My Summer 2020 Bucket List, Socially Distanced Edition // My Tentative TBR, Lots of Movies, & Writing Again!!

Summer 2020 is…here.

Besides the weather and lack of school, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a summer that felt quite so un-summer like. The fact that we never went back to school after my spring break has resulted in the past few months feeling like an odd extension of summer, what with the free time and my sister living at home and me actually going outdoors to bike a lot. But, despite me feeling like it’s not summer, it is!

In honor of the months of vacation ahead of us, today’s post is a bucket list for the summer! This is a collab with both Annie and Lucy, of Zoelogist and Not All Who Sonder respectively. Annie and I did this collab last year too (and I find it pretty awesome that we’re making it a tradition), and this year we’re joined by Lucy, who just started her blog! I definitely think you should read both of their posts, and a special shoutout to Annie for organizing it all.

Due to the current state of the world, my list is pretty much composed of things I can do on my own, at my house! Things are opening up where I live, but social distancing is still encouraged and since I don’t really know what things will look like by the end of the summer, I’m making this list very at-home based. As an extra spin to make the post more entertaining, this list will also include commentary on each item from Annie and Lucy!

Without further ado- the bucket list!

Read 35 books.

I feel like the amount of books I want to read this summer is a solid way to start out this bucket list, seeing as this is a book blog and all. 35 books is pretty ambitious for me, seeing as I only read 30 books last summer, and I barely made it (I believe I had to read two books the day before school started back).

But given that not only is it summer but that I won’t be traveling anywhere and will probably be at home for the majority of my time, I feel like I can up my amount a little bit! Also, I’m desperately behind on my Goodreads challenge, and summer is basically my only time to catch up.

I’m much more of a mood reader, so I set never set specific TBRs for myself to follow, but here are a few books I’m hoping to get around to this summer~

As a smaller goal within this goal of 35 books, I want to read 5 classics! While I do love classics, I sometimes have a lack of motivation to start them because they can definitely be daunting at first. I wanted to read way more classics, but I know that’s not feasible because knowing me, I will say I’m going to read 10 classics and then end up spending my entire summer reading contemporaries.

Annie: Whoa, the cover you included of Clap When You Land is different from the one that came in from my library. Mine has two nose-to-nose airplanes separating them. And I’m assuming there will be mini-reviews coming as well?? :)) Oh wait, I should probably not leave comments that include questions. You know what, just ignore them.

Lucy: The Fountains of Silence is on my TBR list too!

Watch more Marvel movies.

One of my main goals last summer was to watch all the Marvel movies, but I don’t think I realized how big of a feat that would be until I had already set the goal. I ended up watching about five, and I loved them all! (I mostly watched the Avengers.)

I haven’t continued watching any since then, probably because I don’t usually watch movies during the school year and most of the time I would choose watching a show over watching a movie? However, this summer I want to continue with my goal of watching more Marvel movies! I feel like watching them will help me be more of a well-rounded, educated person on this earth.

Annie: The thing I am most excited to hear about afterwards is who your favorite hero is.

Lucy: One of my friends binge-watched the entirety of the Marvel film series over the course of 3 days in theaters right before Endgame came out, so it’s definitely possible.

Have a Harry Potter marathon, both with the books and the movies.

I haven’t done a Harry Potter reread in over a year or watched all the movies in over a year…so it’s definitely time for this to happen during summer.

Me waving goodbye to weeks of my summer as I spend them reading/watching Harry Potter, inevitably getting even more obsessed, writing more posts centered around Harry Potter, and spending all my time reading headcanons on Pinterest. ^^

One of my friends and I did a Harry Potter movie marathon a couple years ago, and we’re hoping to do one again this summer, if we’re able to see each other at some point! Or I might just make my sister watch them all with me. I also definitely want to reread all the books, because the magic has just never gone away for me. Although an important note that I do not support JK Rowling and the transphobic remarks she has made! I love the world of Harry Potter, not the author.

Annie: Wait a second—now I will finally understand everything in your Harry Potter posts!

Lucy: I’ve read all the books multiple times but I still haven’t seen all the movies…maybe this should be on my bucket list too.

Wake up to see the sunrise.

I’m very much a sunset type of person. Not only are there really gorgeous sunsets where I live almost every day, but sunsets take place at the perfect time of the day that don’t include getting up earlier than I normally would.

Still, I feel like I’ve never truly appreciated the beauty of a sunrise, and getting up early to see it and going to sit at a park somewhere with a book and breakfast sounds really appealing to me, and I want to try it!

Annie: Whaat, the sunrise happens about when you wake up?? Okay, I think you wake up earlier than I do. *Olivia here to clarify that sunsets don’t mean I have to wake up early- I do not get up with the sunrise, haha*

Lucy: ^^Agreed.

Make a whole meal for my family.

One of my greatest regrets in life is that I am not talented at nor do I particularly enjoy baking or cooking. I feel like my inner Lara Jean Covey should show itself any day now, but it’s yet to do so??

I have to say, I’d rather eat raw cookie dough out of the container then spend hours making cookie dough from scratch, and my cooking abilities are extended only to items such as scrambled eggs. And toast.

