I Refuse to Call It That

If things had gone as planned Husband and I would have been waking up in the cool fragrance of the Colorado mountains this morning. This was the week we had set aside for our annual camping trip, and every year we look forward to the books and knitting and cool breezes. Well, one of us does; the other one looks forward to hiking and exploring nature, but whatever. Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes.

That was the plan until last Monday anyway. We had our national park camp reservations and I'd cleared the vacation hours with my boss, but we've been running pretty much non-stop since my mother-in-law's health began to fail at Christmas. We're down to fumes and the to-do list before vacation just kept getting longer. As we were eating supper and trying to plan when we would pick up the camper, clean it and get it stocked for travel, Husband looked at me.

"What would you say if I suggested we just stay home instead?" he asked.

"I'd say this, right here, is just another reason I love you," was my reply.

We decided we'd treat this week as a vacation, but stay at home and divide our time between taking care of the non-urgent household tasks that hang over our heads all the time but keep getting pushed behind things that are on fire at the moment, and doing the things we normally do on vacations--books, knitting, day trips to antique shops. I declared a limit of two hours on "work"--if the linen closet isn't straightened out in two hours, it's waiting until the next day.

Today we spent two hours cleaning out a closet in Boy#3's old room, packing up two big boxes of Star Wars and Star Trek books for the attic and stuffing two garbage bags full of clothes for Goodwill. Next I'm going to shower, then work on Boy#1's t-shirt quilt for a while, then maybe take a nap.

You might call this a "staycation," as you legitimately could since it was added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary in 2009, but for some reason that portmanteau sets my teeth on edge and I don't plan to do anything this week that sets my teeth on edge. Just knitting, reading, and using my own bathroom.

Aaaaah. This is going to be nice.