Parting....Sweet Sorrow or Just Plain Sorrow?

I'm always torn on the last day of vacation between spending every waking second soaking up last minute rays and spending it gathering up all our crap that has been spread out over the last week. I like to be organized. And it's not like we're going to drive 1,200 miles if someone forgets something. But it's also our last day of vacation until next year.

Granted, I'm a little excited to be going home; where needing a band aid doesn't turn into a catastrophe. (You try to plan for contingencies but short of packing the entire house, something is going to get forgotten.) And it'll be nice to have all my stuff back where it belongs. But here are some things about vacation that I'll miss:

TWO bathrooms. It's pretty sad when our vacation house has more bathrooms than our actual house.  And better showers. And did I mention two bathrooms? 

Not Cooking. Remember my lotto fantasy of having a cook? Vacation is the next best thing. No cooking for an entire week. I'm sure I'd probably miss it after about a month or two, but a week isn't long enough to get a case of the boo hoos over not cooking.

The sound of the ocean. Yeah, the ocean was pretty fricken cold this week, but the sound of it is mesmerizing. Next year I'm going to bring a tape recorder down and fill an entire tape with the sounds of the ocean and the crashing waves. Yes, I know they probably already sell cd's of this, but it wouldn't be our ocean so it just wouldn't be the same. 

Maid service. Having a nice woman come in every day to leave us clean towels and vacuum as well as clean our grody showers, well, it's pretty fantastic. Sure we have to leave the woman a tip every day and that could get quite expensive, but I think for cleaning our toilets (There are THREE boys in our household.) she deserves it. I only wish I could afford to take her home with us. 

Sunshine. I know we have sun in New York too, but it's different. Maybe because we're closer to the equator or something. Or something scientific from middle school that I should remember but I don't. Even in the middle of summer, our sun won't be as sunny and bright as it is here. Or is it just that we have more shade options up North? (Palm trees don't offer much in the way of shadiness.) 

Warmth. It's been lovely to have upper 70's and low 80's for temperatures  Now we get to trade those for mid 50's, low 60's if we're lucky. I hate to wish my life away but...I wish it was summer.

Although it's always sad to leave the lazy, hazy days of vacation behind, it's always nice to get back to the "real" world. Here are some things about vacation that I won't miss:

Beds that are too short. I love the place we stay at, but they have double beds. I hate when my feet are hanging off the edge of the bed. Unless I sleep sideways, I feel like Vince Vaughn in "Fred Claus".

Driving in the Carolinas. If you want to see a soccer mom with road rage, have her drive on the two lanes they consider the interstate in North and South Carolina. I was so mad that we did the accordion the entire time because some moron decided to cut in front of someone else in an effort to get ahead of the traffic thus causing the brake light chain a mile back. (Apparently there were multiple morons. I think they teach it in their student driving courses.)

Not cooking. I know this made my list of things I'll miss, but let me explain what a week of eating out does to the digestion of a thirty plus Mom. I won't go into the messy details but the end result is that I could buy stock in both Tums AND Rolaids after this past week. You know it's bad when I'm actually looking forward to cooking again. (Don't worry, it'll pass quickly.)

For now, I'll look forward to enjoying the rest of the year. And if I miss my sunny oasis too much, well, I took about 200 pictures. That ought to tide me over, right?