Blogs - Chief of Pray Blog

Living on Your Own Terms

It’s not for everybody, but it works for us. During the winter months, I live in Florida and my husband David commutes from Chicago. I’m not your typical seasonal resident. I’m not playing mah jong or bridge with my condo neighbors, and I haven’t attended a single charity ball. I’m a workaholic like my husband. And somehow we manage to eek out twelve and fourteen hour workdays, while enjoying the sunshine and a warm climate on our own terms.

It’s not easy to get someone obsessed with work, to take a vacation from it. So we took a different approach: the workation. In a vacation you vacate, in a workation you work— but just not in crappy weather. Voila! Refreshed and relaxed, never frustrated and anxious because you’re worried you’re missing something.

David was here last weekend for his workation. He’s a partner in a CPA firm and can only spare limited chunks of time away from his office. Me, I work from home. We live in downtown West Palm Beach, a short walk along the causeway to the island of Palm Beach, a mecca for the wealthy and well-connected. I was getting ready on Saturday afternoon to go to Shabbat services at my synagogue. David was reading the Shiny Sheet, which is what everyone calls the Palm Beach Daily News. It’s a great little hometown paper, and it reports on the news local residents want to know about: other people, mostly. The paper reported that New York Yankee Nick Swisher and actress Joanna Garcia were getting married that night at the Breakers, which is the big fancy hotel near our home. We decided to crash it.

Well, not crash it exactly… but we did gawk. We plopped ourselves down in two chairs right next to the place where the celebrity guests made their way to the courtyard for cocktail hour. David recognized Alex Rodriquez, a famous baseball player, and I had a great time checking out what everyone was wearing. It doesn’t take much to break from your regular routine. And when you do, if you stop and appreciate the new and different, it gives life to the old and same.

We’re blessed to have a second home. I know that and I thank God every single day for the abundance. I’m blessed to be able to overwork, and to take time for play. I’m blessed to have figured out a way to balance responsibilities with shallow acts of self-indulgence. I’m blessed to be able to live life on my own terms. Praise God!

Day In and Day Out

Today has been kind of low key,
nothing much going on.
Still I see Your work all around me.
In the intricacies
of tendon and muscle and nerve
that enable my hands to work.
In the complexity
of sun and water
that supports life
on this complicated planet.
You are truly in all.

-Sue Bradford Edwards