Summer vacation

For some time now, we have not taken a vacation at home. Everytime we had vacation time to use, we went somewhere. Down the shore for a week, to California to visit the youngest. But we never stayed at home. This year we stayed home. This year we decided that since the youngest was coming home for the Dad's birthday, then staying home was a good idea. It has been eye opening in a way. The husband has gotten all sorts of miscellaneous chores and projects done, that I frankly didn't know needed to be done. He bustled from sun-up to sun-down. I on the other hand, took a vacation.

Before the younger got home, I had scrubbed and polished and straightened with a verve bordering on, well, the husband's. But I have not done much of anything since the beginning of the vacation. I have re-read parts of books that are my favorite (The Once and Future King, Winter's Tale, some romances which just grab you around the heart and pull). I sat for 2 1/2 hours with the son watching West Side Story, a musical he has never seen. I'm considering painting my toenails. I've stared for long periods of time at the clouds and the small patch of milkweed I grow in the off chance some poor misguided monarch butterfly will find it (one did! and I scared it away in my exuberance). I have even sat and petted the cat for a while-- an unheard of occurance. It has been blissfully quiet and peaceful. And I find that I catch up on my dreams when this happens. I dream of learning to play the piano again, of learning to speak in sign language (perhaps for future use), of learning to shoot a gun just for the experience of doing it. I find myself wanted to sew again, hand sew or do cross stitch--I even went so far as to buy something to make for my mother. Vacations remind me that life is full of other things than the computer, the phone, filing, writing notes, answering questions about things that don't relate directly to real life, just life in the employment world. I like me better during vacation. I like what I do better. I like the way I am with the world and my God better. Is everyone like that on vacation, I wonder? The stay at home vacations where you aren't rushing to Mt. Rushmore or scrambling to get in line for the 30 second roller coaster, those things are not really a vacation. They are filling in the full life you had in another location. It feels like a vacation because you are looking at something else with the same pointed intensity as what you look at when at work. But it feels different.

This vacation feels very different. It is easier. Nicer to be home. I think I'm going to stop writing now and do my nails...maybe even my toenails and watch the clouds for a while longer. See you soon.