Category Archives: Leisure

Dreaming of Vacation

Posted on by
3
No Gravatar

 

Me at camp by the pool

Summer camp in the pool

It is that time of year again – summer! June 21, the summer solstice arrived on June 21 heralding the beginning of summer. Ever since I was a little girl, summer has always been my favorite season. Growing up in the Bronx, my family used to spend the summers at a bungalow colony. My mom and brother and I spent the entire summer up there, with my dad coming up on weekends after work. Days filled with camp and swimming rolled one into the next. I had nothing more pressing to think about other than getting up and enjoying the day. It was pure bliss! After we stopped going to the country as a family, I went to sleep away camp (from age 10-17). Each July I left to spend 8 glorious weeks in the country at camp, again with no stress other than the annual color war competitions. Those were the days! Every day was filled with activity – from softball games with rival camps to trips to the Orange County Fair, tennis and archery, campfires and cookouts,  movies under the stars and a camaraderie that would launch lifetime friendships.

Summer was easy then. At least for me. I didn’t realize at the time that the reason we stopped going to the bungalow colony was because it was no longer affordable for my parents. Times were tough back then. Times are tough now. With the economy being what it is I think twice about spending money on vacations. But give them up? I don’t think I can. Right now I am struggling with whether or not to join my friends down in the Turks and Caicos to go on my annual scuba diving vacation. I am stressing out over whether or not to book my flight and whether once I make the decision and book it whether I’ll find out that that is the week that a potential client will want me to come in and present the big proposal that I have submitted. When did vacations become stressful? What happened to those easy summer days?

I talk a lot about balance. My Life is Balance t-shirts (also available on Etsy) are a testament to that. Recreation is a necessary part of life. It balances out all the stress of everything else. I haven’t been away in a year. This is unusual for me. I used to try to take at least two vacations a year to refresh and renew my energy and creativity. I am feel pretty unbalanced at the moment. I think a vacation scuba diving will sort that out.

Beach chairs under umbrella in the Caribbean

My favorite place under the umbrella is waiting for me!

 

It’s 5:00 Somewhere!

Posted on by
Reply
No Gravatar

I have this wall clock that has hung on the wall of my kitchen for more years than I can remember. It was designed by Dietrich Lubs and made by Braun, and is so well designed in it’s simplicity, that I never even thought of replacing it. That is until one day I noticed that it was 5:00 all day long. I tried changing the batteries. But 5:00 never became 5:30. I thought maybe new batteries were bad, since they came from the fridge (I heard somewhere that they last longer in there), but I swapped out several others and still no time change. I even tried taking the clock apart to see whether there was some easy fix (yeah right, like it would be that easy!). I noticed that there are some very tiny wires that go into what must be the clock mechanism and that one of the wires seemed to be attached to nothing in particular. Ah ha! Now that I could see what was wrong, I tried to see if I could get the wire to go where I thought it should. No luck!

I really like this clock and would love to see it back up on my wall working. I can’t tell you how many times I look for the time on the blank wall where it should be. I miss my clock and would love to find a service center or someone handy who could fix it!

It's always 5:00 here!

It's always 5:00 here!

I just found some information on this clock at 50 Years Braun Design Innovation
It is called the ABW 30 Wall clock.

Beach Art

Posted on by
Reply
No Gravatar

Starting Point

Starting Point

The End Result
Treasure Chest & a bottle of Rum

Treasure Chest & a bottle of Rum

Have you ever gone to the beach at night when the moon is bright and drew pictures in the sand? This is called beach art. The concept is pretty simple: Someone starts the image with a few lines drawn in the sand and then each person has a certain amount of time (not much) to add to the lines to create a picture. You never know where this will lead until the last line is drawn. This past Saturday night was such a night for me and a couple of my friends who were in visiting from Montreal. The moon was bright, the breeze was delightful and the water was warm. These are the results of our beach art, from two headed monsters to pirate booty, we let our imagination run wild and in doing so had a lot of fun!