Break Out Your Vacation Photos!

There’s been a lot going on in my life lately.

In May, my grandmother passed away from lymphoma.

Since then my other grandma went into the hospital with what they thought was a stroke. After a week’s stay they determined it was pneumonia. She is home now (staying with my mom) but now there is something wrong with her leg and she needs to see an orthapedic surgeon next week.

My uncle, who’s been sick with leukemia for a number of years is doing very poorly. He also has lymphoma and has been in the hospital for the last two weeks.

My dog is showing severe signs of old age, he had surgery a month or so back and I think it’s taking it’s toll on him. On top of all that, our house feels like it is falling apart around us and we aren’t able to fix anything at the moment. There are great prospects on the horizon, but the here and now is frustrating.

In and after college, a good workout and a cold beer could always take the edge off a rough day. Once I was pregnant, this was obviously not an option so I turned toward sweets. Candy bars, cookies, etc.

I kept myself in check and didn’t gain astronomical amounts of weight, though some days I believed I deserved to!

Since the kids have been born, I’ve been trying to live a bit healthier and have kept the drinks and sweets to a minimum. Instead, I’ve replaced all those stress management practices with an alternative. Vacation planning!

I plan vacations we will probably never take. I could look at travel sites all day. I visit websites of convention bureaus, cities, hotels, cruise lines, etc. The most addictive is TripAdvisor. I find the forum pages are enthralling.

Today, I read all about how to take the family on a Disney Cruise. I enjoyed my first cruise two years ago, but not enough to go back unless we found an incredible deal. That didn’t stop me from looking into Disney Cruises.

I’m not a Disney fanatic by any means. In fact, sometimes the thought of a trip to DisneyWorld sends me into overload, but these cruises? They sound incredible!

Their children’s programming is free for toddlers on up, I’ve read that the ships are impeccably clean and the service meets Disney’s high standards, the staterooms are a bit bigger to accommodate a family, every night you dine in a different dining room, they have a pool shaped like Mickey Mouse, did I mention childcare/children’s programming is including for ages 3 and up?

Recently, I asked my friends on Facebook to tell me about their favorite vacation spot. At this point it doesn’t look like a vacation is in our near future, but I enjoyed reading about their trips.

I could spend days hours online learning and dreaming about vacations. It’s always more fun to actually travel, but if I’m not able to getaway, planning is a very close second.

I’ll just finish this up before I lose all my readers, by saying if anyone out there needs a volunteer vactaion planner, I’m up for the job. Also, I’m curious, do you have any odd or different stress busters? I don’t think mine will ever get old, but I’m always interested in hearing what makes other people happy.