Need A Break!

Focusing on the positive again!  Vacation is only a few hours away, just waiting on J to get back from a Saturday morning meeting at work.  We’ve not had a true vacation since our California trip last October.  This trip, we are going to a very small coastal island in Florida, where there is nothing to do, and where we’ll take a car ferry just to get there.  No driving, no interstate, no traffic.  Just walking the beach, strolling the quaint downtown when it’s dinner time.  It will still be somewhat chilly this time of year, and I’m hoping that means not many other vacationers will be around.  J and I are not much for crowds.

J and I decided we are not going to take any “big” vacations this year, to try and save money but also to try and relax more.  Our normal vacation schedule every year is one week in Florida, one 7 day cruise where we always get a big cabin, and then one huge blowout vacation week, normally California or Vegas.  This year, we’re not going any place where we have to fly, where we will be staying at a casino, where we will leave the country.  This year it’s going to be all about slow getaways, relaxing, unwinding, peace and rest, being alone but together.  Usually on our vacations, we try to cram in as much activity and sightseeing as possible, and we come back utterly exhausted and in the hole a few grand.  We drive from here to there all day long, every day.  Or we buy too much/eat too much/spend too much in Mexico or Atlantic City or Los Angeles.   I am happy we are going to downsize our vacations this year.  I think this will work out for us well, and it’s just what we need.  Mostly, I hope J will be able to relax for the week, instead of getting even more stressed out trying to keep up with a self-inflicted non-stop vacation itinerary.

I told J, I’m hoping that we’ll find we don’t need to take the big glitzy trips every time our vacations roll around.  I am hoping that we’ll discover that having nowhere to go in the morning besides getting coffee and taking it down to the shoreline, is just the right pace.  Our hotel is just two blocks from the beach, that’s the most hustling and bustling I want to do on this trip.

No matter where we go, J has to work, dragging his laptop along.  I wish I could save him from it, but that’s out of my control.  He says he prefers to work while we are gone in order to keep up, instead of coming back to a thousand emails to catch up on.  I understand the concept, but secretly I resent it.  Not J, because I know he’s doing the right thing.  Just resenting the situation, the phone calls, the urgent texts, the issues that no one else can take care of but J, and how it cuts into my time with him, our time together that is supposed to be a vacation from work.  Then I remind myself that work is paying for the vacation. 

On the other hand, work is WHY we need the vacation, what we are trying to get away from in the first place.  Vicious cycle.  But this time it leads to blue ocean views, clear skies, and sun on my shoulders.

MISS GEE

Back Home Again

Back from California and I have to confess, it was not the greatest vacation of all time the way I had expected it to be.  I've always said I want to live in California, and I figured this visit would confirm that desire.  It didn't, at all.  California has just always seemed cooler and hipper, healthier, richer, more artsy and creative.  Or maybe I picked California as my dream world because it's the farthest I can get away from my real life on the East Coast.

It was a wonderful trip and we had a fantastic time together, but it just didn't blow my socks off like I thought it would.  This was my third visit to the West Coast, all of them with J, and maybe an entire week out there was just too much.  We did a lot, visited LA and San Diego, the mountains and the beaches.  Did the tourist traps, shopping, eating, driving, casinos, museums, sitting and staring at the water.  The rest of it was just wearing ourselves out and rushing around in traffic trying to get from one place to another, much like we do at home.

The relaxing at the beach was probably the highlight for both of us.  Maybe it's just me, I was born on the Gulf Shores on a beach town, and lived there until I was 30. Life on the shores is just in my blood.  J loves it too, although he was raised on a working farm closer to mountains than water.  It's his desire to retire to the beach, and he always tells me he's "not" on vacation yet until he sees the water.

