Prepare Yourself

It's a LOT of work to be on holidays. The Mister and I finished work on Saturday afternoon, all full of bonhomie and exhuberance, because we are off work for the next two weeks. But I've been so busy the past few days that it doesn't feel much like holidays just yet. Suffice it to say, I realized I'm only on holidays from one job, the paying job. My other job doesn't give holidays, and the pay sucks, too.

We are renting a cottage up on Lake Huron for a week, and we are getting ready to go. I love that cottage, and the week that we spend there, but oh. my. God. the effort to get us there feels like a monumental effort, like I'm climbing mountains barefoot carrying wet watermelons. Blindfolded. With sweaty socks. It's sort of like Christmas, lots of work beforehand, and then, boom, blissful sloth....I know I'm going to enjoy the torpid, near-comatose pace for a week when I get there, but I do have to do the work to get there.

I'm a list-maker from a way back; making a list for me is almost as good as getting the thing itself done. And my list for the cottage fills both sides of a standard piece of paper, it's so comprehensive. (For example, I put down "bed sheets, pillows, comforters, extra pillows", even though I'm pretty sure if I put "bed stuff" down I'd get it all, and one would think that if I was packing pillows, I'd just lob them all in there.) I end up packing way too much for a week away, so I have to revise the lists constantly so as to fit it all in the van. (Really, why do I pack the popcorn maker and the cross-stitch that I've never finished every. freaking. year?) So my lists got made last night, and I add to them regularly throughout the day. Also, I keep the list from last year so I don't forget anything. This, as you can imagine, can take up a lot of time.

Couple my preparations with the fact that we are having one of our staff house-sit for us, and you have me in a whirlwind of housekeeping that is entirely non-existant any other time. Now that someone else will be in the house, I feel the need to make sure she doesn't have to wallow in the filth that I am perfectly willing to live in myself. (Remember the Loudshoes family motto? "That will do".) Hence the back of the fridge will be vacuumed, and all the lightbulbs dusted. Not that she will notice, I'm sure, but I will.

Next week I will be sleeping in and eating when I feel like it and reading all the live long day and going for walks after dinner and not doing anything I don't want to. It will all be worth it.