Tag Archives: home

Heading home

It’s our last morning in Kelowna at Bear Creek Campground and it’s quite hazy with smoke. We actually had fantastic, clear days for our holidays, especially compared to 2 years ago when most days we could barely see across the lake.

A highlight of our trip was our daily 35 minute walk on the other side of the highway.

It starts with 149 steps and basically goes up and around a waterfall that you can hear, but not see, on the hike. Another highlight was the waterfall hike.

We love this holiday, and spending it with our friends 2 campsites over makes it all the more wonderful.

Now we are sitting and waiting for the trailer pick-up, (we rent it and have it delivered to our site), and then we start are 4 hour drive home. I find it humorous that Canadians are just about the only people who share distances as time travelled. Kelowna isn’t 373 kilometres away, it’s 4 hours. When you live in a huge country, it doesn’t matter what the kilometres are, it matters how long it takes to get where you are going.

Going home is always bitter sweet. There is a comfort in getting back to home base, but there is also a subtle melancholy about ending your vacation. I say subtle because it’s not as pervasive as the positive memories, but it is present. Unlike heading on holidays, there is no excited anticipation, no thoughts of what’s to come (other than unpacking and laundry), but there is still a positive feel to the journey. Like the cliche ending of a movie where the star rides off into the sunset, there are more stories to come, more adventures for another day, but first, the journey home.

Packing up

It’s amazing how much time we spend preparing to go on a vacation and then preparing to go home. This is especially true camping, but also when flying somewhere.

Whether it’s packing the car or a suitcase, it takes time. Whether driving or flying, it takes time. Holidays are wonderful, but how much of the holidays are spent in transition… from one location to another and from closet to suitcase? Entire days are spent getting to and from a location, settling in, and preparing to leave.

One of our favourite family vacations was to Costa Rica. But we made one mistake on that trip. Three places we stayed at were for only 2 nights. Day one you are traveling, day two is the only full day, and day three you need to get out of your hotel before noon. A better plan is at least 3 nights in a location.

Give yourself two full days to explore a city. If not, you spend more time traveling, unpacking, and repacking, and planning your next stop, than you do actually enjoying yourself.

Our current trailer camping trip was almost 2 weeks, so we didn’t have that problem, but still I’m amazed how much time we spend getting ready to travel both to and from home. The good news is that we won’t be in a rush tomorrow, we are already 90% packed. I’ve enjoyed my trip and look forward to being home… at least I’m looking forward to it after we’ve completely unpacked!

Holiday from the holiday

Ever find that the day after a holiday is a day of recovery? It’s like needing a holiday to rest up from your holiday. I did a few necessary errands, but it’s taken me the whole day to get to my workout and now to writing, and I still haven’t meditated. It’s almost 5pm and I’m making frozen waffles for lunch.

That said, it’s date night at the theatre tonight and so it’s still going to be a great day overall. Yet I can’t help but feel like today was a recovery day. Just wondering if it’s only me or do others struggle with the after-holiday ‘blahs’ even though it feels good to be home?

Summer vacation

Three more days of work and then I’m off on holidays!

I’m only home for 10 days this summer. I have 3 very different trips planned, each with their own benefits. I’ll be staying at a resort, I’ll be camping in a trailer, and I’ll be visiting my mom. That’s over a month away from home, with a couple less-than-a-week gaps.

I’m excited about all 3 trips, and I know I’ll come back to work well rested. I also wish that I had a few more days to enjoy at home. It’s weird. I’m not complaining, and I wouldn’t want to shorten any of the trips, I just also wish I could spend a bit more time holidaying from the comfort of my house.

I say this is weird because I’m not really a homebody. I enjoy travel, and I’m not overly attached to my bed. Part of me is nomadic, and I can feel pretty at home away from home, even sleeping on a couch at my mom’s place. Maybe it’s our recent renovation, my home feels so much more comfortable now.

