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I’m Back!!! Daily Checklist for a Post-Vacation Disaster Zone

July 15, 2010 By Dana White | 14 Comments

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I’m finally back!  After 13 days gone and 17 hours of driving in one day, we arrived home at midnight last night.

13 days.

17 hours.

Midnight.

3 kids.

OK, I’m done.  I just wanted to be sure you felt sufficiently sorry for me.

Actually, we had a blast, and achieved the coveted balance between loving our vacation and being glad to be home.  And it’s hard to complain about the driving when my wonderful hubby did ALL of it.  I wrote a blog post (to go up tomorrow), tried to figure out how to make a blog button, cut and filed coupons, played free-cell, threatened kids, etc.

And now it’s today.  And I’m overwhelmed.  I learned so much at the Savvy Blogging Summit (and met fabulous people who I’ll be sharing with you soon), and would love to spend all the time necessary to implement everything I learned.  But that would be a full time job for the next few months.  And of course, this blog has a built-in kill-switch to keep me in balance.  If I let blogging take over and my house fall back (further) into chaos, my blog fails.  Why, oh why did I come up with such a great self-policing blog idea?

Before I share my day’s accomplishments (or lack thereof), I just want to say how much I appreciate all of your comments while I was gone.  My Internet access was pretty spotty while we were travelling, so I wasn’t able to respond to many, but they meant a lot to me.  Now, I’m too behind on everything else to go back through posts and re-read comments.  Just know that I appreciate all of your comments so much!

————————–

So it’s our first day back home . . . and the house is a disaster.  Not as bad as a normal pre-blog day, but still sufficient for Oprah to come in and take some horrifying studio-audience-gasp-inducing “before” pictures.

And I’m tired.  Really tired.  Adjusting to the altitude in Breckenridge, Colorado was difficult, and now I’m wondering if I have to re-adjust to a lack of altitude.

Or probably I’m just being lazy.

I found myself wandering around this morning, looking at the many messes, and feeling overwhelmed.  I was completely at a loss about where to start.  I was using my brain-power to justify not doing anything today, instead of coming up with a list of things to do that would make our home livable.  So I decided to get down to the absolute basics of life.

Clean undies.

I unpacked the Suburban (mostly) and started sorting clothes.  I kept getting distracted but decided to not worry about ANYTHING else until I had all the clothes out and ready to be washed.  It took forever.  Bag after bag after bag of dirty clothes appeared and made me really appreciate my once-a-week-means-only-a-week’s-worth-of-laundry method.

Once the first load was going, I decided to just do something.  Anything.  There were (and still are) so many things to be done that if I didn’t focus on tiny parts at a time, I got overwhelmed.

I emptied the dishwasher and then loaded it with the didn’t-make-the-pre-vacation-load dishes.

I took the masses of newspapers which were piled on the breakfast table (and surrounding floor) to the recycle spot.

I loaded the pile of clean winter clothes back into the suitcase where they’re normally stored, but which I had used for our vacation.  They were in a corner of the master bedroom, and although pre-vacation I was getting used to a much-less-cluttered bedroom floor, I knew that if I didn’t get them put up immediately, I’d fall back into my habit of not seeing them, letting them spread slowly out over the floor where they would begin to breed and reproduce with the dirty laundry on the other side of the room.

I unloaded our leftover food from our trip.

I made myself empty suitcases COMPLETELY.  I have such a problem finishing things, and I know that many many times I’ve started packing for a trip only to find things left in a suitcase that I thought I’d lost months ago.

So that’s my day.  Trudging along.  Resisting every single effort.  Feeling like each zipper unzipped and sock sorted was a huge accomplishment.

(If the voice in your head as you read this post sounded the least bit perky, please re-read in a monotone voice, with frequent sighs and groans.  I’m just saying.)

Related Posts:

Read Newer Post Focus Check Friday – Getting Back to Normal(ish)
Read Older Post My Best Packing Tip for Road Trips with Kids – Travel Advice from a Slob

Filed Under: clothing, daily checklist, laundry, Out of the routine | 14 Comments

Comments

  1. Shell says

    July 15, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    Great job! When we came back from vacation I tripped over suitcases for three days before I finally had enough and hopped to it. I look back and wonder why in the heck I didn't just do it to begin with. A week from now you'll be so happy that you trudged along and got it all done.

