Vacation - Day One...

So this is officially a vacation, eh? 

I’m a little underwhelmed.  It turned out to be a regular day of chasing about, trying to cram a full 28 hours into the standard Earthling-sized day.  Bah!  Mere mortals! 

I dropped the kids off for Mother’s Day, the dog and I did a little cruise about the country side going hither and thither, and I still managed to get home in time to watch the Formula 1 race.  Truth be known, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot I tried to cram in over the day.  After the race I fired up the game cube for some exciting “Lights, Camera, Pants!” action until the frustration of me sucking at Goo-Ladiators overwhelmed me and I gave up and played Runescape for a few hours.  I did my regular round of the blogs, ran upstairs to catch Holmes on Homes and called it a night.

I’ve felt the grind happening over the past while and my Lady-Love has convinced me that we need to take some time off.  She’s right, of course.  So I’ve been trying to think about the stuff I want to get done this week.  Nothing too fancy.  Just do a little yardwork.  And maybe work on a small reno project or two.  And I want to do a bit of shopping and pick up a few things I’ve been neglecting for months.  And I ought to take a bit of time and play Runescape and just work on a level or two.  And I’m really liking the idea of buying a GPS unit and going Geocaching - just an excuse to get out there and hike a bit.  And I’d love to catch up on my paperwork and get that out of my hair (and my Lady-Love’s line of sight).  And I’d really like to just up and get out of town for a while.  And I want to cook all week and maybe have some friends over and we’ll have a BBQ or something.  Well, maybe I should settle for getting in touch with everyone and at least send out emails or something.

Oh right, isn’t this why I needed vacation time in the first place?

Planning my week off is every bit as hard as work where I have a routine laid out for me day to day.   It’s the one part of the Time Management book I don’t have a grasp on yet - setting short and long term goals and writing them down.  I’ve got my airy-fairy list of wants, but nothing concrete enough to be able to figure out just how to get from here to there, where ever “there” may actually be.  I’m feeling more like I’m trying so hard to tread water I’ve forgotten how to swim.

Oh right, isn’t this why I needed vacation time in the first place?

I’m trying to not address this week as a fire waiting to be put out.  I’m good at that, but I’d love a week of not putting out any fires.  Tomorrow I’ll plan on shopping for clothes, maybe a short run over to Costco, and get some yard work in.  I’ve got an unofficial plan to take my Lady-Love somewhere nice for lunch unless we plan on getting out of Dodge for a few days.  Just keeping things small, managable, and relaxed for a week.  There’s a hard enough goal right there.

“I will manage my vacation so that it won’t become Project Management.”

Yeah, score one for the stressed out sub-uber-geek with the large cup of coffee.