Tag: #vacation

Out In A Cabin In The Woods

This is not the literal cabin we’re staying in, but you get the idea. Photo by Eneida Nieves from Pexels

Happy Friday everyone! I’m writing this post from a small cabin on the Sunshine Coast. It’s been raining all day which seems pretty ironic now that I’m thinking about it. I wonder if the people who named this area had a sarcastic bent.

In any event, the area has mostly lived up to its name. We’ve been paddle boarding, kayaking, and generally enjoying the last days of Canadian summer. Fall is a gorgeous time of year here, but before the fiery colours of fall touch the maple trees, we will have days and days of rain. I need a few more days (or even weeks!) of hot sweaty weather before I can look forward to the crispness of Fall.

The kids, just before they stood up and paddled away from us.

Writings and Appearances

In between all off the summer frivolity I’ve been writing a lot. I have an article entitled ‘How to Build Influence to Improve Your Company Culture–Even if you aren’t in charge‘ up at Medium today. In it I share how I think about building influence in a company.

On August 10th I was on the Ask Sharifah show, talking about the issues of the day. This one wasn’t strictly related to remote work since there were six of us, and we were talking about things that entrepreneurs are most concerned with. But if you want to hear about how people transformed personal pain into nonprofit work, or why you need to work on your website, this might be the episode for you.

On August 8th my piece ‘Choose Your Own adventure: K-12 Back to School, Pandemic Edition‘ went live on Humor Outcasts. This one is on the more ‘biting’ end of the satire spectrum. I also co-launched a comedy publication with some of my fellow satirists from my Second City class on August 17th. It’s called Greener Pastures Magazine, and you can read a fake column I wrote from the perspective of the Greener Pastures’ mascot, Aggie Green. It’s called ‘Good Girl Aggie! An advice Column from Man’s best friend.’ It’s basically gentle comedy, because Aggie is a Very Good Girl. Check out some of the other work published there. My fellow writers are a talented bunch. I’ve always wanted to be an editor for a magazine, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity.

Change Is In the Air

I’m enjoying these last few weeks of August, because changes are coming to Douglas HQ. I’m not quite ready to give details on that yet. As with any big change, this one touches a lot of other people. But I hope to have more for you soon.

Until then I wish you well from a quiet little corner of the BC countryside.

The First Rule About Fight Club

Two people doing fake karate moves at sunset. Photo by Snapwire on Pexels

Sunday I sprained my hand. I would love to say that I did it while landing a wicked punch at Fight Club, but we all know the first rule about Fight Club, so my hands are tied. Metaphorically. I definitely didn’t do it by putting my hand down on my mattress and preparing to get up. Nope. That would be too embarrassing.

So in an effort to rest my hands, you’re getting pictures of my trip to Vancouver Island. British Columbia moved to stage 3 of our Covid response. This means we’re allowed to travel within the province for fun if we can maintain social distancing and proper pandemic hygiene.

We took a ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. Why are these two places named the same thing? Was George Vancouver compensating for something? We may never know. In any event, BC Ferries asked everyone to stay in their cars if possible during the passage, so our ride looked a lot like getting through Seattle traffic.

Photo of parks parked close together. There is no difference between I5 and sitting still on the Ferry

While we were there I did a video interview with a news outlet I’m not going to name because I don’t know if my part of the video is going to be used. I was out in the country on terrible wifi, talking about remote work. Very meta.

I thought about the folks at Grow Remote, working to make distributed work a reality for rural communities. I don’t know if I would move to a rural area if I had strong internet, but people who want to get away from cities, or move back to the hometown they love, should have that option. Some of us city-folk would love to rent a place for the summer if we could rely on the internet. The video quality of my interview was pretty bad. I probably won’t be included in the montage. Still, the porch was lovely.

Turns out this porch was perfect for writing, and playing guitar. In the background is a vegetable garden.

There’s something so bewitching about new places after spending so much time within 5k of my own home.

Photo of children on a country road. On the way to see the horses.

Vacationing on a farm is such a city-kid thing to do. I freely admit it. You could tell who grew up rural in my team call when I mentioned my vacation plans. My fellow city-dwellers thought it was a great idea. A colleague who grew up on a farm looked at me like I was crazy. She doesn’t like chickens. I was afraid to ask what went down. I didn’t want to have nightmares.

The kids fed dandelion greens to the horses. Apparently they’re nutritious and very tasty if you’re a horse.

The farmers who rented the cottage to us gave the kids a tour of the barn, social distance style. The kids helped bring in the horses. It looked a lot like following the farm dog as he did the actual work, but nobody seemed to mind. Afterwards they held some baby chicks.

I have this fantasy that someday I’ll own a small-ish bit of land not that far from town. It would have to be big enough for me to have chickens and a dog, and a small vegetable garden. In my mind’s eye, there’s a small studio separate from the house, where I can write and knit in peace. My husband will have his own workshop. I don’t know if I would actually LIKE this lifestyle. All my lived experience is in and around a city. I enjoy getting lost in a crowd. Who knows? Maybe I too would grow to hate chickens.

But for four days and three nights, I lived out that fantasy. And it was fun.