So as much as I feel very unequipped to make a meal (or bake anything), I also feel like this is a critical life skill and it’s necessary that I at least try to make meals for my family by myself? Like a real meal that did not come from a box? The more I write about this, the less confidence I have in myself about this one, but I’m going to try.

Annie: 1. Cookies, scrambled eggs, and toast is definitely a meal. 2. I also agree that I would rather make cookies from pre-made dough than from scratch. I have to confess that I am coming to believe that the glory of from-scratch-cookies is a myth. 3. I think what you’re looking for is some ERPs ;))

Lucy: For some reason my family is very against box-meal cooking 😦 but I still have not learned to easily make full meals for my family. Trying to follow recipes takes me forever.

Make my room cozier.

I spend a lot of time in my room during the summer- during the school year, I’m pretty much just in there to sleep and do my homework. But for summer, I enjoy keeping my room clean at all times and making it a cozy space, so I have a few things I want to do in there over the summer!

• Repaint my desk– my desk used to be pink, and then we painted it white, but the years have started to rub off the paint a lot.
• Made a photo cloud on my closet door– I have a lot of pictures printed out that I don’t have a place for, so I want to put a lot of them on my closet door, which right now is pretty blank!
• Mount my ukulele- even though I haven’t played it in forever because I am a Musical Failure, I want to mount my ukulele next to my bookshelf because right now it’s just leaning against the wall.

Annie: Ahh, ukulele! Arguably the most cheerful instrument. 

Lucy: One of my aesthetic goals has always been to have a photo cloud despite the fact that I dislike being in photos.

Start writing again.

As seen by the header on my blog and the fact that back in 2016/7 I used to publish frequent posts about writing (I really would not recommend seeking those out, your life is much better without them), I used to love writing.

I haven’t written anything besides essays for school and blog posts in well over two years, and even though I’ve figured out that I’m always going to put my passion for reading above writing, there’s no time like the present to return to past loves.

I have so many stories in my google drive from literal years ago?? And they all have absolutely zero plot and are all written in Goudy Old Style size 11 font and half of them start with diary entries but!! I think this summer I’ll actually take a look at them and some of the stories I have written down in physical notebooks.

Ha, this will be my stories that haven’t been edited since 2017 when I finally open back up their documents three years later…anyway, despite the fact that my writing will most definitely never see the light of day, I do miss it, and I can’t wait to go back to some of it.

Annie: You’ll need to explain what Goudy Old Style is. I have never heard of this font before. It sounds like a cheese that sneaked onto the Mayflower by hiding in a Pilgrim’s hat. a link to Goudy Old Style, which is not a cheese, although that made me laugh :))

Lucy: My automatic response reading this would be to find these old writing blog posts.

Do college research.

Writing this down instantly stressed me out, but that’s definitely something I’ll be doing a lot of this summer! Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, in-person college tours aren’t going on at the moment, but I’ll probably do some virtual ones.

How is it time to write application essays and find scholarships and make decisions that will impact the rest of my life? I would like to go back to being eleven, please.

Annie: nooooo

Lucy: me too :((

Watch the Hunger Games movies.

I’m not quite sure how I still haven’t watched a single Hunger Games movie, but despite reading the series multiple times (and loving it), I still haven’t actually watched any of the movies!

I’m really excited to watch the books come to life, albeit a little scared too. But I know most people like the movies a lot, and I don’t think I can go on any longer without watching the movies like a good fan. I have seen some clips over the years, and I think I’ll enjoy it!!

On a side note, I also want to rewatch the 2019 version of Little Women for the fourth time (and maybe a fifth time) because my sister has yet to see it (!!) and I really think it’s in her best interest if I force her to watch it with me. Thoughts?

Annie: I think I’ve watched Hunger Games and Catching Fire, but not either of the Mockingjay movies. And ahah, I have yet to watch Little Women as well. But I know, I know, I need to.

Lucy: Note to self: watch 2019 version of Little Women.

That concludes my summer bucket list! I do have a lot more small things on my actual list, which I have written down in my bullet journal, but these are the main things that I actually had enough to say about to include in this post. My goal is to another post at the end of the summer with an update on how much of this I ended up accomplishing!

Thank you to Annie and Lucy for collaborating with me on this! I would highly recommend going to read both of their bucket list posts- Annie’s here and Lucy’s here (I will add the link to Lucy’s when it is published!). I really appreciate you all for reading this post! I hope you’re doing well, staying safe, and taking care of yourselves.✨

I also want to continue to acknowledge the injustices in our world right now and remind you that you can make a difference through protesting (if you are able), signing petitions, donating (and streaming videos to donate if you don’t have any money) being actively anti-racist, and continuing to educate yourself. Though myself and others online have been posting “normal” content again, the conversation is not over and seeking justice, equality, and love for everyone is not a trend. I love you all!💗

What are some of your goals for summer? Do you like to cook? Have you seen the Hunger Games? I’d love to talk with you in the comments.

Credits for image used in featured image > Photo by Sebastien Gabriel on Unsplash