I intended to post on my usual days, to stay in the habit of writing, but I didn’t have a lot to say that was useful and the wi-fi here is very spotty. We’re heading home tomorrow and while I’m grateful that we’re able to be away for a week, I’m ready to go home.

An early morning at the beach

The first few days went by slowly, in a good way, then suddenly in a less good way. I miss my house, even in its imperfect state. Here are a couple little insights:

• Packing: I let Emma pack some of her own things for this trip, a good idea in theory. When we went camping, I let her pack all her own clothes and overlooked her creative non-matching outfits. But on this trip, I wanted her to have a few coordinated outfits. But I still left her with a few items, and she only packed flip-flops. So on Monday we went out and got her a pair of sneakers to wear hiking. It’s now one thing off my back-to-school list so it wasn’t too big of a deal. Note to self: check the kid’s work next time.
• De-gadgeting: I hate to admit I’ve become too attached to my phone. We spent the first couple days just relaxing on the beach, where I read a lot but also spent too much time checking my email, checking the weather, etc. On Tuesday I deleted Facebook and have no plans to reinstall. I also normally take tons of photos because I like photography. But it’s occurred to me that I don’t enjoy the moment as much because I’m so preoccupied by taking photos. Since this is our fourth visit to this resort, and we tend to revisit many of the same places in town, I focused on getting a few nice photos of Emma and then put the phone away.

The coming week will be pretty uneventful, which is a good way to ease back into life post-vacation. I’m hoping to see a merger of time and motivation so I can finish decluttering the bedroom. I’m also going to jump on Project 333 and tackle our living room/book storage problem.