Cheap Family Vacations Full of Priceless Benefits

By Dr. Russ,

Are you ready for summer?  Are you thinking you can't have a vacation or fun with the kids because of the "down economy" and tight family budget?  As we approach the Memorial Day weekend and kick-off of summer activities, many of you may be looking for CHEAP BUT FUN, OPTIMISTIC, STAY-AT-HOME, LOW BUDGET VACATION IDEAS.  

The At-Home Theme Vacation

1. The key to this vacation package is identifying a theme that is fascinating and absorbs your interest; the more absorbing the more the optimism regeneration power.
2. This package requires more advanced preparation, planning and research than any of the others described below. 
3. Identifying the theme:  Travel and immersion in another culture provide ripe opportunities for becoming absorbed in the moment and rejuvenating optimism.  Other possible themes include some aspect of ancient history, Greek Mythology, the “wild west,” the 1920’s, 1960’s, or rock and roll, gospel or classical music.
4. In keeping with the Flex-Time Optimism Vacation Package, immersion in the theme can last for fortnight, a weekend, a day or two or just an evening.
5. Thematic Meals:  Go to you local library or search the internet for free resources on recipes associated with the theme.  For example, make Mexican dishes for breakfast lunch and dinner, or have an evening of French Cuisine (7 courses minimum) for that evening only vacation.  Invite friends or family; to stay on budget give them a recipe for a special appetizer, salad or dessert they can prepare and bring.
6. Thematic Activities:  While learning about meals at the library or on the internet, check out theme relevant activities.  If its Ancient Greece consider a pot-luck ancient Toga party.  Identify culturally relevant sites in your area to visit (e.g., a museum with an exhibit about some aspect of the theme or culture).  Use your library card to check out CDs, documentary movies, foreign films, films set in the culture, travel and other non-fiction books about the cultures customs, games and day-to-day activities, and literature characteristic of the culture or times.  Use these resources to plan activities such as dressing up in culturally appropriate attire or playing a favorite theme relevant game.  Plan to watch the films and read the literature; sometimes the readings could be done by one person around an evening campfire.
7. Lodging:  Camping can be done about anywhere in the world and you can pretend to be in Canada, France or Russia while in the comfort of your own backyard.  Family or Youth Hostels are available worldwide for really cheap prices as long as you do a little housework before leaving in the AM.  Pretend it’s a “hostel” and get the house cleaned, while you are at it!  Or, engage everyone in some elaborate roll playing and pretend you’re at some famous hotel.  Research the famous qualities of the place and recreate some of its customs (e.g., afternoon tea on the veranda; or chocolates on the pillow case with the covers turned down.)
8. An extra benefit:  No time wasted on travel to the destination or suffering from jet lag.

Local Sightseeing Vacation

1. Use internet, local library and publication resources to identify 14 different sites to see in the local community (within a 1 hour drive or closer).  If a site is worthy of a two or more day visit adjust your list accordingly
2. Obtain free literature describing the site so that whole family can learn together, in advance, about what to look for and expect at the site.
3. Activities:  Each day spend the morning and afternoon at the sight.  Use the evenings to attend a local free concert or hang out in the backyard playing some games, inside watching a “sight-related” movie or just cooking out and sitting outdoors. If you are doing the evening only Flex-Time-Package start with a quick home-prepared nutritious meal or take a brown bag or picnic to the venue and enjoy an evening of sightseeing as most venues are open until 8 or 9 in the evening.
4. Take pictures and videos of the site and your visit.  After the visit, post a favorite video on “YouTube,” put some pictures on Facebook, print out favorites and frame, post on the refrigerator, or start a scrapbook.
5. Meals: If possible take a picnic lunch to the sight; your budget may allow for an occasional lunch out at the local zoo or venue.  Make breakfast and dinner fun by cooking out on the grill or over the campfire, pancakes, waffles, all the fun stuff you don’t do everyday.  Have each family member pick a favorite meal they want – make sure they help with the preparation.
6. Lodging:  I particularly like the “camping in the backyard" lodging arrangement with a campfire, contained in accordance with local regulations, or a simple charcoal grill fire.  At the end of the day roast some marshmallows, make some s’mores, and talk about the day and the sights, sing a few songs and end up with a scary story.

Fun Filled At-Home Activity Vacation

1. This vacation package involves the most spontaneity and least amount of detailed planning than the other types.
2. You might include a few sightseeing trips (see above)
3. Make a list of twenty-five or more at home outdoor and indoor (rainy day activities) that you and the family can do together.  Water fun (squirt guns, sprinkler, inflatable pool, home made water slide); crochet, soccer, baseball, softball, foam football, badminton, darts.  Make sure you have plenty of stuff to do. For a whole day plan a morning and afternoon activity, and spend evenings around the backyard campfire. Camping out in backyard fits nicely if you want plan a tentative schedule, or just take some time after breakfast each morning to pick the activities of the day depending on weather and preference.  Occasionally make lunch and or dinner a picnic in a local park.  Evenings only? Start with a backyard cookout, then move on to one activity, then go to campout mode with fire marshmallows stories.  Raining? Move inside to watch a favorite video.  Once or twice order out for your Pizza and have a movie night.
4. Meals and Lodging: Check out the "sightseeing package" above.

