Back from celebrating our 20th, and the difficulties of resisting on-line life....
On Sunday night, my husband and I splurged to celebrate our 20th anniversary....
We are supposed to be saving EVERYTHING to pay for our daughter's years in college, soon to commence, but we went "up the Shore" (of Lake Superior) to the place we had stayed at for a couple of nights in August, with our teenaged daughter. We have a stringent budget; travel money is allocated only for visting family (we are rather spread out). This was a real treat. Our daughter took care of the cats while we went off for our romantic night away. It was so lovely! I felt as if we had had a true vacation, even though we had only been gone a day.
Here's a photo we took on the way up there. It had been windy the day before and rollers were still coming in to shore. Can you believe it? Men in wet suits were actually surfing out on the lake. I saw two surfers get decent rides; we captured one on a bit of film, but I don't know how to post it. You will have to make do with the one below, in which they are waiting for the right moment.
~ Lake Superior surfers, Jan. 29, 2006:
It's January -- in Minnesota, for heaven's sake! Normally at this time of the year the lake is frozen. But we've been having one of the warmest winters on record. The high most days since December has been in the 20's and 30's. The day the surfers were out it was above freezing. Amazing!
Below is a snapshot of the place we actually stayed, about an hour and half up the shore from here. We stayed in a studio at the left end of the condos in the image, just thirty feet from the surf. The sound of it was wonderful.
~ Bluefin Bay, viewed from the north, 1-30-06:
***
I just wanted to say, too, that I am going to try and take a break from my on-line life. At least, I hope to cut back. Perhaps I could force myself to make only one entry a week. How I will be able to stand it, I don't know, but I am going to try, honestly....
The problem is, I have got no where on my stalled fanfic; I'm still 150 pages in, five months after posting my last chapter.
Paritally, it is because I'd rather send e-mails, post comments (in threads and journals), and prepare journal entries and screencap extravaganzas (celebrating Tolkien and Frodo, Frodo's actor, and, now, Brokeback Mountain), than actually work on the blasted thing. It is SO immediately gratifying to write an entry or a post, and to respond to the people who comment. I am ... addicted to the pleasure of it. In comparison, it is onerous to keep working on a fic I may never finish and few will ever read. But I really do waste a lot of time I don't have to prepare my little LJ and messageboard efforts, after which I click open my e-mailbox constantly, in order to read and answer the responses. I should just gird my loins, swear off, and do what needs to be done.
Of course I will browse my f-list and answer my emails, but I will try not to expend my creative energies making entries, nor hover over my email, ready to leap upon the reply notifications.
I have been thinking I ought to put all this fandom stuff behind me, but then I get a terrible knot in my stomach and my throat closes up, just thinking about it. Perhaps others of you have been wrestling similar thoughts.
I talk big, but we'll see how it pans out. *grin*
~ Mechtild
We are supposed to be saving EVERYTHING to pay for our daughter's years in college, soon to commence, but we went "up the Shore" (of Lake Superior) to the place we had stayed at for a couple of nights in August, with our teenaged daughter. We have a stringent budget; travel money is allocated only for visting family (we are rather spread out). This was a real treat. Our daughter took care of the cats while we went off for our romantic night away. It was so lovely! I felt as if we had had a true vacation, even though we had only been gone a day.
Here's a photo we took on the way up there. It had been windy the day before and rollers were still coming in to shore. Can you believe it? Men in wet suits were actually surfing out on the lake. I saw two surfers get decent rides; we captured one on a bit of film, but I don't know how to post it. You will have to make do with the one below, in which they are waiting for the right moment.
~ Lake Superior surfers, Jan. 29, 2006:
It's January -- in Minnesota, for heaven's sake! Normally at this time of the year the lake is frozen. But we've been having one of the warmest winters on record. The high most days since December has been in the 20's and 30's. The day the surfers were out it was above freezing. Amazing!
Below is a snapshot of the place we actually stayed, about an hour and half up the shore from here. We stayed in a studio at the left end of the condos in the image, just thirty feet from the surf. The sound of it was wonderful.
~ Bluefin Bay, viewed from the north, 1-30-06:
***
I just wanted to say, too, that I am going to try and take a break from my on-line life. At least, I hope to cut back. Perhaps I could force myself to make only one entry a week. How I will be able to stand it, I don't know, but I am going to try, honestly....
The problem is, I have got no where on my stalled fanfic; I'm still 150 pages in, five months after posting my last chapter.
Paritally, it is because I'd rather send e-mails, post comments (in threads and journals), and prepare journal entries and screencap extravaganzas (celebrating Tolkien and Frodo, Frodo's actor, and, now, Brokeback Mountain), than actually work on the blasted thing. It is SO immediately gratifying to write an entry or a post, and to respond to the people who comment. I am ... addicted to the pleasure of it. In comparison, it is onerous to keep working on a fic I may never finish and few will ever read. But I really do waste a lot of time I don't have to prepare my little LJ and messageboard efforts, after which I click open my e-mailbox constantly, in order to read and answer the responses. I should just gird my loins, swear off, and do what needs to be done.
Of course I will browse my f-list and answer my emails, but I will try not to expend my creative energies making entries, nor hover over my email, ready to leap upon the reply notifications.
I have been thinking I ought to put all this fandom stuff behind me, but then I get a terrible knot in my stomach and my throat closes up, just thinking about it. Perhaps others of you have been wrestling similar thoughts.
I talk big, but we'll see how it pans out. *grin*
~ Mechtild