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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
I have mixed feelings about staycations.
Sometimes they’re the perfect choice if you’re exhausted and/or don’t have the budget to travel elsewhere.
They can be a nice, relaxing way to recharge under those circumstances. There is definitely something to be said for keeping things low key and thrifty.
On the other hand, there’s the temptation to treat a staycation like any other time of the year and not make any fun memories during them at all.
This happened to my spouse and I years ago. We didn’t have the funds to travel anywhere that time, and I totally understood and accepted that.
The problem was that we didn’t do much stuff that was out of the ordinary for us during our staycation from what I can recall. I still washed the dishes and did the grocery shopping, (most of the) cooking, and laundry. We still ate out at the inexpensive fast food restaurants we’d normally visit if I’m not cooking that night for whatever reason.
Other than not working, it was completely like any other week. We didn’t try any new places from what I can recall, and I only remember going to one free place that I’d previously enjoyed. The rest of the time was spent watching tv and wandering around a local mall. (No offence meant to people who think that sounds like the perfect vacation, by the way! To each their own. It’s simply not my cup of tea.)
These days I’m more assertive about staycations. Yes, I’ll stick to whatever the budget is for the week, but I am going to break my daily routines and go to some nice dairy-free bakeries, parks I don’t get to visit very often, or free local events at the bare minimum! My spouse doesn’t have to accompany me, and I certainly won’t fill every day with long lists of places to visit or anything like that. A couple of hours every other day or so to spend on stuff I really love to do is enough to make me happy. That leaves plenty of time for walking around the mall, watching tv, or doing nothing in particular, too. 😉
I simply need more from a vacation than doing the same things we always do and then going home to do chores. That’s not my idea of a good time.
Staycations can be a wonderful option if you treat your local community as if you’re a tourist there and go to places you normally don’t visit (or places you’ve visited before and already know are perfect for your tastes!)
They can also be disappointing, at least from my perspective, if you stick to the same old routines every day and don’t branch out at all.
So much depends on how you plan ahead for them and how much effort everyone puts into the experience.
The majority of my answers this week will involve authors who have either passed away or retired from writing for health reasons because there’s something poignant about wishing for stories that will never be written. (I do still have hope for the last few of them, though).
Here is a quick snapshot into the funny sorts of things I look up online.
While all of my book reviews on this blog are about the speculative fiction genre, I read many other genres as well.
The original topic for this week asked about books, films, and TV shows that I wouldn’t revisit. I’ve decided to pick one answer from each category.
1) They are hardy and strong. In many parts of North America you can find them growing everywhere without any intervention or pampering needed by humans: ditches, rock gardens, by the side of the highway, in neglected yards, and anywhere else that had the bare minimum amount of soil, sunshine, and water.
Sometimes antagonists are more interesting than protagonists. I suspect it’s because, at least for some writers, villains have more freedom to say and do whatever they wish than characters who are supposed to set a good example for everyone.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I was a preacher’s kid and was homeschooled for the first several years of elementary school. The combination of these two things meant that I knew very little about secular pop culture until I was about eleven or twelve and my parents began gradually relaxing their rules about music, tv shows, and films.
This is going to be one of those weeks when I give more than ten answers. It will help to make up for the weeks when I fall far short of that goal.
