Simplicity
Don’t we all strive for some sort of simplicity in our lives? At the very least we want more time. Heading down to the Cottage for a weekend or even a week gives my family that needed time. It is really a back-to-basics kind of time.
While we do bring the laptop and iPad they are not for everyday use. They are for watching a DVD or playing an app on a rainy day when all other options are exhausted. We don’t have a telephone or internet down there and while my cell phone does have a hotspot it only works if I get four or more bars of signal and that only happens on a cloud-free-windless-day-if-I-lean-out-over-the-deck-at-a-certain-angle-and-don’t-breathe. 
We swim, explore the woods around camp, play horseshoes (this is a BIG competitive thing between the men in the family—I think a beer might be on the line if you win haha), go fishing, take the boat out, walk up the road, head over to my grandparents old house at the other end of the lake and pick blueberries (in August), or play board games like monopoly, candyland, etc. Chess and checkers are available and card games happen after dark usually out in the kitchen. Games like go fish, scat, phase 10, cribbage, and sometimes poker. Solitaire is a favorite on a rainy day as well. We have bubbles, badminton, balls and, more recently, a bean bag toss game my husband and I made.
Kids color or do puzzles for quiet time and otherwise just make up fun things to do. The other day my almost-six-year old, my 3 year old and my 30-year old (Military Man) were running around playing pirates. Apparently the little pirates were convinced the big pirate was a bad pirate and had stolen their ship (the deck). Sounds & shrieks of “Avast ye mateys!” and “Raise the Sail!” were heard for miles along the lake I’m sure.
The point is that while this certainly isn’t camping (there are no tents and we only have to break out the air mattresses when the cabin is really really full of extended family) there are s’mores around the fireplace, made-from-scratch meals every day, naps for young and old alike and so much fun stuff to do that no one misses the technology or the toys that go blinkie blink and beep beep.
In fact, we give our kids a small child’s backpack to fill with toys to bring and they put one or two small items in and never open it once we are here. At 6 and 3 they already know that the best part is the make believe and the ‘see what happens when we get there’ atmosphere.
Even the every day sorts of things that my kids are not interested in at home are an adventure and something fun to watch & participate in here. My daughter spilled chocolate milk on her shirt one afternoon so I took some shampoo (all I had) and started hand washing it in the sink. This fascinated her for a good 10 minutes. Imagine what she will think when it’s a sunny day and I bring some (bio-degradable!) soap down to the lake to take a ‘bath’ or wash some laundry.
Upstairs there is an old phonograph that has all sorts of records (I’m sure they are actually called something else) but one stays on it all the time. We crank it up and play it at least once a summer and always when there is a newcomer to the Cottage. It’s a song that goes “Whether it’s cold or whether it’s hot, we’re going to have weather, whether or not” (Listen to it here!) It’s become the ‘anthem’ of the Cottage over the years and the fact that it plays without electricity and that you have to crank it to get it to go? Well that is just bonus fun for all us ‘young-ins’ who grew up with cassettes, cds and mp3s.
I don’t think the walls of this place have ever heard the words “I’m bored.”
What is one thing you do to bring some simplicity to your life? Do you ever go without technology for a bit? Tell me in the comments below!
Have a happy day,
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