3 Things that Are Working for Me This Summer

For the last several years, I’ve done a “what is working for me this summer” post.

And to be honest, this year I thought “is ANYTHING working for me this summer?”

It has been a truly chaotic summer – nothing like last summer’s laid back mornings of pickleball at the community center and hiking with Bart.

I’ve felt like I’ve been running non-stop from the moment summer got out.

I was in charge of activities at Girls Camp (which also fell right during Prime Day which is one of the busiest weeks of summer for me – I ended up driving 90 minutes each way up and back every day of camp!), we went to Orcas Island for a week long family reunion and then we did a family trip to California.

In between that, we’ve been remodeling two of our three bathrooms which has meant weeks of the house being torn up with stuff everywhere.

Oh and our air conditioner stopped working.

So it hasn’t felt like I had a big list of things that were working for me.

But as I’ve thought through it, here are three things that have worked for me this summer

Swimsuit linked here

3 Things that Are Working for Me This Summer

• Using the Foqos app. I did a whole post about this early in the year, but this app has been life-changing for me. It’s a free app that works like a Brick so you can block certain apps on your phone and not be able to unlock them without physically tapping your phone to the unlock device. This summer, my goal has been to use it every day and while I haven’t done it QUITE that much, I have done it a lot! I even set up a travel profile so I can use it when I’m traveling and my normal unbricking card isn’t available.
• Watching White Collar with Ani. Bart and I watched all of White Collar with our oldest a few years ago and this summer, I’ve been working my way through it with my 13-year-old. It’s been so fun! Usually after dinner, we plop on my bed and watch an episode before we all get ready for bed and I read aloud. This really is my #1 favorite show of all time. I think this is my fourth or fifth time watching the whole show from start to finish and it holds up for me every time.
• A puzzle subscription. This might sound funny, but it’s actually been SO great. Puzzles are one of my favorite hobbies but it’s easy for me to push it off. When a puzzle shows up in the mail, there’s no decision fatigue about which puzzle to choose, how big a puzzle to choose, etc. It’s here, I open it up and I go to town. When I’m done, I stick it back in the mail with the included return label and I don’t have to figure out where to store it. Frankly, I signed up just because I wanted to test it after so many people asked about it over the years, but now almost every puzzle I’ve done this summer has been from Completing the Puzzle because it just feels so easy right now (my affiliate code is EVERYDAYREADING). I’m a huge fan.

I’d love to hear what’s working for you (or isn’t working for you!) this summer!

If you liked this post about what’s working for me this summer, you might also like these other posts:

• 15+ Summer Crockpot Meals
• My Summer Reading List 2026
• How We Set Summer Goals