Every vacation needs a romantic sunset!

Whenever I return from a vacation break, lots of feelings and thoughts flood my mind. 

One, I’m re-invigorated to jump back into my life and wipe the slate clean.  I mean really clean.  After spending two weeks in an easy breezy condo with my husband on a Florida beach where pretty much all you need are a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, a bag for shells, a blender, and a tube of sunscreen, when I get home, I naturally want to pitch any and all extraneous clutter blocking my path.  A to-do list is begun.

Two, I am inundated with new ideas, both for writing and for making jewelry.  I have to jot my thoughts down fast so I won’t lose track.  For example… lessons I learned from walking the beach, what beautiful earrings all those coquina shells will make, and how the hero in my screenplay has somehow worked out his issues.  Not to mention the story behind the heavily tattooed Thunder Beach Harley rider sitting on the beach with a pink cockatiel perched on his shoulder!

Three, I’m grateful for all I have in my life and the ability to even take a vacation …the white sands, the secluded coves, the unpopulated strands where the only footprints are our own and we feel like the last two people in the world on an adventure (at least at six in the morning…).  Vacations are great and I love, love, love the experience, but even more I love coming home.

Four, it’s just wrong to have to wear anything more on my body than said pair of shorts and T-shirt.  But, I have no choice if I don’t want to freeze.  Going from the mid-eighties to the mid-forties in less than sixteen hours causes more of a brain freeze than too-quickly sipped piña coladas.  Still, having walked only barefoot on the sand makes it hard to push my expanded and happy feet into socks and laced-up tennis shoes.  Ditto for squeezing somewhat tanned thighs into restrictive blue jeans.  But I’m back with freckles…

Oh, yeah!

and yes, I’m going to say it…  long blonde BANGS!   (Bang history here.)

Five, I marvel at the greenery overtaking our backyard.  It is lush, like a fairy tale rainforest.  Lilacs, tulips, and Virginia bluebells are in full bloom and it seems the hostas and ferns are almost a foot higher than when we left.   I look a little closer and notice there are LOTS of weeds comprising the green…   (Mental note for to-do list.)

Six, how am I going to continue to walk ten-plus miles a day now that I’m back?  The three hours it took on the beach went by in the blink of an eye, but now that I’m home… my appetite has expanded because in Florida, it could.  If I don’t exercise, bad things will happen.  Plus, I enthusiastically promised my husband in a moment of sunshiny euphoria I was up for anything; even jogging!  Priorities will jostle on my to-do list.

Seven… (drum roll please) the to-do list.  It’s starting to pile up faster than my list of fun ideas and future endeavors.  Did I really not finish that project during the last few days of vacation preparation?  I have a writing deadline when?  A vague recollection of meetings every night this week lurks near the edges of my mind.  I promised a piece of jewelry Thursday?  Go back to my work schedule?  There are over one hundred new e-mails to read, answer, or delete?  (Translate scream from me.)  I don’t even want to look at my day-planner which I’ve avoided for two weeks because I was on vacation…

Finally, I need a mini-vacation to decompress from that other vacation.  We’ve unpacked the car, gotten groceries, sorted the bills, returned the books-on-tape, picked up the dog (who lets us know we are now back on her schedule), and waved at our neighbors.  The sunshine is gone, the afternoon turned dreary.  I arrange lilacs sprigs in a vase and curl up for a nap with two purring cats who act like they’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed them.  I hope to dream of the surf pounding the beach, the waves lapping my toes, and the elusive Janthina Janthina snail floating in to shore. 

The very rare (and carnivorous) Janthina Janthina...

Reality will have to wait a tad bit longer.  ~JD here.