What sucks more than that? Okay yes, I can think of some things, but living day to day? Not much.

I was off of work from half a day on June 29th until yesterday morning, Monday, July 9th. Going back to work on a payroll Monday, a week after end of fiscal year 2018 sucks in its own right, but personally? O. M. G!

Johnny and me at the Lynryd Skynyrd concert; Day 1 of Vacation.

My birthday week consisted of two concerts, a bbq pool party and a couple of cook outs. I enjoyed much time in our pool, after the peak UV ray time.

My first birthday gift was tickets to the Lynyrd Skynyrd farewell concert. Johnny and I had a blast! This was the first time I’d ever had the opportunity to see them in person, and believe me! They were amazing!

The next day (my actual birthday) was kept on the down low, and we went to our daughter’s boyfriend’s parents (with whom both of us worked with at the hospital), so it was an awesome reunion day. My bonus daughter, her SO and my grandchild gave me a bag of goodies in the driveway. One of the SO’s little nephews was having his birthday that day, too, so I didn’t want to advertise, although someone let it slip at the end of the evening and I got more hugs, which a body can never have too many of!

On Sunday, we went to my Mom’s house because my Aunt and Uncle (Margie and Gene) were visiting from New Mexico. Uncle Gene was one of the reasons I got into photography. He his now shooting black and white film.

The following day, Monday, was simply me sitting by the pool and writing.. This was what I created on that day,

On Tuesday, we loaded the coolers and the car and went back to Raleigh for the Foreigner concert. This time, Bonus Daughter and her SO were with us, and we had SO much fun!

These were sone of the people we saw.

It was an amazing concert, though and we are looking for more lawn seats to more concerts!

The 4th of July found us exhausted. Go figure. We’d pretty much been doing the whole go, go, go-thing. We chilled at the house. But I wrote about the 4th of July and the previous night’s concert.

There were a few more days on my vacation but were weathered out. And still I wrote. Check me out on Medium for more, and please? If you like what you read? Interact and applaud!

On Friday night it stormed  its ass off.  I tried to go inside, but it was literally electrical havoc, so I was stuck in the pool house with a laptop, tablet and phone, all of which had dying batteries, but I made do.

The hubs was already snoozing on the patio sectional, but I was as charged as the storm outside. So I wrote until I was tired, and crashed next to him until about 1:30, when I woke up scratching at my ankles and feet, because of mosquitos. I tried as hard as I could, several times, to wake him up, but I finally had to drag myself to bed.

We were supposed to smoke a pork shoulder that day, but it poured rain until it was too late to actually put it on for a decent dinner-time, so we postponed that until Sunday.

We still hosted Family Game Night and played a new game; Speak Out. Holy cow! I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. You put a mouth piece in your mouth and try to read quotes, and … yeah. hilarity ensues, I promise.

Sunday was sunny and pleasant, so the pork went on the grill, I made eastern NC barbecue sauce (vinegar based, of course) and my first ever coleslaw. Leftovers were minimum. This was pre-chopped and appropriately sauced:

Smoked pork shoulder, before chopping and sauce!

Then, after everyone left, I had to get my head back into work-mode. This was no easy feat, given that I’d been sleeping in until 10 or so each morning for the past 9 days.

Fortunately, I only slept through one of my alarms and got up. Had a smoothie ready to go, so grabbed it and out the door I went.

There was payroll to be done, as well as the associated reports, my month end and year end reports to do, and then I found out that the new employee training for safe patient handling was to have 50+ participants!

Too. Much. Stress.

But then, mid-morning, one of my favorite people saw me, raced to me and threw her arms around me! “OMG, Jules! I am so glad you’re back! I really missed you!” She may have thawed my heart about work a little bit.

Even with that welcome, I asked if I could just go back on vacation? Just let me sit, write, and think, man. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

All’s well that ends well, though. I had enough help to train all the new employees on how to safely move their patients and it was a very successful class! Reports? Done. Employees mad at me? Check.

Yeah, I’d say I’m back in the swing of things, here.

Who has ever really had a hard time going back to their regular jobs after a week’s vacation? Who has ever let their vacation re-think a traditional 9-5 job?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Until Next Time…