Its Good to be Home

Confession: As much as I love weekend road trips to get away from it all, I have mixed emotions about them upon my return home to reality. For example.....

Last Friday evening after work, we loaded up my car and headed up the interstate to beautiful Lake Martin, AL for the holiday weekend. It was fabulous. Our whole family was there; the four of us, Brent's parents, his sister and her husband and their two girls. We spent the mornings drinking coffee on the porch overlooking the lake and cruising around on the boat. In the afternoon we took the little ones swimming at the pool. We dined on home cooked meals at night and on the 4th we feasted on the traditional smoked ribs and grilled corn. YUM!! The weather was perfect, and thanks to that I can actually claim to have a tan this year.

It was a relaxing getaway that I hated to see come to an end. Because as usual, I knew what would await me upon our arrival back in Mobile: last week's laundry plus the laundry that accumulated over the weekend, a kitchen with no groceries, and a house that needed a little more cleaning that was done before we left. So as has become my custom I have spent most of my weeknights playing "catch up" on all of the things that I normally do on the weekends, but couldn't because we were gone. I do this so that the upcoming weekend will still have hopes of being somewhat of a weekend..meaning I am not dealing with not one but TWO weeks of piled up laundry and cleaning.

Luckily we are in town the rest of July. This is good for several reasons.

1. We have been out of town 3 of the last 6 weekends. I am tired and need a break from traveling. Especially in a small car with two small children, a husband, and all of our stuff - half of which never seems to make it out of aforementioned small car which creates one more thing to add to my "to-do" list.

2. I am not too proud to admit it gets expensive traveling so much by the time you factor in gas, boarding my 60 lb chocolate lab, food, and the inevitable unexpected necessary (and sometimes unnessecary) purchases that tend to get made on the road.

3. I need time to prepare, and I mean seriously prepare, for our next out of town road trip. We will be spending the entire first week of August at my absolute favorite place in the whole wide world (more about that later). I can't wait and I have LOTS to do!! I need to make packing lists. From the packing lists I will need to make shopping lists. A shopping list will mean that at some point I will have to actually go shopping to purchase items on the shopping list. Then I will have to pack. Pack bags, pack the car, you get the idea. Oh yeah-and lets not forget about doing as much laundry and housework as I can so its not staring me in the face when I return.

So there you have it. My love/hate relationship with traveling all summed up in this post. I know it may seem complicated, but traveling and I are working it out one trip at a time.