Manic: The day after returning home from a trip. Why does it have to be that way?!
Managed: Not feeling managed yet….maybe by tomorrow?
Why is it the day after you return home from a trip, the stress returns? I want to feel like this picture….
….for just a couple of more days after arriving home, but that isn’t the case.
One of my gal pals said it best when she texted me that “re-entry is tough”….so true! We had a terrific trip to Texas and all went smoothly the 7 days that we were gone. I just love when that happens.
I look forward to sharing with you the successes of our trip and a couple of surprising ways we saved money, too. But I’m too tired and too busy today to work that hard on my blog post. So instead I will ask you what you do to make readjusting a little bit easier after a trip. Do you take the day off from the work the day after you return? I highly recommend that and back when I worked full-time, I always regretted when I didn’t do that.
How do you adjust to going gangbusters with your travel eating only to return home to realize that you have to now detox your body? Do you not partake when traveling to avoid the 3 to 5 lb weight gain many of us experience on a trip? I thought about not eating more than usual on our travels, since I have been protecting the 8 lb weight loss I achieved in May with juicing, exercising and making better choices. But then we landed in Texas and the margaritas, Tex Mex and southern BBQ took over my taste buds. And I enjoyed every second of it, too. So as I sat down to eat my bland flax seed pancake today, I tried to enjoy it, but instead I just reminded myself that the vacation is over and so is the unhealthy eating. Darn!
How long does it take you to unpack? Do any of you leave your suitcases out for 2 to 3 days to gradually launder and then put away or do you knock it right out? I have done it both ways and I felt better unpacking it right then and there, upon arrival. However, we were greeted with a stinky freezer in the garage because the door hadn’t sealed shut. So we immediately went to work cleaning out the fridge (needed to happen anyway) and scrubbing the gross stuff out. I can’t tell you how bad spoiled chicken smells in a malfunctioning Phoenix garage fridge that is around 125 degrees inside. I thought that smell would help me get back on my healthy and low calorie eating track and it did yesterday when we returned, but not so much today! Cravings are back….dang it.
And when I’m not imagining that yummy vacation food, I am busy sorting through a mountain of mail and newspapers. Of course several of the mail correspondence required phone calls with health insurance questions, trip charges that needed to be double checked and more. And each call took, on average, 30 minutes to get through after combing through the many automated questions to then be put on hold to finally get to a real live person.
Our backyard fountain was also malfunctioning when we returned and after my teenager cleaned it out for me, he was grossed out to discover that a pile of crickets had hatched underneath. Since crickets attract scorpions, I had to also add a call to my exterminator to my return to do list.
So when one of my favorite gal pals invited me to lunch today, I politely declined due to the overwhelming amount of stuff that had to get done the day after our return…and because I was still in my jammies trying to get caught up on all that we returned to today.
Which brings me to now. The suit cases are still out and I’m still in my jammies. However the fountain is fixed, the crickets are gone and the garage smells OK again. My health insurance questions checked out and our trip charges and credits were all good, too. I even managed to make fluffy pancakes for the family (the flax seed was just for me) and get my girl and her buddies to their babysitting certification class today.
I really wished that I could have joined my friend for lunch, but I must get dressed and head to my appointment. There is also a hockey team meeting to attend tonight and a fridge to fill with fresh groceries and a cat litter to empty. So the lunch will have to wait and my figure really doesn’t need any more meals out for a while as my system recovers from all of that rich Texas grub.
So although this post may sound like I’m complaining, I certainly am not, as I’m so grateful that our trip was wonderfully spent with loving family, full wine glasses and happy bellies. I just wish that the trip re-entry, as my friend pointed out, wasn’t so tough….but of course, completely worth it!
Do you have trip re-entry tips that you follow post travel? I would love to hear about them in the comments section. I would like to figure out how to come home from a trip feeling refreshed and not so dog tired….even though it was completely worth every calorie while there and every tired moment the day after!
