I’m sitting on the beach of a beautiful Vermont lake, as my kids and hubby sleep. I don’t hear the loons this morning, just the crashing of gentle waves. And here I am checking my email and blogging, since Internet comes in here intermittently and probably won’t where we’re going next. This vacation has shown me how hooked I’ve gotten on technology, though I justify my early morning email peeks with the fact that I have a book coming out and need to be in contact with my publicist. It’s true that it’s been helpful to be in touch, but I can’t help suspecting that I’d be tempted, even if I didn’t have that excuse.

Limited Internet access is also clarifying how much unnecessary email I get. When you only have a few minutes, and the sun glaring off the lake is making it hard to read the screen, and your daughter wants to kayak with you, it gets pretty clear what does not need to be read or answered at the moment.

A child who will not be named stole my camera batteries for his CD player, so I haven’t loaded any pictures from Vermont yet, which is just as well since I don’t think any number of pixels could capture how beautiful it is here.