Friday Five: Taking a Break

A great Friday Five from Songbird today:

"Where we live, it's February School Vacation Week!

Yes, that's an odd thing, a vacation extending President's Day. But it's part of our lives here. Some people go South or go skiing, but we always stay home and find more humble amusements.

In that spirit, I offer this Taking a Break Friday Five. Tell us how you would spend:

1. a 15 minute break
2. an afternoon off
3. an unexpected free day
4. a week's vacation
5. a sabbatical."


I wish this was break time for us, but in fact we are hot and heavy into the Spring Semester, and won't have a break until late March. I can fantasize, though, and I can certainly have little bitty breaks.

1. 15 minutes? A cup of tea, a brief conversation with a friend standing outside the library (my home away from home these days until the thesis is done), two games of computer solitaire, a prayer.

2. The best kind of afternoon off would be one where PH is also free, and we can go for a ride or visit one of Your Nation's Capitol's wonderful and free museums. A side trip to a local coffee shop cum bakery. A nap.

3. An unexpected free day doesn't happen. At least not in recent memory. If such a miracle occurred, though, it might mean simply a longer version of #2, with lunch someplace ethnic, cheap, fun.

4. You can go pretty far in a week - I could imagine a trip to visit our relatives in the Middle East (really!), a trip to Italy, visiting grandbabies in New England, any number of lovely places. I could also imagine that my next full week's vacation that is truly a vacation as opposed to school break will be spent packing our house in anticipation of a move to my first call (please, Lord?)

5. A sabbatical might be built around the big international preaching conference held every two years, and might also include some study of preaching in transitional/interim/expat settings. It might also be built around the shaping of liturgy in different places as a reflection of context. It'll be a while before I have to chew on what to do on sabbatical, so these are very tentative nibblings around the edges of ideas.

Okay, enough Friday procrastination - time to do some work.