Vacations
Vacations Everywhere
The positive of having built up vacation time and a shift
workers schedule. In what amounts to be
close to a month of time, I’ll have been at work for four days.
Today I end my winter stay-cation. I did this last winter too… took some time
off work with no plans whatsoever. It
was so good that I decided to do it again this year.
Tomorrow I’m back to work, bright and early. Actually, so early that it won’t be
bright. I went to bed last night
wondering if I’ll remember all the passwords I need to log in to programs and
devices. We’ll have to see. I have to reset passwords so often that I
barely remember what one I’m on. All of
life has become a jumble of passwords.
Bank cards, credit cards, access to devices, access to work programs,
access to music libraries, paying bills, some must be at least eight digits,
some must be ten, some need numbers in them, some aren’t allowed to have
characters like (@#$*&)… ironic how those characters are often substituted
for curse words.
But this has been a really good twelve days away. I’ve gone snowshoeing six times. If I go again this afternoon, it’ll be seven
trips out in the twelve days. So it’s
the most continuous exercise I’ve gotten in quite a while.
The other great thing about such times off is the
sleep. The shift work I do doesn’t lend
itself to good sleep. During dayshift, I
probably average between four and five hours of sleep each night. During my nights, I get around four hours of
sleep once I get home in the morning, and another two hours during an afternoon
nap. And the whole process messes enough
with the system that, even on my days off, I don’t get much beyond six hours of
sleep per night.
Taking the extended time away, things become more
regular. I’ve probably averaged between
seven and eight hours of sleep each night now.
It refreshes the system.
Of course, just the knowledge that I’m going back to work
tomorrow affected my sleep last night. I
woke after five hours, and decided to get up.
The thought is I’ll get myself good and tired for an early night
tonight.
After the coming block of work, I’m off once again. It’ll be a very different time away this
time. I’ll first have two days to get
packed and ready to go, then it’s a flight down south to visit the parents, and
uncle and aunt, in Florida.
So it’ll be going from twelve days of near constant
snowshoeing while, when in the house, turning on the fireplace and wearing
sweaters to keep the chill out. And
curling up in the fleece sheets each night.
To nine days of summer temperatures.
Of shorts and t-shirts and thoughts of sunscreen.
In total, when it’s all said and done, I’ll have been off a
total of twenty-five out of twenty-nine days.
Spending eight of those days in the sunny south.
I hope, when I come back from Florida, that Spring will be
here. I expect I’ll still see snow on
the ground, but maybe by the middle of March, tufts of grass will begin to
appear? And perhaps a fleece will be all that’s needed to venture outside?
Fingers crossed.
FRIDAY…
--- Too cold to snowshoe. I stay in today. End up cleaning
the house. Vacuuming, two bathrooms, laundry, the kitchen. At it a few hours.
The benefits of stay at home vacations.
SATURDAY…
--- Snowy day, I watch some tv and also go snowshoeing for
almost an hour and a half. This makes three of five days out snowshoeing for
more than an hour each time.
SUNDAY…
--- Another snowshoe day.
I see the coyote today. Get a few
distant pictures with my iPhone and then a decent video as he crosses the pond
and runs up the other slope. We then
meet up again as I climb back up from the ponds and he’s backtracking. We get to within 75 feet or so then and he
runs away.
MONDAY…
--- Too cold today. I
stay put in the house and take it pretty easy.
TUESDAY…
--- Snowshoe with Harley today. Take him out for about an hour and a
half. No animals to be seen on this trip
but still fun.
--- Out with Jennifer (Karl’s wife). First time at Montana’s in years. A nice evening. I went to Chapters for some browsing before
meeting up… also hadn’t done that for quite a while.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Go for some groceries.
Also order a couple of books on Amazon.
One for the upcoming baseball season… the other giving details of all
the Star Wars vehicles. So… not really any
evidence of me being a scholar… but good to have anyway.
--- Survivor and Amazing Race have returned. Survivor is pretty fun, even though I’m not a
big fan of the whole “white collar”,
“blue collar”, “no collar” tribes.
Amazing Race, on the other hand, is horrible. In the past you’d see a wide range of pairs
in the game. Maybe a married couple,
perhaps a father and son, two siblings, lifelong friends… all sorts. Now it’s only dating couples. Half being people who have already been
couples, the other half being teamed as blind dates. And we have “selfie cams” and lots of
hashtags on the screen. Just brutal
stuff. I may not be able to watch this
season.
THURSDAY…
--- Back snowshoeing.
Alone again. This marks five
trips out, all between 70 and 90 minutes long, over a nine day period. I see lots of coyote tracks, but no coyote…
and the wild turkeys are around again.
Weather wise, this is my best day of snowshoeing. No wind, lots of sun, around -10 temperature.
--- I’m ready to make this winter time off an annual
thing. Just home for twelve days… really
catching up on sleep (getting 7 to 8 hours a night… I get 5 to 6 hours a night
when working, even during my days off).
Also good to be able to snowshoe so much
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