On Travelling

I'm visiting 'home' in a few weeks, primarily to attend & be in the wedding of a close friend from high school & university. I'll have a couple days with my parents & sister, and hopefully will get to meet my cousin's baby - the only offspring of that generation on my side of the family other than Little M. It will be a relatively short trip, I'll only be gone for 10 days, including 2-3 days of traveling to get there and back.

I honestly have been dragging my feet about the whole trip. And in fact I had been blocking it from my mind to such great extent that it was only a few days ago that I realized with a fair amount of shock that I was leaving in only 2 weeks. Gulp.

You see, fall is my busy time. Both at home and at work. Whether it be harvesting garden produce, hunting for grouse, quail, duck, or deer, attending to routine property pre-winter maintenance, or constructing around irrigation season and fish windows at work, fall is when lots of mostly fun things all pile up and make life rather crazy. Its a good sort of crazy, but it's crazy nonetheless. Add to that a few things I've been prioritizing to try and get them done this fall (2 manuscripts and a perhaps overly ambitious rowing goal... ), and things feel a bit hectic around here even before I add in 10 days away...

Before I leave I'm trying to focus on my goals for the year, focus on what is important to get done before I leave, and make weekly (and daily) task lists from my monthly and yearly lists so that I first identify and then attempt to accomplish the most important tasks, but still, whew! Sometimes my life is fairly balanced and organized, but sometimes I end up doing a lot of flying by the seat of my pants to get myself & my little family through a season of perhaps over-committed-ness. The good thing is that at least I know my time away will be filled with friends & family and overall fun-ness, and upon coming back I won't have any big time-commitments looming other than our normal fall busyness!

The other good thing is that the past couple of years we always know our next vacation when we are planning the current one, so right now, not having a vacation plan for next year other than having decided that we may just not go on one due to our having set other priorities for our money and our time, is a bit relaxing to be honest! Oh to just be at home consistently, not juggling volunteers for chicken egg collection and garden watering!

Little M and I were thinking of going to my MIL's place on the lake over the long weekend, but we've decided that right before my trip, spending more time being low-key at home is best, especially since Little M isn't coming with me on this trip due to the schedule of wedding obligations I'll have. I'm sure Little M and I will stay busy though, both this weekend and next, as we've got a lot of projects on the go, plus the local fair is next weekend, so we're planning a trip across to see all the animals.


Not to worry though, I'm going to try to relax and enjoy the moments of fun we have between now and my trip though, because I have a fair number of family-related goals this year that have a lot to do with fun and enjoyment, so I'll try to not stress out if all the things on my list of hope-to-get done's don't get done :)