Then followed that beautiful season… Summer….
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Summer makes us feel young and alive again after cold winter nights. We long for vacation and an escape from our work and responsibilities. We want to feel like children again—to recapture that unabashed joy and sense of discovery that came over us as we experienced life for the first time.

During summer, we try to bring back little bits of our carefree, inner child everyday. We spend Saturdays at the pool or at local festivals and evenings at outdoor concerts; we skip through sprinklers on our afternoon runs (but quickly so no one catches us goofing off); and we drive with the windows down, music up and hair blowing in the wind. But, when we really want an adventure and a chance to live every moment and laugh every day, we go … on a road trip.

This year, I have a lot of living and laughing to catch up on, since I spent all of last summer in Strategic Management, Financial Management, and Business and Public Policy. So, over a leisurely weekend brunch, a few good friends (fellow MBA grads) and I came up with a “Life is Fun—Weekend Road Trip List.” I’m dubbing it my “Sweater List”—similar to a bucket list (things you want to do before kicking the bucket), but instead it’s things to do before it’s time to pull out the sweaters again. (Just try the lingo. It’ll catch on.)

In no particular order, here’s the 2009 Sweater List:
•    Annapolis, MD
•    Delaware Beaches
•    The Foxtrot B&B (not only b/c Gatlinburg is beautiful, but also b/c it’s my parent’s B&B)
•    Monticello
•    Virginia Winery Tours
•    Great Falls & the Billy Goat Trail
•    Atlantic City/Cape May
•    NYC (why not! it’s shopping, museums, plays, and everything else all in one)
•    FL (b/c everyone needs to spend at least one weekend in FL every summer)

To kick it all off with a bang, our first road trip destination will be Las Vegas. No, it’s not strictly a road trip (more of a plane trip), but we will be living, laughing, escaping work and responsibility, and most importantly, enjoying the company of great friends. We plan to spend our days at the pool and the spa. We’re also headed to Cirque du Soleil’s Mystere and Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House. If you have additional suggestions and must-see locations in Vegas, please let me know.

Below are a couple recent posts that I’ve enjoyed and that have help me prepare (at least technologically) to tackle the 2009 Sweater List.
•    11 Essential iPhone Apps for a Road Trip, including the Road Trip Fun iPhone app with rules for all your favorite classic road games
•    25+ Tools for a Road Trip 2.0

What are your favorite road trips or summer activities? Have any good road trip advice or stories to share? I’d love to hear from you.

And I’ll leave you with a few summer favorites to put a smile on your face. 

Two weeks ago, My Boys on TBS (episode 33) talked about powering down—taking time each day to do nothing.  The idea was that we spend so much of our time trying to achieve that we forget the benefits of powering down.  If, for example, you would spend a day on the couch in your pajamas watching old movies or reading a good book, you could feel more relaxed and gain a sense of balance and perspective in your life.

For more than three months now, I have perfected the art of powering down.  I’ve slept late, read the entire Twilight series in little more than a week, caught up on all my TV shows and Netflix movies, and managed to keep up to date on nearly all my RSS feeds (this is still reading for enjoyment for me, not news or work).  I even managed to power down while studying abroad in London, spending most of the time wandering different parks and neighborhoods, looking at houses and watching the people, with absolutely no agenda.

This time has been wonderful—a time for reflection and rejuvenation—and it has helped to bring me back down from the chaotic and fast-paced D.C. lifestyle.  However, now that I am officially finished with my MBA and still haven’t found that perfect job, I have nothing to do but relax.  I’m probably one of the few out there who is searching for something to do—something to focus on, something to achieve—in order to properly balance my powered-down life.

How is your balance?

Amazon planned the release of Kindle 2 just for my birthday.  I’ve been talking about one for a while and emailing pictures and links as hints for a birthday present.  It worked!!    Thanks Mom and Dad!

I LOVE my new Kindle.  It’s sleak, light, well designed, and in it’s new red leather case, quite stylish.  I’ve already downloaded several books and even finished one in just two days.  (That might also have something to do with the fact that I’m still unemployed and can stay wrapped up in a book until 3am.)

So many people question whether the Kindle, or any eBook reader, will be as comfortable to read and practical as a regular bound book, and I assure you it is.  It’s no different than holding a book between your hands, then just pressing a button rather than flipping a page.  The screen is very easy on the eyes, as well, very similar to reading off a printed page.  There are also so many book options on Amazon and other sites that you’re sure to find something you’re interested in.  However, I certainly hope more and more publishers will jump on the eBook bandwagon soon.  While I’ve only had my Kindle for two weeks, it feels so antiquated (and heavy) to pick up an actual hardback, and I’m definitely more likely to start reading something that I can download in less than a minute than something that requires a trip to the bookstore or several days wait to arrive in the mail.

I’m particularly impressed with Thomas Nelson’s recently released strategy of one price for mutiple formats (PW article – http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6641258.html?q=nelsonfree).  This gives readers the greatest freedom, and you won’t feel like you’re wasting money on the same book over and over again, just because you need to or like to have it in several formats.

My new Kindle is certainly not helping with my productivity this week (see previous note about staying up until 3am), but I still love it.  Really, can you ever read too much?

She went a little nuts with the post-it flags today, but I think
she'll survive.