Vacation Reset

What a lovely vacation! We flew to South Carolina to meet with my siblings and parents at Ivan’s home. The day we went to the ocean is one of my favorite highlights. Blue water, blue sky, white sands, children playing in the surf, the warm salt water made it all a most amazing experience. Besides my little sis and I talked while sunning … our only real chance to visit.

I certainly needed the acceptance and grounding of being with my own family. There really is nothing like this to be able to reset one’s mind function. I found out that I’m not the only one who thinks, speaks, learns, and bloopers just as I do. The sister-in-law who has just been through cancer sees grace as a much needed ingredient in our lives. The sister who has just been through depression teaches me by her own vulnerability to open up and share myself exactly as I am. To be known as the person I am, the very one God made … without being all self absorbed, making you squirm.

Lately, I have had one of my worst sessions of “you’re not good enough” being whispered in my ear, ever. There is such a thing as this becoming a whole lot of defeat and me-ism. Instead of living abundantly with a thankful heart, I felt caught up with either pride or humiliation by turns. It’s a win for the enemy on several levels. This vacation helped me, tremendously, to walk away from that again.

So after seeing others homes, kitchens, houses, decorations, organization methods, larders, and gardens I arrived home full of good ideas for my own. That’s another perk of a vacation. You get to come home and understand your own messes and methods again. And how to improve. I can spend less money on groceries by shopping Aldi which reminder came from Dena. I can enjoy more space and less clutter by having fewer but nicer things. I loved seeing Geneva’s cottage decor. Inspiration everywhere I looked.

Ivan’s drove us by this old ruin on our way home from the ocean. Old ruins are much more fascinating in real life than in pictures. This is the Old Sheldon Church. Built in the 1700’s and ruined during the civil war, I think. I have never seen ruins before having been such non-travelers. Maybe we should change this.

The cooks at the ocean cook-out lunch. Sunshine and palm trees and white sand is a most amazing experience. Especially so in the month of April to this Wisconsin soul.

Here we are. This was taken after April and Jay left which made none of us happy, but since we aren’t very organized we felt lucky to have remembered this when we did.

My dad gave me a pig cutting board because I begged for it. It was an extra that he’d brought with him from his own workshop and it fitted nicely into our carry-on bag. Plus I round a new recipe book that is all cute and hokey but the recipes, for a wonder, are ordinary and call for things we already have in our cupboards.

So we had a lovely brain/heart reset from our vacation and even though we’d gotten up in the wee hours to fly home; I was so ready to putter in my own kitchen and make muffins again. Real living happens best in ones own kitchen and hearth. I hung laundry out and vacuumed up the week’s porch accumulation of sand and dirt. Real living is also going away to get a rest and arriving home to feel like rolling up ones sleeves to create and nurture with new inspiration.