Summer is here! But how can you make the most out of these three months of sunshine? Emma and Brittany offer a few ideas to make the most out of your summer.
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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:
Brittany: Hi Emma.
Emma: Hi, Brittany.
Brittany: So, summer is upon us, which is my favorite time of the year. So I’m very, very excited. I used to be a teacher, so I especially looked forward to summer because I had three months off. So everyone loves fall. It’s funny, but I’m a summer girl all the way. So do you have any fun plans for the summer, Emma?
Emma: I have, my family is actually moving to Tennessee where I live. They used to live or currently live out in Oregon and they’re joining me, in the middle of the summer down here. They’re gonna live a couple of hours away from me, so my plan is to hang out with them as much as possible. And I also wanna get out into my garden more. Nice. I have a garden for the first time in my life and I have not been good about keeping it weeded, and keeping stuff all taken care of. So that’s my goal is to just kind of enjoy the fresh air and enjoy being outside.
Brittany: I am looking forward to, and as we always tell our guests, this is recorded a few weeks before you hear it, but the world is starting to open back up again and I’m a huge fan of live music and music festivals, so I feel like my life is finally coming back. So I’m gonna have a busy summer. I might be going to London if they decide to let us in. As of right now with Americans, can’t go. So I am very excited. It feels like life is getting back to normal. So hopefully this is a normal summer. But speaking of summer, I wanted to talk today about how we can make the most of our summers. I know not all of our listeners are, public school students, and know we have a lot of homeschoolers, but so they’re kind of, they make their own schedules anyway, but I thought we could talk just generally about how you can really use these three months to do a lot of cool things. So I’ll just kind of, you know, launch off and say one of the coolest things that you can do this summer is starting a business. and I know, goodness is it, I know we have them. I say here in Utah. I’m currently in Utah, but I live in DC but Connor is from Utah and they do the, I’m gonna butcher the name. It’s the children’s Entrepreneur Affair. Yeah. Yes.
Emma: Yeah. The Children’s Entrepreneur Market, I think it’s called.
Brittany: Ok. It was so close.
Emma: Yes, you’re close.
Brittany: So if you are in Utah, and I think some other states, I think Acton does some of those too. in other states. So maybe we’ll throw some links in the show notes of places you can go. But that’s a really easy way to start a business because you can do anything. I know Connor’s kids made, marshmallow guns, I think out of, is it the pc? What is it called?
Emma: PVC pipe. Yeah.
Brittany: Thank you. Clearly, I’m not like a construction worker or anything you know, or you could make cookies. You know, we talk about occupational licensing, but we don’t tell anybody if you make some cookies, you know, lemonade stands, which we talk about a lot. there’s one story I really like about these teenagers and I can’t remember what state they were in, but they started a lawn mowing business that ended up being like just blowing up and they actually have a million-dollar company now. And what they did, and I think this is really innovative, so they had all of the summer to mow lawns cuz they were in school, but because they were so popular, they’re like, how can we make this work in the winter too? So they started like a snow shoveling business. Nice. Yeah, so these teenagers, and I’ll put a link to this in the show notes as well, are now running this like a multimillion-dollar company. They have employees and they’re 16, and 17 years old. So think about.
Emma: That’s so great, right?
Brittany: Right isn’t it? So think about maybe starting a business this summer and you know, you have a few weeks before it starts getting really hot, so maybe make a business plan. We’ve got tons of episodes where we kind of talk about how to get that off the ground. So yeah, I think that’s a great thing. I don’t know, Emma, what else do you have to? you can talk about businesses or any other ideas for the summer?
Emma: Totally. So something that I did all the time when I was a kid in the summer is I would do the lemonade stand yes. But I would also walk around and collect cans and bottles from my neighbors and recycle them for them. And I know not every state has this, it’s actually kind of like a big government thing, but when you buy a can or a bottle of soda or something like that, there’s a five to 10-cent deposit on it.
Brittany: That’s right. Yeah.
