Because I didn't manage my vacation time very well in the beginning of the year, I found myself at the end of December having a whole bunch of hours I needed to use before the end of the calendar year.

As a result, my last day of work was Friday around 12:30 or so, and I won't be back in the office until January 5.



That is a glorious 17 days in a row of no work.

I plan to use some of the vacation time to be productive and some of it to just straight up be a lazy bum.



But it's a delicate balance. Too much productivity, and I won't feel like I had a vacation at all, but too much down time and I'll be antsy and bored and miserable.

Since I had lots of fun plans over the weekend, today was my first day to really put the productivity/relaxation balance into practice. Here's what today looked like:

Sleep in til 8 a.m. Alleluia what a treat being able to sleep in this late!

Do NOT immediately get up. Instead roll over in bed, grab book from nightstand, read for a solid 45 minutes.

Eventually get up, change into running clothes and go for a nice, easy 5K run.

Get home from the run around 10 a.m. and finish cleaning out closets for my annual "purge" of stuff to Salvation Army.



Could I have a few more pairs of running shoes in my closet?

This year's cleaning took about 3.5 hours on Sunday night and another couple of hours this morning. I ended up with five trash bags full of clothes, shoes and purses, plus a bunch of random household stuff I don't use anymore. (For example, five lamps. Don't ask me why I have five random lamps sitting around that I don't use. I couldn't tell you. Probably left over from a previous move).



Jam all donations into the car for drop off.



Since the Salvation Army isn't far from my cousin's house, make a pit stop to visit her and the twins. Experience the twins not being perfect angles for the first time ever (Ok this is perhaps a slight exaggeration, I did see them once bite each other, but they really did not want to nap today). Develop new found respect for my cousin after watching her wrangle two really wound up kiddos and eventually get them both to sleep about two hours after they went down for naps initially.

Come back home and head to Monday night yoga. Do Crow for the first time ever without falling flat on my face! Consider this a major win and smile stupidly like a fool through the rest of class.

Contemplate starting to pack for PA tonight, but decide to just leave it until the morning and curl up with a (highly recommended by a friend) movie instead.



Overall, I call this a success on the productivity/relaxation front.

Tomorrow I head home to PA. I imagine the only productive thing that will happen is the drive.