Monday, June 09, 2008

Engagement and Retreat

A week from today my life bumps up yet another notch in the busy-ness department. I'm excited about this new project (a class) and I think it might take me in a good direction. Or, at least, it's worth the investment of time to see if this is a direction I want to go. Nonetheless, for 8 weeks, I'm going to be basically crazy-deranged-busy. I'm going to go from only one day off a week to none.

And I'm having a bunch of company later this summer -about which I am insanely excited. But a truly hospitable person would, say, evict the dust bunnies that have taken up residence in the guest room and create a welcoming space or two. And the fact of the company means that I need to save my paltry few vacation days for that!

So...no vacation time and even more claims on the 168 hours a week that I get -just like every other human, in spite of my clear need for more ;) A few weeks ago I realized that I have to (not ought to... we're talking MUST here!) find a way to sneak away to a restoring place and take some time for myself. I mean something more restorative than- something fundamentally different from- coming home, grabbing a glass of wine and a piece of pita bread and watching Buffy DVDs and knitting on Sam's blanket. That's fun and plenty good enough for the occasional week night. But I'm talking 12-24 hours of restorative goodness.

This train of thought is where the camping idea came from. That's still a go, by the way. So there's one sneak-away-vacation on the books. Tomorrow -assuming the weather improves- the girl child and I are going to the Indiana Dunes. It's a big beach, there's a big old lake (Lake Michigan -we're talking BIG lake!), and there are places for riding bikes. So, think good thoughts for the weather.

Got any other mini-vacation ideas? Any suggestions for themes? I'm thinking Lake Geneva in Wisconsin... kayaking on the Sugar River... a spa day in Chicago... The Cubs haven't started embarrassing us yet, so maybe I'll get tickets and go to a game.

I await enlightenment, oh wise ones.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, the forecast is bad for tomorrow in Michiana. (In fact, it's bad for most of this week.) Lake Geneva is probably not a good destination right now either, given that Wisconsin's governor just declared a state of emergency in 29 counties due to severe weather this past weekend.

And while I can't say anything about their quality, there are spas right here in town (DeKalb and Sycamore both). Gotta be cheaper than Chicago, and would take a little less time in traveling.