Skip to main content

On vacation

We are having the loveliest of times this week, vacationing on a lake in New Hampshire. The lake is actually a pond, but it's big enough that we did not successfully cross or circumnavigate it  during an hour-long boating excusion this afternoon, so let's call it a lake. Honestly, it was more due to our inefficiency and lack of skill, but I still don't mind calling it a lake. Hell, I was at one of the Finger Lakes last weekend, which one of my traveling companions called "the ocean" all weekend, so it works.

I am out on the deck now, overlooking the lake, enjoying the view and the breeze. Matt is out on a kayak and the boys are inside playing Minecraft. Obviously I would not (and did not) choose to be inside on a day like today, but it is vacation and we can all do what we want. We have nowhere to be and nothing particular to do. I love that the boys are old enough to allow for this level of freedom.

We are taking vacation for the fourth summer in a row with Matt's brother, sister-in-law, and our nephew. They are a joy to vacation with. We enjoy each other's company but we're also fine just doing our own thing. The last three years we stayed on Plum Island, just off the coast of northern Massachusetts. It is nice there, but the ocean is cold and rough, the house is on the small side, and it's not right on the beach so we have to pack up our gear and trek. It's not that far, but far enough to feel like a burden after a few days. So this year we opted for the lake house. It is marvelous. The house has more than enough beds for everyone, three bathrooms, two living rooms, and a finished basement with foosball, ping-pong, and darts. And an acoustic guitar (did I mention that my summer goal is to improve at the guitar? Notice how vague and unquantified that goal is? Almost impossible to fail.). With the house comes two kayaks, two canoes, a tired-looking Sunfish and a ragtag collection of paddles. We got here yesterday and I never want to leave. I've been out on the water twice already. I haven't even explored the movie or book collection.

I feel peace around us. I love New Hampshire. I went to college here. It is beautiful, natural, and serene. After graduating from college one of my best friends drove to his new job in Tulsa, OK. I asked him which state that he drove through was the prettiest. He said New Hampshire. I recall being surprised but then realized it made perfect sense.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lockdown, the early days

I started this post many weeks ago and didn't post it so I've lost the original date, but it was from the relatively early days of lockdown. Maybe a few weeks in? Here goes: -------------- Probably none of this is interesting, but these are the things I've noticed during lockdown in Spain... I am fine for a while but then I need an open window, thirsty for signs of life. The mornings are quiet. I sleep late most mornings, in part thanks to nightly Benadryl but mostly because I can, so I do. I check my email, Instagram, and Twitter. I'm not much into social media, so none of this takes long. But I will check Twitter continuously during the morning waiting for some piece of information to take away some of the uncertainty, or to distract me for a while. My Twitter feed is slow until early afternoon, when the east coast starts to wake up and activate. Before then it is mostly European updates, sometimes news and sometimes pictures or funny videos or articles. It...
Post a Comment
Read more

DelawareCon (TM) 2019

It is summer! Yes, it is summer and we’ve been hard at work doing the things that working parents who live in an old-ish house do over the summer. We’ve been not going to school (oldest boy skipped the last two days of school due to overexcitabilties), we’ve been graduating from elementary school (that would be the younger boy), we’ve been visiting my family in upstate New York, we’ve been trying to balance work and childcare, and we’ve been seeing Hamilton. You know, the usual. (Obviously, Hamilton was awesome. The tickets were my birthday present from Matt this year.) Also, we’ve been resurfacing the old, ugly, cracked concrete pad where the old, ugly, cracked hot tub used to sit. It is now covered in grey Trex (TM) in an attractive pattern. The wooden deck that abuts the new deck is poop brown, but the colors complement each other. Sort of. We looked at Trex in different browns to try to go closer to the deck color but I could not handle more poop. So much poop. So we went with gr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 10

Well, it's Monday. I wish I were excited about that, but I am not. On the other hand, it is only 8:30 and I've done my yoga practice and it feels great. Today was about connecting: connecting to breath, connecting to yourself, connecting to something greater than yourself. I liked it because there was some balance work, which always takes up enough of my brain space that I forgot for a moment that I'm working physically.  I guess I'll address once again its being Monday. I think most people don't care for Monday because it's the end of freedom, the return to confinement. It means we have to get up, get the kid(s) up for school, work all day, and only when work is done can we have time to do what we want to do. Of course, by then it's kind of late, people are hungry, and we have to deal with groceries, dinner, etc. This, I hate to say, is my typical experience of work days. But I'm working on it. I'm working on work days. Working from home makes it ea...
Post a Comment
Read more