Extreme At-Home Activity Vacation

1. By extreme, I don’t mean ultra-marathons or even marathons, but extreme physical activities for the sedentary life style including walking, running, biking, swimming, canoeing or even horseback riding.
2. This vacation package is best suited for adults and children 12 and up.
3. Use this vacation package to jump start a new family fitness routine or program.
4. Use the same free library and internet resources to plan your activities and days.
5. Activities: Identify trails to walk, run or bike for each day or evening.  Go to your local pool and start a challenge swimming program setting goals for and charting number of laps completed.  Check out an inexpensive canoe rental spot and see what the local riding stable might offer.
6. Meals: Same as above for the “Family Fun Package.”
7. Lodging: Same as above for the “Family Fun Package.”  Or, rent a spot for one or more nights at a local campground, set-up, go back home and walk, run or bike to the campsite.  Use the campsite as the hub for your daily physical jaunts.

 Explore the Unknown Vacation

1. This vacation package involves doing activities you and the family have never done before, but have thought “wouldn’t it be neat if . . ."
2. Go Geocaching.  Don’t know what that is go to geocaching.com and learn about it.  This activity could easily absorb the family for two weeks.
3. Go fishing.  Already fish? Go fishing at local spots you havn’t tried before.
4. Learn a new skill like scrap booking, photography, making videos, boating on local waterways, or take up a new musical instrument.  Get some lessons, practice at home, and have a party at the end to show off your new skill.
5. Make a list of local events, activities, free seminars at the library or community center, local plays, a movie or two. All of which you have thought about, but rarely or never done.
6. Stay at home/home improvement vacation.  Start and complete a new project around the house, planting a garden, landscaping, remodeling a room or two. House painting.  Involve the whole family;     

Ten Tips to Teach Children Optimism

By Dr. Russ

If you are a parent or a teacher, you may be looking for ways to teach children to be optimistic.  Social science research continues to show that optimistic adults live longer and happier lives.  Here are ten tips to teach children optimism.

1.    Children need to encounter new life experiences without fear.  New experiences teach optimism when they are fun, joyful and filled with wonderment.   Then, the experiences reinforce and strengthen an internal belief that the world is a place for exploration and learning.

2.    Anytime children engage in an activity that increases their belief that if they TRY to do, perform, or accomplish something, they CAN, they get a boost in optimism that is represented in the brain in permanent memory storage.

3.    Anytime children put on the “creative hat” without fear of criticism and judgment they learn to pursue goals with a sense of playfulness, being in control, and that anything might be possible.

4.    The more a child or adolescent feels emotionally connected and positively involved with the family and family members the more they have a sense of optimism bred by secure, stable and dependable relationships; a sense they are listened and responded to in a supportive facilitative manner.

5.    The summer is a great time to learn that effortful work leads to money of which a little can be saved and a little spent.  For real optimism make it up close and personal.  Have a conversation with someone from a different generation, culture, economic background, or country.  Find out as much as you can about how he/she views the world and feel the interconnectivity of the “human condition.”

6.    In the school of the future, optimism will be learned because students will be valued not only for their academic ability, but for their ability to think creatively, to communicate ideas, to facilitate collaboration, and to think non-verbally in visual-spatial domains.

7.    Can you imagine the optimism created in a classroom where teachers focus on how to learn from mistakes rather than how to avoid them?

8.    The school of the future will teach optimism by valuing students for their unique individuality as one student uses her artistic talent to contribute to the solution, another, his math skills, and a third her keen political/social awareness.  

9.    In the school of the future, each student will learn from the other in a community of optimistic experimentation and appreciation of hard work and “mastery.”

10.   Encourage children to have conversations with children and adults from different generations, cultures, economic backgrounds, or countries.  Make sure they find out as much as they can about how the other views the world and see if they don’t begin to experience the interconnectivity of the “human condition.”

Twelve Tips to Put More Optimism in Your Life

By Dr. Russ

1. Optimists seek help from an Optimistic Perspective, believe in their ability to overcome moderate to hard tasks through effort, and view getting help from others as a necessary tool to goal accomplishment.
2. Pessimistic Help-Seekers usually avoid asking for help, believe asking for help implies vulnerability, weakness, dependency, inferiority, a sense of obligation, and worry about burdening others with their problem.
3. Pessimists seek help only under the most socially acceptable circumstances, e.g., going to the hospital after an auto accident, help disguised as training or normal updating of knowledge and skill.
4. Optimistic Help-Seekers say: "it’s not about me, it’s about the importance of my goal, if I look incompetent asking for help, so what, I want to achieve the goal."
5. Optimistic Help-Seekers don’t make excuses for avoiding help, they ask for it.
6. Optimistic Help-seekers remain ego-detached, making a rationale analysis of the help needed which they get.
7. We argue that you will be doing your children a great disservice if you could, even with magic, remove all their problems and relieve them of their pain.
8. Celebrate your family: spend more time with them and teach them what you have learned about how to face life’s difficulties and overcome them!”
9. Practice a positive attitude everywhere you go, every moment you can!

