Every vacation I have ever been on always ends on a bittersweet note.  On one hand, because I'm a creature of habit, I long to return home, to my routine and things familair.  On the other, I usually have such a good time that I don't want to leave wherever I am.

Hawaii was no exception.  As a matter of fact, Hawaii was the utmost example of this.  Despite a few bumps in the road, I had the most amazing time.  It is such a beautiful, beautiful place and as I was on the airplane Sunday night, watching the lights of Oahu recede behind me, I almost teared up.

I would never live in there, in Honolulu at least, but I will certainly visit again.  Even now, thinking about the things I saw, takes my breath away.

But now I'm home, after a long ten days away, and I got to cuddle with my boys (Steve and the dog) last night.  I did miss them terribly (and my bed - what can I say? I didn't spend over a grand on a mattress to hate it!). 

Initially, I thought I would be able to return to work today, after getting in at 4:30 Eastern time yesterday.  After the flight out there (the second leg was an almost unbearable seven hours - don't know how people do International flights) and hearing that jet lag is actually worse when you go forward in time, I decided against going to work today.  Instead, I laid around while trying to tell my mind that I needed to pick the house up and unpack and clean and get this place prepared for the in-laws visit on Saturday.

But I took a three hour nap instead.  Because my body's internal clock is so fucked up - I was exhausted at 9:30pm last night after having pretty much airport and plane hopped since 9pm Hawaii time the night before.  I was wide awake at 2am then again at 6am and pretty much got decided to get up.  Then around 2pm, I sat down to eat lunch and passed out, not waking up until 5pm, shortly before Steve got home from work.

Note: ME = FAILED HOUSEWIFE

Now, I'm hungry, because it's 3pm in Hawaii and my body is saying it's close to dinnertime.  They say for every hour you go forward it takes a day to recover from jet lag.  I went forward six hours - I don't know if I have six days.  I have to drag myself to work tomorrow.

So there's so much I want to tell you and about 1000 pictures I have to go through.  I will update in the following days.  The past month was spent getting ready for this trip and now that's it's over, I don't have anything to fixate on.  Except the in-laws visit this weekend, four days after my return.  And some friends visit exactly a week after the in-laws leave.

On second thought, I better start making lists!

I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday and had no motivation to write an entry.  That would require forming a clear thought and I had none of those.

I really just loafed around this weekend.  Friday night I had to work, so I cracked open a bottle of wine, started up the laptop and hung out while Steve and a friend played Grand Theft Auto IV (did I mention that game was kinda awesome?).

I also see that I wrote an entries on bathrooms.  That, my friends, is what wine will do to you.  I am apparently awesome as well.

But yesterday - well, yesterday was a whole other story.  Steve worked then had plans to go on the boat and fish with some of his coworkers.  I was really looking forward to a whole day by myself.  A WHOLE day meaning him NOT coming home at 3pm.  Sometimes when he works on Saturdays, that looms ahead of me like a deadline because if I'm cleaning, I get into a groove and I usually end having to work around him or stop completely when he gets home because we have sudden plans or he wants to go do something.  And I really don't blame him because after cleaning all day, I want to go do something too but at the same time, I want to finish what I've started.

So back to having a day to myself.  I was excited, y'all!  Like, dance in my underwear Risky Business style excited.  I had a ton of my shows (i.e. ones that even I feel bad forcing him to watch, like America's Next Top Model) backlogged on the TiVo.  I had some shopping I wanted to do.  I had a house to clean and a pile of laundry that has been sitting on the couch waiting to be folded for the past two weeks, at least.  I had books to read and interweb sites to surf.

And I had over 12 hours to do all of this in, without snide remarks from him about what I was watching or loud sighs because I was taking up the laptop AND the TV.

And I could turn the A/C down as low as I needed it.

(Side note: yes, these are the things we fight over!  Part of me finds them ridiculously stupid but part of me gets so angry because I want to be selfish and it's wrong for me to be.  I want to watch TV and surf the web but he says it's not fair to take up two of the main forms of entertainment.  I want the air down to 68 degrees but he thinks that's a ridiculous temperature and constantly turns it up.  He has a point, at least on the TV/laptop thing but I don't want to be fair.  I had to be fair my whole life.  I want to be stubborn and selfish and mean.  Sometimes.)

