Actually, home is sort of a chaotic mess at the moment, but still, it’s nice to be back here.

I had great visions of blogging while we were on vacation, writing quick little daily updates about our adventures, turning it into a vacation that I would always remember… but yeah, that didn’t happen. I also imagined myself reading my auto-immune cookbooks and planning out a month’s worth of menu plans, with recipes and shopping lists, during the copious free time that I would have while R drove the RV. Turns out that didn’t happen, either. I did get to be a passenger some of the time, but I used it pressing buttons on the radio searching for some station that we’d both enjoy (memo to self: next time bring CDs!) or trying to convince the dogs that they didn’t really both need to be in my lap. And occasionally napping.

On the surface, it was a prosaic enough vacation: R and I drove to Pennsylvania and visited relatives. I got to spend some time with an aunt and uncle in State College, an aunt and cousin in New Jersey, and my brother and his family in Allentown. Exciting, right? But it felt like an adventure, because it was the first time I’d driven the RV any serious distance. Putting gas into the RV–and more importantly, getting into and out of the gas station without hitting anything–felt like such a triumph. Setting it up at the campgrounds (admittedly with the help of a lovely 10-point checklist that my dad created for us) made me feel terribly competent. Sewer hose? Sure, I can do that! Oh, I screwed up a few times. The worst was when I scraped the side against a metal railing. Oops. It made a horrendous noise, but my dad scoffed at me when I pointed out the resulting scrape. Good thing RVs are tough.

Two other new things from vacation:

Yes, I put glitter on my fingernails. Well, I didn’t. A nice woman at a nail salon did. When I told her I was camping, she tried to talk me into some kind of gel polish that would apparently last for a really long time. I declined, because I was sort of infatuated with the idea of purple glitter, mostly because it seemed so wildly inappropriate for camping. But I didn’t want it to last for a long time. Two days seemed just fine. Once it was on, though, I was totally sold. My nails look ridiculous and I love them. I may become a purple glitter kind of person.

And the other new thing I did. I said after I got off that I never knew driving a tractor was on my bucket list, but oh, it was. Picking up the dirt and moving it around took me several tries–figuring out that scoop thing was not as easy as it looked–but it was so fun! Like playing in a giant-size sandbox.

Now that I’m home, it’s time to start writing again. I feel surprisingly uninspired, though. The combination of the house disaster, R’s college financial aid numbers and some unexpected vet & medical bills means that I’m stressing about money. I wish that motivated me, but instead it seems to stifle me. I think it’s because I know the economics of writing don’t make sense. I’d earn more at a minimum wage job. I read a blog post today that talked about the formula for success–which is apparently releasing a bunch of books at the same time, followed by another a month later, followed by another two months later. That’s how to keep visibility high and make your books discoverable. So let’s see, seven books… at my average speed, that’ll take me about four years. So four years from now, I might be successful. Unfortunately, I’ll be homeless and starving before then. That’s not good math.

But, hey, it was a nice vacation and I’m glad I took it despite the chaos. Tomorrow will be whatever it is, but yesterday–and the preceding eight days!–was a good day and I get to be glad that I had it.