Some Vacation Thoughts

My mom has this very cool ability on her mac-book to create these scrapbook like photo pages with text. I did this to accompany a whole collage of photos from our fishing expedition. It was just a fishing expedition for small pond fish - but it was fun.

Here is the scoop I sent to some family and friends. I thought it would be worth saving in my blog as well :)

So is it hard to imagine what this family does when they are removed from the brutal desert heat and stripped of all technology? Broken blackberry, no Internet, PS2 and SecondLife are worlds away...

With the help of Grandpa John and Grandpa Catherine, we made it through the first afternoon without a even a twitch. Noah easily earned the trophy for most fish caught - and not just sunfish, but tiny blue gill too. Simon earned the prize for noisiest fisherman. If he could have scared them out of the pond, we wouldn't have had enough nets ready. Zachary earned the prize for the farthest casting. That kid is ready for bigger lakes or streams, most definitely... maybe he is a fly fisherman in the making...

And Rachel you ask? Armed with her Disney Princess fishing rod and Barbie life jacket she asked that NO ONE tell she touched worms... and kinda liked it. She named the worms and chastised Noah for feeding Sarah to one of his 7 catches. Fortunately Cindy and Alexis were still safe in the plastic bait containers. She enjoyed touching the fish and examining her catch too. Impressive eh?

I think ultimately the trick to vacations is leaving before you can't stand it and have to go home. Tonight when we leave to go back to the Valley it will feel like it is too soon. The air is so clean. The monsoon rainshowers intermittently throughout the day and night are beyond refreshing. The views of the 10,000+ feet peaks are spectacular. But... it will be good to be home too.



OHHHH AND my favorite new store ever? Life is Good! Now... does that surprise you in any way? LOL... Stop by their website and see how cool their stuff is if you don't have one near you. Dare I even mention they have a "Half Full" t-shirt?

T-I-R-E-D

When I was little, my mom had a way of telling other adults we were cranky and needing sleep by spelling out the word tired. Somehow I suppose she expected us to not know what she was saying and she would be able to wisk us off to bed without knowing what hit us. As we got older, naturally, it wasn't hard to know what those letters spelled. In fact, we would hear her use the same trick with our younger brother, and my sister and I knew exactly what was going on.

Years later, we use those letters to describe ourselves and our own children. Being so exhausted that you are to the point of tears or simply have no sense of humor left and are beyond C-R-A-N-K-Y means you are T-I-R-E-D. I feel like I need a t-shirt today with those letters on them. I am most definitely T-I-R-E-D this Monday morning.

I am practicing everything I know this week with The Secret and postive thinking and glass half full. I am having trouble seeing through my calendar and not running screaming for the hills. It can never really be a good thing when you are looking forward to Tuesday... of the FOLLOWING week... for a break and some sanity... can it?

I've thought a lot about busy-ness in RL and SL. I wrote a lot a few posts ago about breaks from SL. I, myself, am approaching a mandatory SL break. I can't decide with that thought whether to be relieved for a break or start the mourning process now. At least there will be email to keep in touch - but somehow that is not the same. Something about those silly pixels.

I spent all weekend getting Bistro Olive @ Marco Island ready to open on July 24 and had an amazing amount of fun doing it. Blissie had her shopping cart out and hauled even the heaviest of items with me. Bigd was more than willing to hang in there and practice positioning things and have long conversations with people about details of the business launch (not his favorite thing to do on SL - thank you D!). Parker shared her ultra top secret search engine strategies. And, Joonie interviewed our first artist, Misprint Tuesday, extensively over lunch on Saturday. Crighton came by after his 8 million hour work weekend and took a tour. Borday and Blissie dined there at least twice and 1 other photographer, Freedom Delgado, came by to consider contributing her art in a few weeks.

It was theraputic. Being creative and being immersed in retail therapy, for me, silly as it is, is a huge helping of R and R. I needed that after a marathon RL trip to PBS the previous week. But, in looking at my calendar, I realize, I will be on mandatory SL time off from this Saturday until the following Tuesday, July 22. RL work is most definitely something this week that I need to pace myself for and will take me and my family to our old stomping grounds in Northern Arizona this weekend, through Tuesday, when I conduct a workshop for preschool teachers on Tuesday evening. Being without internet connection while I am up there is where the mandatory time off comes in.