While we were there I realized that, no matter where you are, it's all the same. Really.  I had expected this trip to California to enlighten me and lift my spirits, when in reality I saw the same things out there as I do at home- lines in the fast food drive-thru, Wal-Mart, crazy drivers on the interstate, stray animals, trash blowing down streets, people texting while they walk down the sidewalks, run down neighborhoods.  The same TV shows, the same stores, the same chain restaurants. I saw a lot of natural beauty out there, plants and birds we don't have back on the East Coast.  Yet the sameness outweighed the differences.  In fact, the photo on this post was taken in California, the photo under my "About Me" title was taken in my home town in Florida.  Not much difference is there?

Not long ago, someone asked me what my perfect life would be.  I said, spending my days strolling along the beach, doing yoga, walking around the farmers market, making pottery or painting in my home studio, relaxing on a back deck reading a paperback.  In California.  Yes, I really said I felt like I needed to be in California to live that perfect laid back lifestyle I had envisioned.  But the truth is, I can do all of that anywhere.  Well, maybe not the beach part, where I live now I'm hours and hours away from the nearest sandy shoreline.  But the rest of it, I can do right here, right now.  Yet I don't, and why is that?

If I lived in California, I would still have to go to work every day, I'd still have to do laundry and pull weeds in my garden, I'd still have to vacuum and mop and clean litter boxes, I'd still drink too much caffeine and eat too many carbs.  Living in California- or anywhere else- would not automatically make me eat right and exercise, or finish writing my novel, or be a better person and wife.  I'd still be fat and old and tired and grumpy, and more than likely, still depressed and negative.

Yes I work full time, but that is really no excuse.  When it comes to my life away from the office, I am such a poor time manager, and my days and weeks slip by without me accomplishing a single thing on my "to do" lists.  I have a back deck here- it faces the woods and not the ocean, but I can relax out there in the evenings with a good book.  And I have a home studio already, the bonus room upstairs that J has allowed me to take over with all my paints and glazes and stamps and fabrics, why am I not up there right now creating something for my Etsy shop, which is empty?  We have plenty of farmers markets right here, maybe not as cool as the big one in LA we went to, but I'm not even taking advantage of the ones in my own town now.  And yoga?  I have a mat, stretch pants, and a DVD player- but am I doing my sun salutations every day?  No.

So I came to the realization that, even if I lived in California, I would still be the same me.  If I'm not living my life right now to the fullest today, this week, this year- what difference would the change of scenery make?  It's ME that has to change, not the state I live in.

MISS GEE

Anticipation

My misery factor is fairly low this week.  Things have been better, my head has been clearer.  I've made a few really awesome pieces of pottery that didn't explode in the kiln.  My boss has been either coming in super late or leaving super early this week, which is like a big weight off my shoulders to not have D there.  J decided to NOT apply for the promotion which would mean us packing up and moving and starting over again.  They are hiring a new person for our department to help with the overwhelming workload.  And vacation is 48 hours away.

It's probably the vacation that is making me so happy this week, my mind has already headed out to the West Coast, but it's leaving my fat body behind so it can enjoy some sunny California time without me embarrassing it.  Friday night the rest of me will be out in California as well, with my best friend and Super Husband J at my side.  I admit, in the "I'm spoiled" department, vacations top the list.  Yes we've been to California before, but not for an entire week like this upcoming visit.  (And maybe one sneaky afternoon south of the border.)

One of the joys of being childless, is being selfish with vacations!  We make reservations, call Miss Jane our cat sitter, stop the mail and newspaper, and we're off to wherever we want to go.  This summer we went to Walt Disney because WE wanted to, not because we had to.  And we had a blast, just the two of us. We both have high stress, demanding jobs and at least for me, vacations are the only way I can truly get away from it.  J will still have to work, on his Crackberry and his laptop.  But he's over 2100 miles away so it's not like he'll have to haul his butt into the office on a Saturday, like when we're trying to relax at home and he gets "a call"...

Me, I'm hourly, so no working off the clock.  But, I will come back in that following Monday morning to at least 600 emails.  No, that's not an overly dramatic statement, that's a factual number of emails that usually greet me when I return from being out a week.  My supervisor might have to handle 50 of them, if I'm lucky.  It's a small price to pay, to play on the beaches in Cali-forn-i-a.  And not think about work for a whole week!

MISS GEE