One of my current favorite people to watch on TikTok is a woman named Eli Rallo. Among other things, Eli posts lists of rules for different types of days, seasons, and other events. Some of the most entertaining include Rules for Thanksgiving, Rules for College Football Saturdays, and Rules for Your Birthday.

These videos are entertaining, they get me excited for upcoming times in my life, and they often provide inspiration for ways to make special events even more fun.

Now, summer is approaching. There are only six school days left before that first glorious ray of true summer sun hits my face. So, without further ado, I give you:

Amelia Abigail Alt’s Rules for Summer

1. The ice cream rule

Immediately after school is let out, get ice cream. My family’s tradition is to get frozen yogurt, but any ice cream will do. Get a cone at the local ice cream shop. Buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s from the grocery store and eat it in your car. The mode does not matter. Set the tone for the rest of the summer by starting it off sun-soaked with a melty, sweet, chilly treat in your hand.

2. Make a calendar

Even if you’re not a planner, having a calendar for the summer is incredibly important, especially when you try to plan things with your friends. Knowing when you’re available on a daily basis will help so much in the long run, even if creating a calendar feels like a thousand-piece puzzle. This is extra important if you are very busy over the summer and have different things going on every week. Google Calendar, Notion, or even an old-fashioned paper wall calendar will all work for this task.

3. Create a vision board

Get on Pinterest. Make a summer bucket list. Copy and paste images that make you happy and get you excited to be free from school with all the time in the world. Then, throughout the summer, add more. Add your own photographs. Add more bucket list items. This can become your memory board for once summer is over and you want to feel that freedom again.

4. The first-week rule

Don’t do anything for the first week of summer. Don’t plan any big trips. Don’t work. Don’t start summer assignments. Take the first week to relax and soak in the sun. Take a day trip to the beach. Hammock with your friends. Read that book you’ve been waiting for “the right time” to read. Get your nails done. The first week is yours and yours only.

5. The other ice cream rule

Don’t just get ice cream on the first day. Get ice cream once a week. Try different flavors, different shops. Try a Dole Whip. Get a malt. Get ice cream at least once every week.

6. Fresh flowers

Summer is the time of flowers. Make sure there are always fresh flowers in your house. Whether they are from your own garden, picked from a field in the middle of nowhere, or bought from the flower shop down the street, always have fresh flowers. 

7. Bike rides

Get your friends to go on bike rides with you. Maybe use that trip as an excuse to get your weekly dose of ice cream. Bike around town. Find a new park, and bike the trails there. Bike to a pool or lake and go swimming. It’s exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise.

8. The swimsuit rule

Wear a swimsuit once a week. It doesn’t matter whether you’re actually going swimming or simply sitting in your backyard on a patio chair reading. Put on that bikini, get tan, and feel the summer happiness that comes with it.

9. Summer is for iced tea

Thrift one of those huge jars, fill it with tap water, pop in a handful of tea bags, and let it soak in the sun for a few hours. Now you have a few gallons of the most summery drink imaginable. Mix it with lemonade or drink it in a tall glass with ice.

10. The last-week rule

The last week is for checking off those last items on your summer bucket list. Finish your summer assignments before the last non-school-night Sunday hits, and use those last seven days of bliss to invite your friends to a game night. Have a bonfire and make s’mores. Sleep on the neighbor’s trampoline. Star gaze in the back of someone’s pickup truck. Fill that last week with friends and sun and so much happiness that you forget about school for one last week.