18 Days

Tomorrow is the last of 18 vacation days (including weekends). I'm not counting the morning I went in for a few hours. It went quickly and hardly seemed like 'work'. I was home by 10 and on with my day. I did have to set an alarm that morning to be sure I woke up early - but that's the only alarm I've set in over two weeks. I love no alarm. It's the best -

I've had 18 days of sleeping in. No pressure. No stress. Just hanging out at home and/or traveling to Vegas. It was a nice break and I know I really needed it. Now that it's almost over, I realize how 'ready' I was to NOT be thinking about work 24/7. I've rarely checked emails and made a conscious effort to NOT think about work. It's been lovely. I will probably regret not staying more 'involved' over the past couple weeks - but it's not a vacation if I spend time each day checking on emails. So I really 'let go' this time - for really the first time since I've had this job. If work popped into my head, I quickly ushered it out of my head. It will all come back to me eventually - probably by Monday at around 10AM.

We had a wonderful visit with our family yesterday. It was fun....and we have a lot of leftovers. Particularly fruit. I made a fruit salad and since I bought most of the fruit at Costco, I have oodles leftover. Tonight, I made blueberry sorbet with leftover fresh blueberries. Tomorrow, I will make strawberry ice cream (or sorbet). And then pineapple sorbet. We'll be well stocked in the ice cream department for at least a few days.

Possibly seeing Eclipse with H. tomorrow - we just haven't been able to wedge that in. He's been spending time with a select group of friends and hanging out at home. He's doing well - he's been attending regular AA meetings and he seems to have found a group that he likes - and it's in town, which is great. We are keeping very close tabs on him and he is doing well at keeping us informed. We will be in Oakland M-T-W evenings next week.

I had lunch with an old friend from my Mervyn's days - it's so great to have friends that you just pick up where you left off - we spent close to three hours chatting away and catching up. Haven't seen each other in close to a year - other than Facebook updates. Great to visit with her and fill each other in on our various life happenings.

I love vacation! I can't wait for retirement - though it's over a decade away. I still can't wait to have every single day be a vacation day! That will be awesome - in the mean time, I'm going to attempt to make 2+ weeks off in a row in the summer a 'must do' each year. It's really, truly very restorative. The winter break two weeks off is also great - but it's the holidays and I never truly 'unwind' during those two weeks.

Summer weeks off are so much better -