10.  Networking, while keeping up enthusiasm and motivation even in the face of setbacks and slow progress, is essential to a successful rebirth process.

11.  You have a choice to choose hope over hopelessness, no matter what the circumstances. First you must let go of your anger and bitterness in order to allow space for some beginning dreams of a new future.

12.  We will remain dispirited until we realize that the loss of a projected future due to accident, injury or other circumstance is only in our minds, and thus we have the choice about how to view ourselves and lives.

Don't miss Opportunity this Holiday Season!

By: Jackie Monroe

A friend of mine shared a great quote with me the other day that I think goes perfectly with one of our Promises of Optimism.  The Promise has to do with the knowledge that we will have to work hard, and the quote is as follows:

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” -Thomas Edison

Are you missing opportunities around you, just because you aren't interested paying attention to things that look like "work?" Whether it's an opportunity to excel in your career, an opportunity to give more passionately to those in need (side note: give does not always mean of your money but your time), or an opportunity to right relationships and spend time you'll otherwise never get back with loved ones and friends...DON'T MISS IT!

Remember that through the Optimism Promise of hard work, optimism is born of the fruits of your labor! 

Want more optimism? Start looking for those opportunities to exercise a little self-sacrifice and hard work and see if the positive outcomes don't flow...

Travels with Sofie OR Ten Optimism Tips from the Perspective of a Dog

By Dr. Russ,

Monday is Dr. Russ Busster day.  Today’s Bussters are written from the perspective of a dog, in the hope that we humans can learn something by studying cross species optimism.

In 1960, John Steinbeck published a travelogue about his cross country trip with his Standard Poodle named Charley.  Today I write about my semi-cross country trip with my 9 month old Standard Poodle, Sofie.  Sofie and I have completed a multi-state drive through Ohio, the mountains of West Virginia, rolling hills of North Carolina, and oyster beds of South Carolina, arriving at our destination - Savannah, Georgia at 1 am Saturday morning. We made overnight stops in Winston Salem and Durham.

In 1960, Steinbeck made the trip to re-engage with the roots of his country up-close and personal, so that he could write a more inspired book about America – a country that had changed much since the Great Depression – and the publication of his fictional account of families struggling with these most difficult of circumstances.  

I am making the trip to explore some new opportunities for the future and to link up with my father’s side of the family for Thanksgiving Day.

Today’s Dog Inspired Bussters

 Here are five things I have learned, re-learned, or discovered so far on this journey regarding dog optimism.

1. No ideas where she is going - The dog maintains a positive attitude even though she has no idea what is coming next.  She readily jumps in the car whether we have been idle for 5 min. or half a day.  I cannot explain to her where and why we are going somewhere, or how long it will take. We humans tend to want to know where we are going, why and how long it will be, and as soon as we have the knowledge we start to worry about whether we’ll be bored, something bad will happen to us, or whether we will be wasting time.  I think the dog’s perspective allows for more optimism – just kick back, let the day unfold and live in each moment.
2. Patience – How many times have you gone on a trip and had someone ask “are we there yet.”  The dog never asks that question, and instead is just happy to be with you and to be going somewhere with you.
3. Friendliness – Dogs are known for their friendliness and poodles are especially outgoing.  Dogs are non-judgmental and do not practice discrimination of any kind.  What would life be like on earth if we humans behaved like that?  There would be less war, more cross-cultural exchange, and much more happiness since we would focus on acceptance and tolerance
4. Attraction – In general people like dogs, but poodles and Sofie seem to attract a lot of positive attention from passersby. On Saturday, my son and I took Sofie on a long walk throughout historic old Savannah.  It was a bright, sunny and warm day.  Everywhere we went we passed people who would smile and say, oh there’s a poodle.  One three or four year old exclaimed with glee to his father – Hey dad, that’s not a dog, it’s a sheep.  He repeated this phrase three of four times and giggled with glee each time.  Along the Savannah River we ran into a group of ten or more college students who stopped and spent about fifteen minutes talking about and petting Sofie, while peppering us with questions.  Sofie made their afternoon.
5. Family - Yesterday, we had the first of what will be several large family gatherings this week culminating with Thanksgiving Day.  Sofie enjoyed every minute of it including an hour boat ride through the marshes on the intercostals, meeting lots of new people, playing with kids, and finding a kindred spirit dog who enjoyed play and rough house as much as she does.  The only thing she didn’t get to share were the steamed oysters.  So, as you re-unite with family this week, keep in mind these lessons of optimism taught to me by Sofie.
   1. Don’t worry about where you going, who and how long you will be there – just enjoy the multiple-moments of Thanksgiving with friends and family.
   2. Be patient, even when you find Aunt Nellie asking you the same question over and over, or Uncle Bert complaining about his sister again.
   3. Let your friendly side show and you will be a big attraction.
   4. Spend time with family, make new connections and re-connect with old and your optimism will thrive.