A little over a week ago my family and I returned from a family trip to the Caribbean. These kinds of trips are always incredibly special to me. I have memories of spring vacations from when I was growing up so nostalgia is part of it, but it’s also been a while since the four of us have been able to go away together. So this trip felt special in a few ways–almost like a victory for our family.
Only two days into 2014, and I was already feeling anxious.
For the last five years, January always starts with a business trip: CES in Las Vegas.
The new variable: this is the first year that I am playing a pretty serious chess match with a virus of some sort. This freaks me out to no end because one of my major travel anxieties is being feverish and shivering on check-out morning with an impending flight to catch–this anxiety increases exponentially when we’re talking business travel.
Last summer at Coney Island
I’m trying to plan a summer getaway for my family. I’ve been incredibly indecisive this year, not from a lack of ideas…quite the opposite. I have too many ideas, and each one conjures up images in my head of idyllic moments that will eventually become life-long memories for all of us, and that turns into a form of vacation-analysis-paralysis. So I’ve booked nothing but researched pretty much everything the Northeast has to offer. I’ve got it down to either Hershey, PA or Washington DC and I want two things: family-friendly and a property with an outdoor pool (I gave up on the beach a while ago, obviously).
One of my very dear friends has a travel photography blog, and it’s amazing. Her talent and fearlessness constantly inspire me and I am moved by her passion and commitment. She travels, camera in hand, to Bhutan, Botswana, Morocco and other remote and exotic places exquisitely documenting her journeys and combining two of her passions.
Although I’m not ready to go on safari tomorrow, her adventures have inspired me to explore ideas that tap back into passions I have set-aside because they weren’t practical and deconstruct the barriers, fears and confines I have erected because…well, because I did. This is what I uncovered…
Becoming a parent made me appreciate two distinct contributors to a child’s life like never before: the mother and the teacher. As a younger-self, I had teachers who made me look at life differently and encouraged me to pursue passions–I also had ones who taught me how to overcome criticism, but that’s another post. When you’re a parent though and your child has a teacher who has directly impacted how they related to the world in a positive way you want to dedicate a shrine to them and have a parade in their honor.
I’ve been abundantly blessed in that department. My children have the incredible fortune of having had unbelievable educators who loved and supported them, and some of them are still in their lives today. Additionally, because my brother-in-law (also my daughters’ godfather) is a teacher, these heroes are near and dear to our family.
Golf runs in my family. Perhaps you have a strain of that DNA too? My grandfather, uncle, cousins…not me but my kids are taking lessons this summer. If you know and love anyone who plays golf, and not just plays but LOVES golf you know this is a sport meant to be taken very seriously. As one golfer I know has told me many times: “go to the driving range, that’s where amateurs belong.” ‘Nuf said. These are gifts to buy your golfer that are “safe” when you don’t know WTF you are doing.
Summers and getaways go hand and hand, don’t they? And what better way to enjoy summer weekends than with friends and family…even better, when it’s not at your house. When you’re lucky enough to get an invite for an overnight or a weekend (score!) it’s important to be gracious and show your host the same hospitality they have extended to you, especially when it includes your brood.
The Gifting Whisperer 