    Reply
  2. Diane says

    July 15, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    way to go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so easy to do nothing any day but especially when you just get back from holidays. I know what you mean about not emptying suitcases. I am soooooo… bad at this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  3. Annie says

    July 15, 2010 at 11:43 pm

    Good job! My mil just left after being here for two weeks and while I don't have two weeks of dirty laundry and life to catch up on I still feel overwhelmed with getting back into a routine. Add to that the reason for a 2 week visit from my mil is a brand new baby… the routine itself is brand new! Making yourself start is always the hardest part! I'm sure you're pleased that it's not ALL still hanging over your head!

    Reply
  4. Lenetta @ Nettacow says

    July 16, 2010 at 1:26 am

    Urgh. Just reading that makes me want to go get a bowl of ice cream and put my feet up. Hope you get to do a little of that tonight!

    Reply
  5. Going Cerebral says

    July 16, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    *standing ovation*

    i HEAR your montone-words-running-together-sighing-expressionless-mope. but i'm SOOOOO proud of you!!

    the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time!

    Reply
  6. Becky says

    July 16, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    I still have our fourth of July suitcases on the floor of my room with clothes in them! Way to go. Makes me wanna go home and deal with mine…kinda.

    Reply
  7. Mar says

    July 17, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    I have so often let the suitcases sit half-unpacked for several days (weeks…) when it would just be easier to empty the dang things. We leave for the beach in a week and my goal every year is to NOT look like the Clampetts driving down the road because (a) you have to lug it all into the hotel apartment and the building is so old that they don't have an elevator and (b) you have to lug it all back in when you get home. However, we really might need/want that "fill in the blank" item. SOMEDAY we'll go with just our clothes, boogie boards, and food to cook (ANOTHER story because we usually take too much) but it won't be this year, I"m sure.

    Reply
  8. Rebecca Burgener says

    November 30, 2011 at 11:01 am

    You unpacked the first day back? Wooooohooooo! Excellent job. After our last vacation I found LIBRARY books still packed months after arriving home. Yikes! It took awhile to pay those fines off.

    Rebecca
    All I want for Christmas is to see this little boy get adopted. http://communicatecreativity.com/bennett/

    Reply
  9. Jean says

    June 19, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    “I have such a problem finishing things” — that’s me to a T.

    Thanks for your transparency and encouragement. You don’t know how much it helps! (Well, on the other hand, you probably do.)

    Reply
  10. Dani says

    April 18, 2013 at 1:15 pm

    Oh suitcases. Such a fun reminder of past trips… until you open them up in December and discover you still have FOOD in there from your July trip… packaged non stinky food, luckily, but still. There may have been a few articles of clothing that I thought were gone forever as well. Le sigh.

    Reply
  11. kelly says

    April 18, 2014 at 9:16 am

    I, too, am a Flylady drop out, but the one thing I have carried with me is to completely empty everything as we unpack from going out of town. We have 9 in our family, so it is a lot of “stuff” and if we go to see certain family members, the kids always come home with lots more “stuff”. This has been the best thing for me, otherwise, I get that selective slob vision and fail to see the rubbermaid totes of dirty clothes for the girls, boys and us.

    Reply
  12. Jeanine says

    March 7, 2015 at 10:35 am

    I have SUCH trouble emptying suitcases. In packing for a trip I know to allow a day, or at least several hours for packing, but when I come home I somehow expect that things will unpack themselves and it won’t take up any of my time or energy.

    Reply
  13. Brittani A. says

    June 15, 2015 at 12:03 am

    I love your realism.

    Reply
  14. Sara says

    July 11, 2019 at 9:37 pm

    Okay, okay, okay…ugh. Going to go finish the dishes (mostly baby bottles etc.), and at least unpack one of the suitcases from getting back Sunday. Specifically the one I’ve tripped over at least 3 times this week, and I moved it further over out of the way today (Thursday night). Chuckle, but sigh.

    This blog is really good for me. So thankful I have so many more “years” of motivation to read through!

    Reply

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