My Top 10 Things to Do This Summer

It's only a week until Memorial Day, the start of summer, and I'm ready to plan things to do. Here are the things that are on my list, so far:

1. Take a day trip. Go someplace nearby and cycle, hike, or just chill out and eat with friends. Hmm, maybe the Cloisters.

Or, if you’re more adventurous, dash through a forest or go for a run or walk in the rain. As you enter the cool shade of a nature park or hiking trail, where the sunlight slants through the green leaves, pick up your pace until you’re going at a clip. Enjoy the scenery and the exercise.

2. Catch a performance. Whether it’s a musical, recital, concert, or a play, nothing beats the felling that comes from being at close range with being people who are giving their all in expression and emotion and hopefully, with heart.

3. Tackle your ‘To Be Read’ pile while you’re at the beach, resting in the backyard, or sitting on the porch. Okay, if it’s too hot, in a cool air conditioned room works too. If you haven’t got a TBR pile, go to your local library, browse, and make a list of the books you want to read.

4. Breakfast and catch up with a friend, or group of friends, you don’t see often.

5. Throw away stuff. Start with one room, a small room. If that’s too fear provoking, start with a closet.

6. Reconnect. Send an email, text, or instant message to someone you lost touch with. Look at number 4. Actually, I'm planning to go to the RWA National Conference in Atlanta and have planned to see my friend Rosanne. We haven't seen each other in ages.

7. Take a road trip with the girls! The word ‘summer’ and ‘road trip’ go together like ‘hotdog’ and ‘mustard.’ In college, road trips were ways to burn weekends, which, of course, started on Friday. The key is to keep the vacation short and inexpensive.

8. Think of something you used to do all by yourself when you were younger/ unattached, when time was all you ever had, all you ever needed. If it is at all possible, wrangle half a day and spend it exactly as you did. Then write about it and post it in the comments here.

9. Okay, so I've listed day trips and road trips but for me there is nothing like getting the entire family together for some quality time together. It's a bit difficult to get everyone's schedule synchronized but we're working at a week at the beach.

10. I plan to write one book over the summer and plan out a second.

How do you plan to spend the summer?