Sure, I will have my Blackberry. I can blog I suppose from my phone. I can try to steal the neighbors' wireless with my laptop if they have unprotected connections anywhere nearby. But, my mom has been up there all summer and wireless has not been available this year for the first time. I suppose people are finally wise to the fact that bandwidth quickly disappears when people like me are nearby to hop on their connection.

So... it is with heavy eyelids and a few big yawns that I drag myself back to my desk today for a mini-marathon of meetings and to do items before my boss leaves for her own vacation on Tuesday evening this week. As with getting ready for any mandatory time off, I will have to make sure I have the Bistro properly watched over and details all underway for the grand opening reception on Thursday, July 24. For some reason, I know with confidence that Blissie will keep the food well stocked and may even agree to go on her famous AFK breaks in the gallery. I'm hopeful there will be some traffic - but even if there isn't - that is ok. It is more about the fun I can make of it, rather than the destination of events and crowded sims.

I'm T-I-R-E-D but my glass is beyond half full. It is going to be a good week. Things will get accomplished one step at a time. I'm hopeful people will still love me whether or not I'm tired and remember that I try hard to be a team player. I am so fortunate to have a group of close friends that realize there really is no letter "I" in the word TEAM. Hugs to my team members who carry me through ;) whether it is late night carosel rides, sneaky May pole games or crazed running shopping trips on SL, or laughter and silliness in RL. I couldn't do it without you!

And on that note... my Monday morning fog has lifted and I am off and running. Keep this in mind... I think I might use this thought as my mantra over the next few days:

"Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise." – Harvey Mackay

Is stay-cation supposed to be exhausting?

So with gas prices double and triple of what they once were, the latest trend in family vacations is a stay-cation. My sister-in-law was sharing that tidbit with us from her vantage point in the central coastal area of California. Apparently California economists are predicting a severe loss of revenue because the drop in tourism will be larger than ever this year due to fuel costs. Makes sense really. I'm opting for a family stay-cation as well.

Running crowd control is an interesting way to spend my stay-cation. I'm just now at the start of day 3. The first day was filled with the radiology appointments and then all the festivities for D's birthday. Helium and balloons and streamers with 4 enthusiastic kids is an exciting thing. Mexican food take-out and birthday cake, and specialty milkshakes made my Noah (his contribution to the birthday celebrations) made for extremely full bellies. Back to back parties on SL for D completed the evening.

As with any vacation - there are the highlights and quieter moments. There are also the songs that will always remind you of the good times. Should I be concerned that the following song will forever ring through my head? This catchy tune is the latest favorite of my 5 year olds...



I must caution you. Once you have heard the tune... it may be hard to forget. And... I can't recommend it for background music for chores, etc. It makes me feel rather frenetic personally. But... if it buys me some solitude with the twins, then I suppose I am all for it. Should I also mention I have seen High School Musical and The Little Rascals movies about 3 times each - highlights only, of course. What did we do before the invention of the TiVo.

It is important to note that each day of the stay-cation begins by 6:30 am at the LATEST. Most days it is more like 5:45 am. The sun coming up equals little ones wide awake and ready to go. Dave took them for a bike ride this morning all before 8 am. That can be seen as a good thing though because it was already 87 degrees by 7.

We've also had a huge brush fire. Sparked by lightening from the summer monsoons we are waiting to officially begin, the brush fire provided upstairs window entertainment for all. We could see the flames from our vantage point at times and the fire, burning in the Gila River bottom, grew from 100 acres to 1,400 acres by last night. The remote area makes it difficult for crews to get in and fight, as well as the fact that hot shots are already out to other parts of the state, and the West fighting larger brush fires. Smoke has not been a good thing for my 2 with asthma, but we're trying to take preventative measures with them both.

The stay-cation agenda for today, you might ask? Well... there is NOTHING better after an early morning bike ride than listening to... THE HAMSTER DANCE for the 10,000th time. I'm enjoying coffee and waiting for it to kick in. And then, I'm on to work my first ever U2inSL concert. I have a security badge and everything. It is a huge operation and I am hopeful I'll remember all necessary details while wearing the hideous newb, low prim hair.

Hiding out in the air-conditioned inside will probably be our best bet. 112 is the high today, with poor air quality because of the fires. Maybe a water fight will be in order for later in the afternoon. Nothing better than a run through the sprinklers. Should I close by mentioning my daughter actually admitted to being cold after running through the sprinklers the other day when it was 114? Only a Phoenix kid would say something like that!