Preparing For A Pause

My wife has been working an incredible amount of hours for the last 6 months, if not longer. I'm talking 60-70 hours a week. 

Some days she'll leave the house at 6 AM and not return home until 8 or 9 that night. In addition, she has to work from home on a lot of weekends.

To say she's "burnt out" is an understatement. I do my best to allow her to have as much down time as she can get on the weekends because she is stressed to the max. And to tell you the truth I'm a bit concerned about her health. 

Not that she's sick, but she's tired and often does not feel well. Her immune system is probably weak because of her fatigue so her sinuses have really been giving her problems this Spring. She often does not feel well because she does not have enough time to take proper care of herself.

So that's why this past weekend we decided that it's time to plan a bit of a getaway during the month of June. She can only take her vacation days a few at a time so we will have to make our trip a long weekend. 

That type of time frame for an out of town trip has become the "norm" for us. Our last 2 vacations have been: a 4 day trip to Chicago in 2012 and 3 days with our friends, Mark & Patty, in the Smokie Mountains last September. 

For us the plans we made this weekend is as close to a spontaneously planned trip as we get. Because of that there are things that need to be done here at home so we can make our trip as relaxing as possible. 

I won't bore you with the details but today I started my first phase of preparing for our "pause" by taking the one resident of our home with paws to the vet. Angel needed some "dog maintenance" to make sure she will be comfortable and okay while we are gone. 

Arranging for someone to come to the house to feed and care for her is one of the major things on my preparation list. My packing checklist has been started as well.  

I am looking forward to this trip because I'm going to try and make it different from our typical vacation. We have rented a condo in the Smokey Mountains once again. We like it there. 

I plan on letting my wife sit back and relax more that she usually gets to when she's away with me. Even though this will be our 6th trip there in the last 13 years, there's a lot of things in the area we have never done. If we do just a couple of them and just take it easy the rest of the time. That will be fine with me. We also plan on taking in a minor league baseball game at the Smokies stadium in Ford, TN; the home of the Chicago Cubs AA team. 

So getting ready for a "pause that refreshes" is the major factor for me this week. I plan on taking a lot of pictures and making a few videos while on our vacation so I'll be able to share it with you when we get back.