Regardless, I have a fantastic summer planned, and I haven’t looked forward to a summer this much in a long time. This school year kicked me in the butt, mostly but not only because of my health. I missed a lot of the year and felt like I was always catching up, always rushing things I am usually on top of, and even dropping things that I don’t usually drop.

I couldn’t pick a better year to jam pack with holidays. Sun and fun, rest and relaxation, and family… all squeezed into an amazing summer that happens to be mostly away from home.

A place for everything

There is a saying, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

Right now that’s not the case in our household. We are moving back onto our main floor after an extensive renovation, and now we have to find a place for everything. When it comes to the kitchen, that’s a real challenge. Our new fridge doesn’t seem as big as our old one, and the shelve sizes don’t seem to work for us. Our new cupboards and drawers are slowing becoming the place where we keep things, but I still find myself going on scavenger hunts to find things I usually find easily.

The good news, I absolutely love the new look. We took out the walls between our living room, dining room and kitchen and have a fully open concept. It looks awesome, and it already feels like home. But for now, we still have a lot of things to put away, and while we might find spots for everything, remembering where everything is kept will take a some time.

Slowly coming together

We’ve been living through a renovation since mid November and as we approach the completion it is great to see everything coming together. Drywall and flooring are done. Cabinetry is almost completely done, appliances are in, with one delayed shipment. Dust still everywhere.

We will still have to wait until late April or early May for all of our furniture to arrive, but we will have a working kitchen in about 2 weeks. That’s when things can start to get back to normal. And while it may take a couple months to settle back in, it feels good to be at a place where the end is in sight.

Living through an entire floor renovation isn’t very convenient. But we can already tell that the end result will be worth it. The biggest leap was deciding that we are going to live here for quite a while longer, and so let’s make it the place we really wanted. After that, it’s just really about not blowing the budget by too much, because there are always things you can add, always upgrades that look appealing.

But now is not a time to focus on that. Now is a time to appreciate what we’ve done and to see the vision we had for this place when we started. We have a home that we can enjoy for years to come, and while the process has been challenging, the final results will definitely be worth it.

Home Sweet Home

On my last day of work I left to visit my parents. I came home from that trip for 3 nights and then visited Nelson, then home for 4 nights and left for Kelowna. I also came home for 1 more night to drop my daughter off and head back to Kelowna. This whole summer I’ve been on the go!

I’m now looking forward to sticking around for a bit. I feel like I’ve had a great holiday and now I just want to rest up at home before starting back to school. I love to travel, but being home feels good. Sleeping in my own bed is something I’m looking forward to.

What’s even more exciting is that my wife and I decided that we will stay in our home for quite a bit longer, and so we are going to do a renovation that we’ve been talking about for years. We are planing to make ‘home sweet home’ even sweeter.

Going home

I booked a flight home to visit my parents this summer. By that point I will have had my second vaccine shot for a few weeks. I look forward to being able to hug my parents and sisters. It has been a long time since I’ve given anyone except my immediate family a hug. Sometimes the little things in life mean a lot.

I wish I could also take a few side trips and visit friends I haven’t seen in a while, but it feels a little soon for that. It will be a time to focus on family. That’s good too.

Living thousands of kilometres away from my parents and siblings is tough sometimes. It is easy to feel disconnected. Oddly enough the pandemic has brought me closer to my sisters. We now have a group chat on WhatsApp where we connect far more often than we used to. This is wonderful, but not the same as seeing each other face-to-face, and so the opportunity to go home is wonderful.

I remember a moment in my second year of Universtiy. I was home for the weekend, and shortly before it was time to leave I was sitting with my mom at the kitchen table. I absentmindedly said, “I better start getting ready to go home.” (Referencing my university as home.) My mom responded, “This is your home.” And at that point I realized my comment was impolite.

Now I have my own home, with a wonderful wife and two awesome kids. We’ve made a great home of our own… but when I’m heading back to see my folks, we’ll, I still like calling that ‘Going home’.