As I mentioned last week, my wife and I stayed home for our annual fall break vacation, a staycation if you will. At first, we had a hard time acclimating to the free time, but we found a groove and knocked out a lot of little things during our time at home…
- Took the car to the repair shop to have the recalled airbags replaced
- Multiple vet visits for the family dog suffering from a tumor in his ear canal
- Cleaned the outdoor shed and donated and/or sold several items we no longer need
- Repaired a bedroom door that wasn’t installed properly after a previous repair earlier this summer
- Installed a new door knob on our back door
- I listed several items for sale online
- Visited good friends with frozen pizza in tow for a simple stay at home dinner
- One really nice, expensive dinner out on the town, just the two of us
- My wife got her jury duty moved from this fall (rough on a teacher) to next summer (perfect for a teacher)
- Finish repairing a vintage stereo receiver that I’ve been ignoring for months
I’m sure there are plenty of others things I forgot to mention.
NAPS! So many naps. I think I took a nap each afternoon which leads me to my other pro-staycation point: WE FEEL SO RESTED. I can’t stress this enough. Vacations can often lead to more stress and an overall sense of exhaustion upon returning home. This staycation allowed for us to get to bed at a decent hour every night, wake up at a reasonable time (usually around 7 or 8 am), grab a 30 minute afternoon nap and do it all over again.
Our decision to stay home is due to the fact that we didn’t want to finance a trip somewhere while we’re already paying off debt. It can feel embarrassing to tell others that your time off will be spent at home, but it turned into one of my favorite “trips” we’ve taken in a long time.
Long live the staycation.
Aaron Hartley 