Approaching Vacation

Despite having nominally ample time for R&R, sometimes reality has me working more like a draft animal.  While it has been my custom for thirty years to assign one recreation time each calendar year, usually one week but for a long trip two, there have also been mini-excursions of 3-4 days incorporated into holiday weekends.  Those have disappeared for me in the absence of specialty coverage so I really only have the one stretch.  There was a time when I had to coordinate the time around my children's school and camp schedule but once they headed off to college the timing got more flexible, though not entirely arbitrary.  Thus I find myself on the verge of packing maybe about two months later than I should.  

I can tell when this time has gotten overdue by a certain irritability that emerges.  While my work challenges me and I think I remain attentive to patient care's difficulties, I often just want to get through what I am doing and move along to something else.  I come home exhausted, I arrive at work less exhausted and even a two day weekend fails to restore me by Monday.  Moreover, by December I look back at my semi-annual projects and see that most will not reach completion.

So I am now down to 1.5 office sessions until vacation.  I will wear a tie today and for shabbos morning.  Need to wrap gifts tonight:  Hanukkah for family, token for office staff.  Finish warm water wash tonight, setting aside what I might like to take with me as I remove it from the drier.  Finish my relicensure requirements before shabbos.  Then on vacation.