Emma: And if you go bring them in and you return them, you get that deposit back. So it’s kind of like a tax, it’s a super weird thing and I’m not sure how many states have that, but when I wanted to go to summer camp, my parents said that I had to pay for half of the
Brittany: I like that. I like that responsibility,
Emma:
So Totally. Yeah. And it was awesome. They did that with a lot of different things that I would have to pay for. and you know, they helped me get the stuff that I needed, but also I had to be invested in it too. So to go to summer camp, they said, all right, you need to raise, I think it was like $150 or something like that. And they were like, well, go figure out a way to do it. So me and my friends got a little red wagon, one of those what its called? the red radio.
Brittany: Yeah, it’s like red radio, flyers?
Emma: Yes, a radio flyer. So we got one of those and we within like 10 minutes, the thing was overflowing and we had to, I love that. Keep emptying it. And we got a friend’s mom to come to help us drive around and you know, haul these cans around. But we actually all ended up making more than we needed and it only took a couple of afternoons. So there are so many different ways you can get creative and just think about solving people’s problems. Like, hey, these folks have this giant bag of cans sitting in their garage that they wanna recycle, but they keep forgetting to do it. I’m just gonna take it off their hands. And what do you know? There’s a profit to be made there. So I think the sky is the limit. I also love reading during the summer.
Brittany: Yes, me too.
Emma: My mom would make me read before she would let me hang out with my friends in the summer.
Brittany: I like that I covered that idea. Yeah.
Emma: I feel like I’ll probably do the same thing when I have kids and sometimes I would grumble about it and not have the greatest attitude, but looking back, I’m so glad that she did that because I got all of this reading done and I would learn things. And I actually remember probably more of what I learned reading in the summer than I did the reading that was assigned to me in school, throughout the school year. So there’s a little life lesson there, but there is no reason to waste your summertime on, you know there’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun and watching some TV or taking some downtime, but you have so much time and it’s one of the only times in your life when you’re young and you’re not in school, you can literally do whatever you want with your time. You know, within reason and not letting that go to waste is just such an awesome thing to do. And you can get ahead in so many different ways.
Brittany: I like that you said you remember more from the reading you chose in school because I know one, a book I hated, in particular, is The Scarlet Letter and they make every high school read it. And I couldn’t even tell you, I know like the premise, but like I hate that book now. I hate Huckleberry Finn, which could be a really great book, but because yeah, it was forced to read it. I don’t, I couldn’t tell you anything about it. So I really like that point. And about books, that’s something that I’ve been doing this summer is every year I try to read more books than I did the year before. But specifically this summer, I’m just trying to get through, I do two audiobooks and two regular books at a time. So I am saying if I can do four a month, which is, it’s big cuz that’s like a book a week. But the way I read ’em ends up being I finish them all at the same time. So I think setting a goal would be really good if you wanna start, you know, reading during the summer. Another thing and this is something I always try to do, but I am what’s called a serial hobbyist where I like to start a hobby and then I forget about it two weeks later.
Emma: me too.
Brittany: Right? But trying to me, It’s so hard. A couple of years ago I was gonna become, there’s people who do the hula hooping like stunt hula hooping and I bought a really expensive hula hoop like I spent over a hundred dollars and I’m like, this is the summer. I think I used it three times. So maybe that’ll be my goal this summer. But I think it’s really good to learn a new skill. I think it’s always good to learn a new skill and pick up a new hobby. So that could be something you do this summer to keep you busy, you know, whatever that might be. Maybe you want to get better at math, you know, maybe that doesn’t sound very fun to me. But maybe you do. Maybe that’s something you wanna do. Maybe you wanna learn to hula hoop, I don’t know. you know, do something that you can start the fall with and say like, look at this thing I learned to do that I got so good at over these three months.
Emma: Totally. And it’s so fun too, when you can get back with your friends and everyone’s talking about, okay, what’d you do this summer? And you have something to show for it. Yes. Even if it’s something that’s not, you know, gonna change your whole life. Knowing how to make a certain dish really well in the kitchen. Or
Brittany:
Cooking, that’s a good idea.
Emma: Yeah. That’s something that a ton of people have been doing too with the pandemic. Yes. Spending more time at home is learning how to cook.
Brittany: Making bread, lots of bread makers now.