(One more side note: I totally acted like a twelve-year-old when we fought over the A/C this morning.  I turned it down to 68 last night and when we got up he had turned it back up to 72.  It was hot and humid in the house and my sinuses were bothering me like crazy so I turned it back down.  I'm not doing this to be irrational - if it's hot in the house, it gets stuffy and my sinuses are sensitive to temperature change and air pressure and that gives me migraines.  And he doesn't get it and I try to say, you know how we don't stay at places long where there are cats because you're allergic?  That's what this is like.  So I turned it back down and he came right behind me, bitching and turning it back up as I walking down the hall.  I yelled back and was so mad that I actually slammed our bedroom door then threw myself on our bed.  I haven't done that since I was a teenager but damn did it feel good.  Totally didn't make a point though because he's even more stubborn than I am because SOMEONE turned it up to 78.  He vehemently denied doing it but I didn't touch it.  So we either have ghosts or the dog figured out how to do.  Or, he was being vindictive, something we both are unfortunately very good at.)

But after being off tangent, let me see if I can figure out where I was.  Ah yes, a day at home.

The dog woke me up at 8:30am which was not cool.  I let him out, had a small breakfast, then sat on the couch to check my email.  From then on, I realized I was just so physically and mentally tired and couldn't motivate myself to do anything.  I watched two weeks worth of Grey's Anatomy, stared at the mess in my house, contemplated taking Sammy to the dog park and then just wandered around aimlessly trying to figure out something.

I did end up going out to return some clothes to Old Navy.  By the time I got on the road, I was realized I was so hungry I was shaking, which makes me feel just "not right", so I stopped by Chick-Fil-A and scarfed some food.  I hate eating like that because I usually feel sick right after.  But I sucked it up and returned the clothes then went to the mall to buy some books I had been waiting for.  I bought six!  Three by Jodi Picoult (The Pact, Salem Falls, and Plain Truth), Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella and Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster.  The latter three were going to be beach reads for my Hawaii trip but since Kinsella and Weiner's books were only available in hardcover, I'll probably read them first and bring the paperbacks with me (I don't feel like lugging hardcovers on the plane).

From there, I came home and felt so drained that I just laid in the bed and read The Pact all day.  I had it finished before I went to bed last night - it was that good.  Steve actually ended up coming home around 7pm and he and his friend hung out while I laid in bed and read.  It was just one of those days where I felt like only part of me was here and coherant.  But I think I needed it.

This morning, the dog woke us up around 7:30 am (seriously, WTF dog?).  I let him out then laid on the couch and feel asleep until around 9am.  Woke up to find Steve playing GTA IV again! Then we hung around until about 2 when we met up with some friends to see Baby Mama, have dinner at O'Charley's then go to this exclusive after-hours even our local Best Buy was having with all sorts of sales and specials.

I have to say Baby Mama had it's moments but I think Fey and Poehler really held back.  It could have been a lot funnier than it was.  O'Charley's was good, as always (they have these amazing cinammon-sugar donuts and this awesome Strawberry Skyy Lemonade drink) and we found quite a few good deals at Best Buy.

It was a much busier day than yesterday but it was nice and productive.  Now we just have to prepare for May and the summer.  Sometimes it's nice to not have anything planned or anything to do. 

My theory is that if we're busy enough to be relieved to have a weekend where we can sit around playing video games and not get dressed then we must be doing something right.

So February was a rough month.  Not so much "bad" and just "busy"!  I don't work well with busy because then my routine gets thrown completely off and I feel so out of sync for weeks and weeks afterwards.  What can I say, I'm a creature of habit.

I had a day off today.  Because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  And to be completely honest, I think many people tend to forget why we have this day.  To some, it has become just another day off.  To others, they don't even realize it as they have to head off to work and go about their lives as usual.

What an exciting Saturday night we had!!

We went to Home Depot tonight.  A major part of our Christmas presents were gift cards and we knew we needed stuff so after Steve got home from work we cuddled for a bit and headed off. 

There was nothing majorly specific we wanted so we wandered the aisles for an hour or so, checking stuff out and getting ideas.  We got a rake, a long tree pruner, another shelf to add to my closet, some clear boxes for my shoes and random little things.

Then ... THEN .... !!

We went grocery shopping.  What an exciting couple we are.  I wanted some canned fruit (I had this incredible craving for peaches) and Steve needed soda.  So we wandered around the grocery store for awhile and I picked out a lot of fairly healthy things.  I started modifying my diet last week and since I'm cutting back on food, I get the munchies but I wanted to make sure there was good for me stuff there when I went scrounging.

I actually enjoyed both things though.  We had a good time, we got some ideas for the house, we are fully stocked on food for about two weeks.

And it was all we had to do this weekend - no traveling, no visits, no real cleaning, NOTHING!!

And it was pure and utter joy.