Sunday, October 28, 2012

Seasoning

October is almost over. I'm torn between whether to feel more guilty about not blogging or not eating enough pumpkin...I think I technically still have the whole Thanksgiving season and maybe even the full holiday season to eat pumpkin, so I suppose I should feel guilty about the blog. Sorry, blog.

I'm about to enter week 4 at my new job. I'm happy to report that it's going well. I'm still adjusting to the commute and the extra hour that it adds to my work days, but the job itself is great.

I'm holding off on getting into the Christmas spirit until Halloween has passed, but 'tis the season for vacation planning! Yes, it's always vacation planning season in my mind, but right now is when I begin obsessively researching beach vacations, as I see the approaching winter. Every year I declare that we must take a beach vacation every February, as that is the cold, hard center of our brutal winters.

But most years we don't really do that. Sometimes I get over-excited and we take a trip in December or January (too early) and other years, we wait until March or April (torture). And sometimes we don't go anywhere. Or rather, we take the boys to the waterpark and pretend it's a vacation (which works for them, but not so much for me).

We decided against the Top Chef cruise, so this year my sights are set on Florida - not for Disney, but because I want to take the kids to Kennedy Space Center and also, Owen got really excited when he learned you could take canoe tours through the Everglades (add that to the list of things I would only do for my kids). Also, sitting on a beach in Miami while it's below zero here sounds pretty nice...and it's way cheaper than Hawaii.

But I also want to go to LA, where we have several friends I'd like to visit. It's just not very hot there in February. More importantly, we were just there last summer.

The bigger question is really whether we should actually be taking a winter vacation at all. It certainly would not hurt our bank account to stay home all winter. (but it will hurt my brain!) The deciding factor is really whether we decide to do the big Ireland trip this summer. If we commit to that, then there's probably a waterpark in my future. A waterpark and me telling myself that planning my dream trip to Ireland makes up for being stuck in the frozen tundra for the duration.

Picture me on an inner tube with a laptop, reading reviews of Irish castles,  surrounded by one thousand screaming children. (Gee, when I put it that way it does seem like the obvious choice.)

Like the Christmas spirit, I think I'll just put this decision off a bit longer. This week is all about Halloween. Well, half the week anyway.

The boys are being Death and Luigi. Maybe will be the title of Owen's memoir.

I've already done my celebrating by running a 5K (WITHOUT dying!) and giving up sweets. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?