Emma: Totally. Lots of people baking and those things are skills that stick with you your whole life and you can slowly build, you know, maybe start with something simple, talk to your parents, and figure out what a good first recipe to try is. And that was one of my favorite things to do growing up was just, I called it experimenting in the kitchen. And my mom would always say like, you can only do that if you clean up everything behind yourself. Yes. Cause I would make a huge mess.
Brittany: So do I? Would I super
Emma: Oh yes, Exactly. But there are so many ways you can spend your time and even work with friends on projects. Like I remember we would put together all sorts of different things we would put on a play for our neighborhood, or write a newspaper. We just, we did all kinds of crazy stuff and a lot of it, you know, you don’t end up doing it for too long, but the act of starting something and starting a project and working on it, especially if you’re working on it with friends or maybe with your siblings, it’s such a fulfilling thing and knowing how to do that and get something done and get it off the ground is a great skill that’s gonna stick with you even if you don’t end up doing that thing forever.
Brittany: Yeah. And you reminded me actually of a really good childhood memory. So my dad would always take some time off when we were off for summer or for, you know, spring break and we would write a script. All my family is really into theater and singing, so we would write a script and then we would rehearse and then he would come to get, and we had bulky video cameras back then. This was not when everybody’s iPhone had a camera. It’s so funny to me how easy it is to do this. We had the big bulky video cameras. Oh yeah. And my dad would take a whole, you know, day or week off and help us put the script we made into action. So that’s something, if you’re somebody who loves theater, that’s a really fun thing to do. And now it’s so easy, right? All you have to do is put up your, or take out your iPhone and you’ve got a camera, another thing. and you know, we’re talking about, you know, learning new skills or reading. But a lot of the things we talk about here about unschooling is play-based. Right? So don’t forget to play too. Have fun. This is like you said, this is the only time of your life that you get a summer that you get these times to do something fun. I mean, trust me, adulting is great in a lot of ways, but it’s also very stressful and I wish I could just take three months off and do all sorts of fun things.
Emma: Totally agree. Yeah. You’re now reminding me of my own summer memories too. We would go build forts in our backyard all the time and you talk about being creative and just playing, like, we would build all sorts of crazy things and we would be like, mom, we’re gonna build a tree house. And you know, we would get three steps into it and realize we were in way over our heads. But just going out and exploring, you know, make sure you check in with your parents and make sure that they know where you’re at and that you’re all good there, but you know, looking into the area around you and saying, Hey, can I make myself a cool little fort out here? Or can I explore this area that maybe I haven’t checked out before? And that can just be such a cool way to get to know your surroundings better and discover new things about the place that you live. And I know we have listeners all across the country and all different climates, so maybe it gets super hot outside in the summer and you’re like, I’m not doing that. But it’s always good to get outside and get to know the area that you live in.
Brittany: Especially now. Cuz again, I, all of us have been cooped up for so long and I think, you know, even if a lot of our listeners were not strictly quarantining, you probably have friends that were. So I think another big thing you should do this summer is socialize, go be with people again. Yes. It’s been so long since we’ve got to be with all our, gotten to be with all our friends, seen family members. So I think that’s a really important thing for all of us to do for our mental health and just to have fun to see all these people we’ve missed for the last goodness, what, 15 months.
Emma:
Yeah, exactly. It’s so good to have community and get to be with people. And I know there are, like you said, Brittany, there are varying levels to how much people stayed home over the last year, some more than others. But it does feel like more people who were sort of on the, Hey, I’m gonna stay home this whole time, end of things are getting a little more ready to get back out. Oh yes. So definitely.
Brittany: People are definitely sick of it.
Emma: Yeah. They’re sick of it. We’ve all missed our community. So now this year especially as a really great time to just plug in and get to know and hang out with the people that are in your community.
Brittany: I think you’re absolutely right.
Emma: Awesome. Well, we hope you guys have a great summer. We will be here through the whole thing so you can come back and keep listening to the show. We’re gonna wrap it up here for today. you can check out the show notes. I know we were gonna talk a little bit about some books that you could read or some ideas to start a business. So check out our show notes and we’ll make sure to link those things and we will talk to you guys again soon. Bye, Brittany.
Brittany: Talk to you later.
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