Fields of Joy

I can see clearly now the rain has gone...
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun shiny day.

The month of August has become our official OW vacation month. It is not that we stop working and leave town, we just take it (a little) easy. August includes: a few long weekends, some days off with out-of-town guests sightseeing, and trying not to work on Fridays- well only 1-2 hours anyway.

We do get away for a few days to go camping, but followers of this blog know that:

• the laptop comes on the trip
• the office is staffed while we are gone
• and I am in contact via phone and email

I can't just shut down completely, can I?

While running our own gig, we really need to be reachable at all times. We have a lot of help doing the OtherWisz show (as a client once called it), but it's my ass if something goes wrong. And I can't pull a Stefan Sagmeister and:

• close my business down for a year
• go on sabbatical
• make art
  
• come back & pick up as if nothing has happened....

Now, I am not complaining, I signed on for this 'graphic design thing'. But a strange thing has happened: I re-discovered the weekend. They are like a mini-vacation- one in every week! And this 'weekend thing' really peaks with Summer in August- now we really got something.

I have had several periods in my life where I had a full head of steam. I worked during the week, worked nights freelancing, had DJ gigs on the weekend (often both a Friday and a Saturday night) and it just kept going. But after almost 10 years of just doing this-- running the design business-- I have all but stopped working on the weekends. This is the way it was meant to be and I like it. Weekends!! Yeah!!!

This 'weekend thing' just sort of happened. Now I really look forward to the weekend. I am usually getting fired on Thursday nights... I'll work late on a Thursday anticipating the weekend, then I am free once Friday night hits. I mean, I can still send some emails over the weekend, perform some quick website maintenance/updates, maybe read some documents... but I don't want to. Unless, of course, I absolutely, absolutely have you (see the above point about "...it's my ass if...").

So now a great month like August comes along and it has a good solid 4 weekends in it. This is like 4 vacations in the same month. These vacations include cutting the lawn and gardening, but hey, it beats sitting in front of this computer. I don't really think the 'word' computer and 'vacation' should be in the same sentence.... Once I can break that chain, we can really be free for that month off in Italy or Spain. Now that sounds like a good idea!

But for now I can float through Summer relaxing and really targeting these weekends for maximum fun. For the rest of the month I will be building websites, playing outdoors, reading RFPs, walking to the Saturday market, writing proposal & meeting notes & agendas, camping & hiking, marketing & promoting things, hanging at the waterfront & eating ice cream, writing letters & articles, laying in the yard hammock, camping, did I mention camping? Not so bad.

Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun

I haven't written much as I have gotten buried under a pile of work and home things. Summer is here! You can tell because Target is bringing out the school supplies... yikes!

This is the transition week. The kids are fully off from school and hanging around a lot. J. and I must do the balancing act of trying to work, keep the kids busy and not go crazy. She will work in her summer office more- aka the kitchen or living room (thank you, wireless technology)-- and I will be in and out a lot.

The kids are pretty self-sufficient, but they don't want to hang around in the office all day. They are both artists, so they can paint, draw, build, create, construct for a while- but that isn't going to last all day. Either J. or I will take them out for a portion of the day: park, cheap movie, walk, waterfront, running errands, etc. Last year we had a friend-teacher-nanny situation and that worked great. This year we are 'winging it' with mixed results, but not so bad so far (3 days in...).

I remember when my Mom worked on Saturdays as the bookkeeper at the Colonial Court Motel on Niagara Falls Blvd. and she would begrudgingly drag me and my brother along with her many times. We would play in the hotel lobby with our GI Joe or Matchbox cars, or explore in back where there was a bit of woods, have lunch and generally hang around. I think we managed pretty well..

Owning a family business puts the kids around more that not during the Summer. We try and keep them away from the TV and the convenient babysitter computer as much as possible. But even the educational programs (PBS kids, StarFall, etc.) still render them starting at the TV or monitor and I don't think that is really doing them that much good.

I am trying to teach my kids to be self-entertaining and, so far, I think they are really good at it. And if I have to take them out more-- good! An occasional trip to the park, to push someone on a swing is very therapeutic for me as well. It is calming, it is good to get away from this here computer and I think in the long run, the time spend with my kids is building a strong bond that will last forever... or until they become parent-loathing teenagers. I guess we'll see.