Staycations Sometimes Stink

At Least We Had the Ocean

We did this all wrong. That’s how The Husband and I felt about last week.

Last summer, we had two weeks where he was off from work and we never left our house. We sang the praises of staycation. I mean, we live at the beach. What’s not to love?  We went to our beach until bedtime most nights. We grilled out. We slept in. We played games. I snuck in a little work here and there when no one was looking and maybe he did too but it never ruined a single day.

We had a ball and the best part was that we didn’t have to contend with that just-back-from-vacation laundry pile or smelly locked up house. We just finished our relaxing and headed into work and the new school year with renewed spirits.

This year, he planned his two weeks again and we didn’t even consider traveling. Truthfully, we couldn’t finance a trip anyway, but we didn’t even care. Last year’s staycation was so good we were looking forward to staying home this year.

Then July came and his two weeks got moved around. Then his two weeks got cut to one. Then his one week involved a road trip for a freelance gig, a few conference calls and a new business proposal that had to be finished. And it wasn’t just him. I had deadlines to meet and clients to prepare for and a few phone calls to sneak in. We also did it the week before school started so there were new shoes to buy and notebooks to label and uniforms to launder.

There were high points. We met an Olympian and it was hard to complain on the days when we did make it to the beach.

All in all though, The Husband was in our house and “off” work, but it wasn’t much of a vacation for anyone and it was all our fault.

Next year, we’ve vowed to either try to go somewhere, or lock all our technology in the office and throw away the key for seven days. Then we’ll get a maid to clean before hand, buy some prepackaged dinners and plan to live at the beach for seven days.

Screw the post-vacay laundry pile. It’s worth it.

Only 358 more days.