Why I Love / Hate Vacations

I have a real love/hate relationship with vacations. There are a lot of reasons why I love them and a whole ‘nother set of reasons why I hate them (mind you, hate is too strong of a word for this but I’m feeling dramatic today)...

I love to get away from it all, but I hate to prepare for it. Have you ever noticed that you do 10 times the amount of work you would normally do prior to leaving for vacation? Leaving for vacation means putting in lots of extra hours so you CAN actually jump on a plane and get out of town. It’s stressful trying to get projects buttoned up and in a place where you can leave them with co-workers, but it’s very necessary. Nobody likes to be the one left behind with mashed up projects that don’t make any sense, right?

I loathe packing for a trip! I’m not a big procrastinator, but for some reason I will find 100 other things to do rather than pack a suitcase. I have friends who really enjoy it and take great pride in starting their packing a week before they leave for vacation. I, on the other hand, often leave packing until the last minute. Sometimes I get lucky and do it the night before, but this is a rare occurrence.

I flew to Seattle Monday morning and at 11:15 p.m. Sunday, I was still emailing people at work and wrapping up projects. At that point, I hadn’t even pulled my suitcase out of the garage yet. I got up early Monday morning, fed my cats and dog and then retrieved my suitcase from the garage and proceeded to pack. I had no idea what to pack either because Washington weather is all over the place and I didn’t have an activity agenda. Anyway, it’s not just this trip specifically, it’s pretty much all of them. I never know what to pack or what I’ll want to wear on any given day. I mean really, does anyone plan which outfits they’re going to wear in a given week? I usually end up packing several pairs of jeans/pants along with 2-3 tops for each. Luckily, I was smart enough to pack layers for this trip...I’ve needed them! I went shopping in Seattle yesterday and it poured rain most of the day, but I didn’t pack an umbrella. So, I bought a cute compact umbrella in the afternoon and from that point forward, I didn’t see a drop of rain! Thank you “rain gods.”