last day

It’s the last day of my winter break (aka “Christmas Break”).  I had just shy of two weeks (I know, I know–totally unfair, but one of the few perks the job offers, as the pay certainly isn’t great).

Not exactly excited about going back to work tomorrow, but not dreading it either.  Which is what two weeks doing cross-stitch and listening to podcasts can do for you.  Or, rather, that’s what it can do for me.  You should try it sometime.  Very restful.

There was some time with family, but not enough to make me crazy.  More time with the oldest niece than with anyone else (she came to visit for 3 days), which was great.

I am rather enjoying this season.  Some folks call it winter, but here it’s mostly just the “not hot season.”  We get a few days of actual winter, but mostly it’s what a friend calls “Texas-cold,” which would make those of you in more northern climes scoff.  Lots of sunshine and decent temps almost makes one forget the hottest summer on record that we endured in 2011.

Miss Famous loves the not-hot season.  She will not love my return to work, however, as she will no longer have her human at her beck and call and won’t be able to go in the backyard any time she chooses.

Today, however, she is blissfully ignorant.(Please ignore the un-raked leaves.  The cute dog is the only item worthy of note in this image.)

ahhhhh…

I hope the fact that I’m actually posting doesn’t give anyone a heart attack.

I have felt a lot more like myself the last few days, and have been overwhelmed only by the number of potential posts floating around my head.  It got to where it felt like there was so much riding on the first thing I would write, that I became a bit daunted by the task.  I decided just to start writing and leave the ponderings for another day.

Today is my first day of vacation.  The way vacation time works at my job, I have to use all my time for the year by the end of August, and preferably by the middle of August (we follow the school calendar, so our year begins in August/September).  I thought I had fewer sick days than I actually did and thought I’d only be able to take 9 days off instead of 10.  So I worked yesterday, and discovered while doing my timesheet for July that I actually had enough sick days to cover my appendectomy recovery and should have been off yesterday.  Sigh.  I’ll now be off an extra day on the end, which is nice.

I have no big plans for my time off.  I’ll go see my younger sister and her progeny for a couple of days.  They live about five hours away.  Other than that, I am looking forward to having time off when I have a clear head and an increasing energy level.

In the meantime, any questions?  Anything you’d like to know about me?

show and tell: the vacay pics

This week, I would like to show you where I was LAST week.  I wrote a bit about it already, but didn’t show any photos, yet, because, well, I was saving them for show and tell.   Join the rest of the class over at Mel’s.

I went to a small island just off of C.ancun (just a short ferry ride away) called Isl.a Mu.jeres.  I I would highly, highly recommend it for rest and relaxation.  It’s not quite so party-centric that Ca.ncun appeared to be.  People were lovely, beaches were lovely, what more could you ask for?

perfect moment monday: mexico lindo y querido

I was away most of last week.  My friend, Cherry, convinced me to go, and when I say convinced, I mean CONVINCED.  I had many good reasons not to go on vacation at this time, the best of which–I HAVE NO JOB.  But Cherry’s logic was, well, what better time to go?  If I had a job, I probably wouldn’t be able to get time off, and so…

I felt like I was mostly going to keep her company, so that she wouldn’t have to make a trip alone.  Of course, I also wanted to see her.  I had wanted to see her before I made my Great Escape (she lives about three hours from where I lived with X), but then things moved so quickly and that didn’t happen.

We talked about meeting halfway, meeting where I am, meeting where she is, etc., etc.  But this vacation (which was just theoretical for several weeks) felt like a favor I was doing Cherry, and part of me really was hoping that it would fall through.

Until.

Until someone Cherry knew in her neck of the wood suggested Ca.ncun, and it was like the sun came out from behind the clouds, the angel choir started singing, and I started getting into the idea of a vacation.

Cherry had to go to a professional conference and we really needed to get on the ball about planning this trip, so I got on the interwebs and started looking up package deals for C.ancun, and started seeing information for Isl.a Mu.jeres, which is just a ferry ride away.  I remembered hearing about this lovely island, back when I lived in Mexico (my junior year in college), and something was telling me this was the place to go.  We found a good deal (flight and hotel), and off we went.

So what is the perfect?  Well, first, Cherry in her wisdom, knew I needed this.  I needed to get away, to get out of my parents’ house, to have things shaken up a little.  Somehow just having this event on the calendar, instead of an endless sea of indistinguishable days served to motivate me better than anything else had, and the week before I left I had my most productive week yet (hence the spotty posting) in the whole “getting my shit together” arena.  Suddenly time was divided into “before the trip” and “after the trip.”  I got a focus (not only because of the trip, but that’s for another post) and direction, and I feel like things were going somewhere.

What else was the perfect?  Well, Mexico.  As I mentioned, I lived in Mexico for about a year when I was in college, and going back was…amazing.  It was reviving to reconnect with that part of me, to speak Spanish everyday, to remember that part of my life from so long before I even heard the name of Mr. X.

More perfect?  Being with my amazing friend, who knows me so well.  We talked and talked and listened and were quiet and talked some more.

Still more perfect?  The last day, I woke up early, ready to come home, ready to come back to my life.

Perfect.

Find more celebrations of the perfection in the mundane here.

(photos to come in this week’s Show & Tell)

back

But not quite in the saddle again.

The trip was the best idea in a long, very long time.

It was like taking a deep, deep breath after only having little shallow puffs of air…for a year.  I am feeling rested in my bones, and I didn’t even know I was tired.

Obviously I’ll write something more substantial later, and eventually I’ll get back to whatever I was angsting about before I left, but I wanted to let you know I’m here, and slowly, but surely catching up on all the bloggy things.

Peace.

away from the internets…

So I was planning to write a really great post today (actually I’ve been planning it for several days, but you know…), but as luck would have it, I did not have much access to the computer, on this, my last computer-access day before being away from the interwebs for a bit.  Alas, you will have to live without my ramblings for a bit longer.  Perhaps they will get more concise and less rambly in my time away from the computer.  Not likely, though.  I may be back in the blogosphere around Thursday evening (July 16) but it’s more likely sometime in the weekend after that.

So have a really great week, internets, and try not to break anything while I’m gone.