… tell me about your summer vacation.
Isn’t that the stereotypical back-to-school first day assignment?
You arrive in your new classroom on the first day of school. A bit nervous. A bit itchy in your new clothes. Your feet are starting to feel the early signs of blisters from your never-before-worn-shoes …
Your new teacher writes her name on the blackboard. A tour of the classroom is given. Cubbies are labeled. Jackets are hung. Desks are assigned. Backpacks full of spiral notebooks and crayons and No. 2 pencils are unloaded.
And then …
The dreaded first-day-of-school summer vacation essay assignment is scrawled across the blackboard. Big. Bold.
Unoriginal.
As we enjoyed our summer vacation over the past week, my daughter brought up this dreaded assignment. You see, it’s even more dreaded by my children because our summers follow pretty much the same pattern year-over-year …
Sure there are a few tweaks here and there. A day camper grows up and becomes a junior counselor. The dates of our annual pilgrimage to my parent’s Florida home fluctuates by a week or two …
So instead of boring you with pictures and tales of the beach, the pool, the water park, the endless baskets of spicy peel and eat shrimp …
… I thought I’d tell you what I didn’t do on summer vacation.
I didn’t blog.
I didn’t go online … okay, maybe a few quick peeks to make sure my scheduled posts went up. But that’s it.
And while my warrior family went off each day to battle the ocean that is the Atlantic …
… I parked myself in a beach chair and read.
I read books. Remember those things? You know, those things with spines? Those things with ink printed on paper …
I started my reading marathon session with a book recommended to me by this amazing and funny blogging friend who shares my love of all things David Sedaris …
It’s a series of essays that are funny and heartwarming and heartbreaking … and did I mention funny? I thoroughly enjoyed each and every page and each and every word in this book, as did my 15-year-old-son.
Next up was a new series from a Chicago area author …
I, too, read books. I LOVE Haven Kimmel! Read both of those several years ago. Agree with you on Janet Evanovich; she’s same-old, same-old. Laurie Notaro’s books have been fun this summer, and I read The Devil in the White City, which is about the Chicago World’s Fair. Got hooked on the Maisie Dodds mysteries, too. Glad you’re back! P.S. I never assign that topic. Unless a kid goes to Europe or gets married….
So glad you had a wonderful time on vacation and was able to catch up on your reading…I rarely have time anymore to read a book cover to cover…I start many…I think the one I read was Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver..Welcome home!!
Sounds like perfection to me! I’m not sure WHAT I did this summer… several home projects, waaayyyy too much time online, not enough time at the pool, some weekend trips tucked in here and there. Hmmm. Not a very exciting essay. 🙂
xo heidi
My book has been renewed from the library about 3 times – need to find time to finish! Ah, to laze on the beach reading – one of my favorite things to do!
Glad to see you enjoyed your days in sunny FL – avoiding the masses is always a good thing!
Kelly
SO true!! Hated those essays because our summers were pretty routine . . . and our kids’ summers were pretty routine as we couldn’t always afford a ‘family vacation’. I am just coming back from a month off from blogging – it was wonderful to not feel pressured to ‘produce’ and I was able to enjoy the last month with my girls before they headed back to college. I’m looking for books to read while on vacation next month so thanks for the list!!
Thanks for the shout out! I’m so glad you guys enjoyed the books. I’m going on a little (long) trip to visit my kids this weekend – think I will take Zippy and David both with me!
Those essays are lame and I will never assign them to my students on the first day. I wish I had done more reading this summer. I hardly read at all anymore…it’s sad.
My summer vacation was exactly 27 hours long. My washer and dryer died in May-as in bottom rusted out and ruined the floor- so I have spent the entire summer looking at my new “vacation” sitting in the laundry room. But I had to get out, so I bookend a fabulous, high end B&B for one night the weekend of my anniversary. Fabulous!And when I was paying the bills the other day, I realized I could use credit card points to pay for it! Yay for luxury for free.
I go to the cottage every weekend during the summer, and at the beginning of July hubby and I and our two dogs spent an amazing week in PEI 🙂 Other than that, it’s been too hot to do much else this summer, other than water the garden every day and watch the grass turn brown & crispy 😉
I just bought two new Kindle books – A Dog’s Journey (follow-up to A Dog’s Purpose, which I loved) and The Girl Who Came Home, which is a novel based on the true story of a group of Irish emigrants on the Titanic. A great book about strength and survival is Unbroken. It’s the true story about WWII prison of war Louis Zamperini. Whenever I’m running on the treadmill and want to stop, I just think about what he went through, and running for another two minutes suddenly doesn’t seem like such a big deal!
Vacation? I was supposed to vacation? Crap, I’ve been working all summer doing shows. Next year…vacation!
Okay, so I LOVED the Haven Kimmel books. I started Divergent but couldn’t get into it; maybe I need to try it again? I won’t tell you about my summer vacation but I *will* tell you what I read on it: The Magician’s Assistant (can’t remember the author–she wrote Bel Canto). It was a sweet (if somewhat unusual) love story. And Gone Girl which I highly recommend. (You know, if you’re planning to keep reading those things with spines 😉
Welcome back! It sounds like you had a wonderful vacation! I had no vacation this summer so there’s not much to tell but I’ve had such fun sharing everyone’s beautiful stories and beach photos that it *almost* feels like I went somewhere fabulous! 🙂
Good for you! Stepping away from the computer and turning to a real book, with real pages that you really have to turn yourself. Glad you had nice break and WELCOME BACK!
LYnn
I totally agree on the Stephanie Plum books. The last couple have just kind of been ho hum.
I, too, used to laugh so hard I’d cry. My husband would just shake his head. 🙂 I still giggle when I think of the stiff dead guy they stuck in the trunk with his legs sticking out. 🙂
Kelly
Glad that you had a fun time with your family at the beach. There’s nothing quite more relaxing is there? I posted about the pillow I bought from you today.
Don’t they say a picture says a thousand words. Just show the first picture, it says it all. I love the beach!
I’ve worked my B.U.T.T. off this summer… but I did get a chance to read Divergent and Insurgent! They were great!
I napped. Blogged, napped, and wasted the whole summer worrying that I was wasting the summer. And dreaded Andy going back to school.
Well, let’s just say I wish I had done of what you did! I did read a few books though and that is good for me to be able to do that with this busy summer schedule – xo Diana
My summer is not over yet, so I’ll get back to you on my answer.
~Bliss~
Holy Crap you read fast. LOL I do well to finish a book, or maybe 2 if I have airport layovers or a long drive on my relaxing vacation. I have been off the internet as well with a little US trip so welcome back to us both. Happy back to school and essay writing to the kids. They should just explore their imaginations and write about the family trip to the moon. 🙂