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Health & Fitness

Our Last Summer Fling

Our summer vacation taught us that the antidote for boredom is creativity.

No air conditioners humming, no buses, planes, trains and best of all—NO TV or internet! Just seven peaceful, unplanned days on a lake way up in the UP with my family. I have no idea what happened in the world between August 10-17—no news, radio or papers. It made me realize that our frantic pace down here in suburbia just might not be the best way to spend life.

And I'm seriously considering getting rid of the TV. Afterall, my mother did when I was seven years old and I didn't miss it a bit. Music lessons, art projects, and even the time to start my own little business in high school were a direct result of not having a TV in our home. I don't ever remember being bored.

My friend Rose and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about boredom. We talked about how it drives us crazy...or more accurately...it drives us creative. Actually, the antidote for boredom is creativity and productivity. So maybe a little boredom is good if it pushes us to do something meaningful.

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Which brings me right back to our vacation. My children found the simplest activities to keep them busy: feeding peanuts to chipmunks, discovering crayfish under big rocks in the lake, spying a tight-knit loon family with binoculars, fishing, watching a solitary bald eagle perched on a dead tree 50 yards away, watching a kingfisher scoop lunch right out of the lake, listening to the nuthatches chatter in the pine trees and a pileated woodpecker hammering away for insects. But they had to be shown how to see these wonders.

I'm an awful photographer so instead I enjoy capturing magical experiences in the form of collage. So, part of my vacation was planned by packing a piece of plywood, Mod Podge, paint and a ziplock bag of bits. My friend Karen who owns the cabin saves stacks of magazines for me to chop up when we come. Long after my husband and kids were asleep, I had the time of my life sitting out on a big screened-in porch listening to owls and wolves deep in the woods and composing a memory of our last summer fling to bring home.

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Now we are back to reality and the rhythm of school days I have a new resolve to stop wasting so much time on activities that just don't matter such as TV and the internet. I need to keep life as simple as possible so there's time to give freely of my time and energy to my kids. Afterall, kids don't naturally keep themselves busy. They need to be shown how to do things and taught how to see their world. No amount of toys or books will keep a child busy because they like to be entertained and interacted with by their parents.

My daughter packed a crate full of things to do on vacation, but didn't do any of them until about the fifth day. Finally, after watching me quilt and paint, she caught the bug and stitched together a nine-patch—a small victory to have her working on her own project while I worked on mine. A wonderful thing happened—we had great conversations while our hands were busy.

I suppose, it's ultimately all about balance. I'm sure I'll loose the battle about getting the TV out of our home. But I'll fight by teaching my kids how to get excited about their own creativity and discovery, so that mindless technological distractions fade into the background and become boring.

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