#1. How I’m Spending My Summer Vacation
July 29, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Mommy Extras
By the time you read this, I will be in the city of Lovech or Selo Gostinia (Selo means village), Bulgaria. Lovech is too far off the beaten track to be featured on the map from TravelBlog.org, but the town is 30 km South of Pleven. You probably also know that I am spending 6 weeks in the country with the children so that they can speak Bulgarian with someone other than their father and I can learn a little more of the language with them. My husband will be with us for four weeks, but we’ll be on our own for the last two.
Now, as surprising as it might seem, I don’t actually own a laptop. I mean I want one, I especially want the very exciting HP DV500 Entertainment Notebook with QuickPlay and Over the Hedge that has been adverised on this site, taunting me every day with a computer lust that is like thirst in the desert.
Thanks to Internet Cafés, I haven’t been without Internet access for more than 4 days even while traveling since 1996. It was a solution that was fine when we were two parents traveling with one child, but this year for two weeks, I will be one parent traveling with two children. A laptop really would give me more flexibility to work, but I am nervous about investing so much money in a piece of equipment I have to take care of while juggling kids and all the things kids travel with. A friend of mine just left her precious computer on the London underground and I realised that the likelihood of my doing something similar is quite high.
Fear of laptop loss, combined with the fact that too much screen time has been blamed for creating a generation of inactive and unhealthy kids means I obviously have to get over my own computer addiction and model an alternative for my own children, at least once.
Besides, I often feel like I am turning into one of those people who records their entire vacation on a video camera so they experience filming a location or event rather than living a vacation or event. Only instead of filming, I think, “Oh look, let me go blog that!”
So, for three weeks this summer — half the time that I am in Bulgaria — I am going cold turkey. From July 29th to August 19th I will not use a computer or the Internet. I’ve been working like a fiend to write 21 posts in advance for you and to do all the other work I’ve got lined up. I’ve never done anything like this before and I think it’s going to hurt more than my attempts to give up coffee.
But, when it’s all over, I might just reward myself with a new laptop.
Yes, I know that is a bit ridiculous, but I’m like that.
I hope you enjoy my vacation posts and, please leave me a comment to read when I get back. Dovishdenay! Roughly translated that means, until I see you again in Bulgarian.
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] Some of you may remember that I pre-wrote 22 posts that appeared while I was on vacation. I took a break from the Internet for three weeks, the first time I had been away from a computer for more than a few days in over ten years. I was worried about digital withdrawal and I know that, among mothers, I am not the only one who had forgotten how to let go of my work during “down time.” [...]
[...] Some of you may remember that I pre-wrote 22 posts that appeared while I was on vacation. I took a break from the Internet for three weeks, the first time I had been away from a computer for more than a few days in over ten years. I was worried about digital withdrawal and I know that, among mothers, I am not the only one who had forgotten how to let go of my work during “down time.” [...]
[...] I had been buying presents for other people that say and it had been a bit shocking in financial terms. I went out with the intention of buying each of my husband’s nieces a small toy and panicked because his sister was in Lovech taking care of my mother-in-law and the girls were being taken care of by their paternal grandmother in Plodiv. [...]
[...] Then our family went to Bulgaria and, true to my lazy nature, went on vacation. I spent most of August away from a computer screen. It was my longest break from technology in more than ten years. Like most people, I got serious in September. I vowed to stop using celebrity mothers to increase traffic. Instead, I focussed on the very real issues of birth control, vitamins and Britney Spears. I also went back to work and left a trail of breast milk everywhere I went. [...]
[...] Last summer, I took three weeks off. Not only did we go away, but I stepped away from the computer. I pre-wrote blog entries and articles, I stopped reading newspapers (or anything else) on the Internet and I just focussed on where I was and who I was with. I think it was the only time in the past ten years that I have done, or thought about doing, one thing at a time. It wasn’t all easy. For the first week I was crabby without my usual fix of information and my sister in-law and I had our first ever argument. Actually, due to language differences, we had to have it twice. Other than those very regrettable episodes though, I know I was calmer by the end. [...]
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[...] difficult to put into words. I need to spend less time connected to the Internet. I need to take more breaks from blogging and stop checking my email obsessively. I’ve done a lot of writing about tech addiction and [...]
[...] am thinking of opening a rustic spa in our village house here in Bulgaria. Visitors would experience sun, fresh air, proximity to woodlands and rivers and the environmental [...]
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