There’s something so wonderfully monotonous about the slowing down of time during vacation, if you’re home and not traveling at least. The way your sleep clock slowly turns itself over and you find yourself staying up until the wee hours and sleeping until 11 (or at least that USED to be the case). I still see it happening a little bit but because I wake up so much during the night, it’s not as easy to turn my internal clock upside-down anymore. But time slows down generally if you don’t make plans. My plans are little ones that involve home chores and cleaning and sorting. Just the kind of things I find so satisfying.
Yesterday, I pulled out the boxes of cables that we have in the “computer room” closet. I organized cables in 2013, and again in 2017 with Anders’ help (because I have no idea what most of the cables ARE), putting all the cables we thought we might need into cardboard paper towel tubes which I had saved for several months, labeling them, and placing them on end in a box. But since then more cables and various electronic bits have been tossed on top of that box and it was time again to sort and pitch. We got rid of a huge pile of cables, an old microphone we never use and both old landline phones, plus about a dozen extra USB plugs…I think we had 20. Do they multiply in the closet like little plastic rabbits?
I’ve also pulled out 3 holders of various device and appliance manuals which need to be checked, sorted, and purged accordingly. I had already done some of that during the summer but I want to make sure all the manuals are in ONE place now. I need to clean out clothes as well, and maybe see if Anders needs to. I’m really itching to take down and put away Christmas but have promised Anders I won’t until this weekend.
The rest of this week, including today, I’m still on vacation, so I have extra time to get these types of little projects done (which is extra nice because I’m done with the free Fridays I took off all fall). I’m nearly finished with my 2025 blog book layout (flew through it!) and will most likely be sending it to print either tonight or tomorrow. I just have the table of contents and the cover left to do. I have another small photo project to do as well. Next up is checking on dates with my brother and then ordering my airline tickets to Charlotte for March. I’ve got lots of checkmarks beside to-do list items in progress and several already crossed off. And this is a very quiet, lazy last week of vacation. 🙂
Yesterday, which was Epiphany, a national holiday in Sweden, was the last public holiday until Good Friday on April 3. That’s 3 months without any time off if you don’t take vacation days. In the US, you get Martin Luther King Jr and Washington’s birthdays in January and February but then almost 3 months until Memorial Day at the end of May. This year, in Sweden, we’ll have another huge gap between public holidays during the entire second half of the year, from Midsummer Eve (June 19) to CHRISTMAS EVE. We get 3 days off in May and June but Sweden’s National Day falls on a Saturday this year. In Swedish, those huge gaps are called oxveckorna, or literally “the ox weeks”, when you must work like an ox with no breaks. I think they should plan out the year a little better. All our holidays are bunched up at the end/beginning of the year (and they can all fall on weekends to boot) and in May/June. Poor planning!
The nicest thing about the monotony of a staycation is that I really feel like I am relaxing and recharging, and not really thinking about work. My shoulders are down where they belong. I don’t feel stressed out, and after the extra-super stress we had before Christmas at work and then the holiday/family/travel stress (not all bad but still) I really needed this. A vacation after my vacation, haha.
And now back to my projects, my sofa, my book, my crossword puzzles, and my games (and eventually, my bed)!
Mood: relaxed
Music: Butterfly Blue—To You