including Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. As well as this, I recently had to deal with a few days with no internet access whatsoever and this gave me the motivation to start re-reading my Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin. I realised just how much I missed being lost in the pages of a book and letting my imagination run wild, so I would love to get back into regular reading.
(3) Improve my German speaking/writing
I've been learning German for a couple of months now, after being inspired by one of my best friend's and how great he's gotten with his Swedish. He encouraged me to download the language app Duolingo and give it a go since I've always been interested in learning the German Language. At first, I was really determined and did my lessons everday but then stressful stuff got in the way and I seriously need to up my game. Over the summer, I'd like to learn the days of the week, the months, a selection of colours and numbers, too. I can do this! One of my lovely friends has also given me access to his Pimsleur 60-Day German language lessons, which is great! Yay!
(4) Find a geocache
I've blogged about the hobby geocaching before but I thought I'd give a little information to those of you who've never heard of it before. Geocaching is a treasure-hunting, orienteering outdoor hobby where people search for caches that have been hidden all over the world by other members. Caches are containers that include a log book (to keep a record of how many people have found the cache) and sometimes even little trinkets and bric-a-brac, which you can take so long as you put something back into the cache in return. I think it's amazing how there are caches hidden all over the place, some locations which are very public, but you wouldn't even know they was there! I love this almost secret hobby, and I want to find more caches! If you're interested, you can read about my first ever cache find here. Have you ever been geocaching?
(5) Go for a picnic
My friends & I keep planning to go for a picnic in a park, but then the weather betrays us or we have to cancel because of other important things. So, I am determined to plan another picnic and follow through this time! I have never been on a proper picnic before, with the whole blanket and lots of food thing, and I have always wanted to. This summer will be the one!
(6) Bake more
There's so many things that I'd love to bake right now; I constantly keep seeing more ideas around on pinterest and such, and it's making me so eager to get creative and try some new recipes. Since the first half of this year has been tough, I've found that my depression has gotten so bad and my hobbies have been neglected. It's been far too long since I made something yummy.
(7) Visit to a new place
I love exploring new places, taking in all of the interesting new sights and sounds. I like documentating it all on my camera and learning more about my new surroundings :) I would love nothing more than to be travelling to new places and experiencing exciting new things, although this is kind of impossible when you have no money. I want to try my best to visit at least one new place this summer, whether it be a town or village, a museum, a zoo or farm park or anywhere! There's so many lovely places in this country to discover and I need to see more of it.
(8) Try 5 new fruits and/or vegetables
Something that I love about summer is all of the different kinds of fruits available in the supermarkets. The fruit and vegetable sections are so colourful and I'm curious about what all of these foods I've never tried taste like. Last month, I tried a new vegetable; I made sweet potato mash and it was really nice. As a fussy eater, I find it difficult to have a variety of food in my meals but I've always enjoyed fruit and veggies, so I'd like to find more that I can eat. The next fruit on my list is starfruit and as for vegetables, I want to see what all the fuss is about when it comes to asparagus.
(9) Make a tie dye t-shirt
I recently found a tie dye kit that I bought from The Works last year and since this was one of the things on my 2016 Summer Bucket List, it's about time that I did it :) I've always thought tie dye clothing looked fabulous and it's the perfect season to wear it. I also have a few tie dye crafty/DIY projects in mind too.
(10) Watch 20 new movies
As I said earlier, I've been struggling to do the things I love and one of those things is watch movies. I am really into horror movies and lots of other genres, and I'm constantly watching trailers and jotting down films that appeal to me. I was sorting through my phone to clear up some space and I found so many screenshots from youtube of movies I wanted to see, and it made me determined to get through my list before the summer is over. The hot weather means that all I want to do is lounge around and recover from the exhaustion it causes, so what better way to spend this time than watching movies :) I might even share some reviews on here; let me know if you'd be interested in reading those kind of posts.
So, there's my Summer Bucket List for 2017! I have until the end of September when the arrival of Autumn is nigh to tick all of these objectives off. I'm feeling optimistic that I'm going to achieve them all :) I hope you enjoyed this post, and that I've given you all some inspiration on things you can do over the next few months. I might share some updates with how I'm getting on with my bucket list :)
Thankyou for reading!
♥
What's on your Summer Bucket List?
Have you ticked off any of your own objectives/goals yet?
Keep up to date with how I'm spending my Summer days over on social media:
I love all of these suggestions! I really wish I could speak German, that's a good one. I've been to Berlin quite a few times now and I just love it, I could totally live there so the language would come in handy! Go for walks is a good one too - I feel like I have so much more time in the day and walks just wake me up. Awesome list hun xx
ReplyDeleteSophie Elizabeth
www.popcornandglitter.co.uk
Thankyou :) It's such a fabulous language! I'm so jealous, I would love to go some day! I really enjoyed reading your posts about your trip to Berlin too :) I wish the weather would improve, it's been so bad for walks lately haha x
DeleteLove this list, sorry the summer heat doesn't agree with you I'm the opposite I don't do well in the cold at all. I really need to start reading again it has been forever since I got lost in a good book and I really miss baking to, I used to bake a lot but the place where I'm living doesn't have a proper kitchen so I haven't really had the chance to make anything exciting. I have been trying to get out more and visit some new places which is really refreshing. Good luck and have a great summer!
ReplyDelete♥ Cateaclysmic ♥
Thankyou very much :) I hope you can get back to reading & baking soon lovely. Sorry about your current kitchen situation! I hope you have a wonderful summer too! x
DeleteI work with someone that does Geocaching, she's got a cache in so many countries too! She's quite often in a tree finding one!
ReplyDeleteI always want to have a go at tie dye - I think i'd make such a mess though. I can't wait to hear about how your bucket list is progressing! x
Wow, that's so cool! I would LOVE to find one abroad too; I'm making it my mission for my next holiday overseas! :) hahaha she sounds like a very determined geocacher, that's awesome!
DeleteI think I will too!! Thankyou x