Whew

So we're back from vacation.  Make that vacation round 2.  I realized yesterday that I think we've only been at church a handful of Sundays in the past two months in between hiking around Ireland and taking weekend trips to Bentonville and flying off to Seattle and Vancouver for a week.  I love traveling and I love adventures but I also like sleeping in my own bed and eating food I cook, especially when it means I can eat some veggies now and then.  Something about vacation food makes me happy only for the first five minutes of eating it and then I wish I were eating from my stash of apples and peanut butter or KIND bars that I always seem to have laying around in the comforts of my own home.  Note to self: try and back better snacks next time I go on vacation.  But here's the thing, in between finishing up stuff at work, tidying up the house, making sure Noah was going to be with a responsible adult the entire time we were gone, writing out Noah's current schedule and eating habits, making sure the doctor had all the right signatures on file in case something went wrong while we were gone, grabbing our passports, and remembering to pay for the HomeAway place we were staying in Vancouver I sort of missed the part about snacks for myself to make sure I stayed happy.  Good thing Seattle and Vancouver have lots of yummy coffee shops.

I'm learning about what I like on vacations.  I've decided the less people the better.  Not the less people traveling with me, just the less people wherever we are going.  I say the more the merrier in our traveling party.  Wow I sound like I'm out of Downton Abbey.  Also I like sunshine.  And mostly outdoors things with a little reading in a coffee shop thrown in.  And staying in apartments or condos where you can cook some of your own food or at least have a stash of fruit in the fridge.  I like having a little bit of a plan but not having the days so jammed packed you can't change things if you think of something better to do.  Also I'm really attached to my latte.  Also the less times I have to move my suitcase the better.  I have never wished we did more on vacation but I have definitely wished we did less.

Also I feel permanently scatter brained right now and it stresses me out.  I feel like I have to do lists everywhere and yet when I try and remember what I'm supposed to be doing right now it escapes me.  On the trip to Vancouver I kept trying to remind myself that God doesn't expect me to have it all together.  In fact he expects the opposite so I should probably try and be more gracious to myself in light of how gracious he's been to me.  Not sure if that makes any sense.  Basically I was trying to remind myself that I just started a job again and I'm balancing a whole new set of tasks and it makes perfect sense that I haven't cancelled my YWCA membership even though I have no intention of going there now that I'm back at work (don't worry I'm switching to a new gym right by work).  It makes perfect sense that I haven't eaten as many veggies in the past month.  It makes perfect sense that I'm feeling more anxious.   It makes perfect sense we forgot to take the trash out for two weeks straight or that I have lettuce growing in my garden I haven't had time to pick.  Basically my expectations for myself are (as usual) way too high and it only adds to the stress.  So I'm trying to cut myself some slack.

On that note I'm off to watch some netflix.  And maybe eat some ice cream.

I did run in the rain today during my lunch break and it was awesome.  I jumped in some puddles and splashed water off of tree branches and probably looked like I was mentally disturbed but it made my day so much happier.