life after vacation

Last week I took my first non-Christmastime vacation from RingSide. I had accrued so many vacation hours that if I didn't take time off when I did, I was going to stop earning more. It just goes to show how long overdue it was. My plans were simple: stay home and do nothing.

Of course it couldn't be completely nothing, but I definitely succeeded in relaxing and relieving myself of obligations. The biggest event of the entire week was seeing Spoon at the Royal Oak Music theater on Tuesday. Sarah was supposed to go with me, but broke her kneecap and was stuck in the hospital. I went on my own and tried to enjoy the show without her. More than half of the setlist was non-Transference, and I even took out my phone and noted the songs they played. I intended to burn a CD of all the songs, but with the encore their show was almost an hour and a half!

Wednesday I donated blood for the first time since I got my tattoo. I talked to one of the ladies about moving to Ferndale for my work, and how it distracted me from giving blood regularly like I used to. She told me about the health benefits of getting rid of old blood so your body can replenish it with new, and that made a lot of sense to me. Thursday the Ferndale Bike Club had a pre-season ride in the evening. As the Junior Ambassador, I am getting better at striking up conversation with strangers and not being so afraid of what they think of me. We rode for an hour or so around the Ferndale/Oak Park neighborhood, had dinner at the Emory and afterwards went to Liz's where we put together a calendar of rides with specific dates. Friday I went to Somerset and bought myself a new sweatshirt that I'm going to stencil with the Bike Club logo and at night went with my friend Cori and her friend to Cliff Bell's to see some live jazz. There was a great trio that plays the first Friday of every month, and they had a lady join them to sing on some songs. She sang three Frank Sinatra covers, and that was pretty cool. Saturday Alex and I drove out west to stay at our parent's for the weekend. Beforehand we went to Briarwood and hung out for a while before Kenny got off work and then hung out with him at his apartment. We met up with Ben later that night after the MSU game and played pool at Sticks in Depot Town.

Sunday my mom cooked Easter dinner and my Dad's sister and her husband and my Mom's sister came over. After eating we played dominoes for a few hours. Alex decided to stay at his parent's an extra night so I came home and ended my vacation with a walk around the neighborhood and managed to get to sleep by 1:00.

Today was a pretty great first day back. I can tell that having time off did me a lot of good... and, seeing as we had Good Friday off anyway, I used one less vacation day than I thought I was going to. I'm thinking of doing another week off again sometime this year.