My summer bucket list
I have tons of ideas swirling around, but limited time for the next few weeks. In all fairness to myself, this should probably be called “My last three weeks of August bucket list.” In any case, I’m dumping my ideas here to keep track of them. Feel free to help me prioritize.
I’ll update this list as I go through items so maybe it’ll be a little pat on the back for myself.
✔️ Currently reading posts
I set up a What I’m Reading page a while back. Super casual. It changes regularly, so I don’t stress about what I write. Occasionally I have interesting things to say (or show!) about my book pile and then poof! … it’s gone and replaced with my new book pile. Maybe I should keep this page, but point to individual blog posts?
DONE!
Check it out — my very first Currently Reading blog post.
✔️ Finish Unfinished Love Story
I finished reading An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, but it’s still full of book darts marking things I want to draw. My goal is to finish the doodles and related blog post/video by LBJ’s birthday — August 27.
DONE!
Add new people
There are so many people I want to add to my cast, but right now I’m prioritizing:
Joe Biden
Ben Franklin
Edward Stanton
Ida B. Wells
Tim Walz??
Finally finish the blog post about my quest to read one book about every president
I have tons of (time-consuming) ideas to make the post really cool. At this point, I need to just get it out there. I can add to the post later … if I want and as time allows.
Corral all of my newsletter “extras”
I gather up the POTUS Pop Quizzes and POTUS Extras from my email newsletter each August (the anniversary of The POTUS Notice). Perhaps it would make more sense to get these on more of a calendar year schedule and do more of an end-of-the-year wrap up.
See?! This is just the kind of procrastination energy I’m looking for!
Blog or blog series about the amendments
Attaching a number to anything means it doesn’t stick in my brain. Quiz me on the Amendments and I will fail miserably in such a way that it will appear I know nothing about history. Perhaps if I slap some doodles on them, they’ll sear in my memory a bit? Let’s find out together!
Johnson + Johnson
It’s no surprise that Andrew Johnson was terrible and Lyndon Johnson did some pretty incredible things, particularly for Civil Rights. Having recently watched Manhunt and read about LBJ, the differences are even more pronounced. There’s a blog post comparing and contrasting these guys rattling around in my brain.
Create a landing page to market myself
Like, really market myself. What if someone wants to hire me? This page has been in the works for months but it’s big and intimidating and I keep changing my mind. I need to worry less about getting it All Done Perfectly and get something out there that I can add to as I go.
Fix my lame bio that shows up at the end of blog posts
I can do better than that, right?
Add more merch to my shop
I found out that if I don’t regularly add items, they take away from my earnings. That’s not as big of a threat as they think it is, as there is not much earning going on. When I started my sabbatical, I had dreams of a merch shop being a fun, easy way to generate some passive income. It is exceptionally passive. As in, asleep on the coach. With potato chip crumbs on its chest.
In any case, it’s not as easy as I thought but it is still kinda fun to add items from time to time. And using my own presidential napkins and Theodore Roosevelt glass makes me happy.
New stickers?
I don’t know. I kind of want to (need to try out a new vendor… IYKYK).
We’ll see.
