Being back home is harder than I though it would be, even though i thought I was soooo ready to be here. although, being on vacation was really hard, too, so I guess I'm just at a point where everything is hard on me.
Let me just say that getting trapped in van for 10 hours with my super religious step sister and her husband was not my idea of a great drive to Myrtle Beach, but it turned out mostly ok because I slept A LOT. The fact that they wouldn't listen to the radio unless it was christian pop was enough to make me wanna kill myself and no amount of reading Cosmo could spice up the conversation. That said, the trip down was mostly uneventful.
Once we got there, we got rooms picked out, and yours truly got sent to the kids room, since I didn't have to have my own room this, me being single and all. FUN! So that not only meant not having a car, but also not having any private space that wasn't also shared with kids. And me in a house with 9 kids 3-13 was also not optimal because withough the hubby around, I had no buffer to be able to get away from it all. Needless to say by Monday, I had cabin fever so bad I was about to start walking back to Orlando.
My mom is awesome at crafts and so every morning we had craft time with all the kiddos around the table, and of course I helped. Sunday was "foamie" day, and Monday was "paint your own picture frame" day, which was so much fun to help with, watching the kids mix and match paints. The idea was to find sea shells and glue them to the frames as a reminder of our trip. We also went for the first crab hunt Monday night, which consists of our group wearing crazy crab hats wandering around the beach looking for poor, unsuspecting crabs to chase.
Tuesday was "paint your lobster day". Not nearly as fun as picture frames.
In the midst of all the craft craziness, I did manage to spend an enormous amount of time at the beach and spend some quality time with my oldest brother and SIL, who are the marathoners. And I managed to run Sunday and Monday. It was kinda fun to listen to my brother whine about how hot it was, especially since I have been training in this heat for weeks now. Did I mention that Monday after my run my iPhone fell off the second story railing to its concrete death?? Yeah. That pretty much killed my vacation mood. It still works, the screen is just destroyed, as in the liquid crystal stuff inside exploded. Fun.
Lets also not forget all the weird family dynamics that take place on one of these "shove your whole family in a house for one week and see who survives" vacations. 21 people who don't see each other much makes for some very interesting interactions. Although, I've always been the black sheep, so that didn't really change much, and I just kinda did my own thing as much as possible and the let the parents keep their kids. I did not offer to babysit. I don't babysit.
By Tuesday, I was ready to come back. The kids were on my nerves, I was anxious to get back to work, and I was generally over the beach. My mom, step sister and I went to our favorite gift shop Tuesday afternoon to peruse the AMAZING Christmas store they have, and shop for various other gifts and such. One of our favorite artists/ sculptors, Jim Shore, has a cat collection that I just love, and two years ago she bought me the Curiosity killed the cat angel. This year, we decided we would buy "Patience" the cat, since that's what I need most in my life right now. That evening my two brothers, their families and I went out to a Japanese steakhouse for our bi annual dinner, and had a pretty good time. Tuesday night was music night, which was actually a lot of fun. As the kids get older, they get more fun I think. Listening to them sing and watching them dance was just a hoot.
Wendesday morning I was up early to help my mom prepare tie dye t shirts. I'm pretty sure my fingers will never be the same after tying rubber bands around a dozen shirts. But she said they turned out amazingly and I can't wait to get mine in the mail! Although, she bought me an XL, and was kinda disappointed when I told her I'd have to use it as a night shirt, since and XL is too big, thankuverymuch.
By 10, I was itching to get on a plane. so, I said my goodbyes, got on the plane and came home. By the time I got back, my other step sister was in labor 4 weeks early, and boy was I glad to have gotten outta the house before that all went down. That would have just been too much for me to handle. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the kids as a freshly seperated woman whose biological clock wakes her up every day.
Between the TOM coming on and leaving my family, I went through a really rough couple days Thursday and Friday. I'm still not completely myself. And since I sprained my ankle Wednesday I'm not able to run for a couple more days just to make sure it's healed. And since it's TOM, I'm eating everything in sight, so I'm not really into tracking right now. But, tomorrow is the start of a new week, and I'll get back on the wagon.
Another vacation gone. Back to reality.
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