All good things must come to end.  After almost ten weeks of travels and adventures, our summer comes to a close.  Lisa went back to work on Monday, and I start back tomorrow.  I have had the past week at home to enjoy the final days of freedom.  Watched a bunch of DVDs and Netflix movies.  Finished my audio book.  Plowed through most of my magazines.  Got together with friends to hang out.  Got together with family on both sides.  Slept late, woke up late.  And enjoyed taking advantage of Lisa’s birthday meal offers at Red Robin, Papa’s Pizza, Sweet Tomatoes and Chevy’s.  Not one minute was I ever bored — I can’t wait for retirement!

Lisa and I are lucky to have these practice runs of retirement for two months every single year.  I just shake my head in disbelief when I think back eleven years ago when I had the typical job that only gave me two weeks of vacation.  Granted, it was paid vacation, but it was only two weeks long!  I did all I could to maximize those two weeks by building vacations around three day weekends and holidays.  Now, instead of two weeks, I get two months to do whatever the heck I want to do.  We do have to be plan out our paychecks to make sure our money lasts through the summer, which can be pretty hard when there are so many places to visit and so many things to do.  Unfortunately, we kinda went over budget this summer, so it will be good to go back to work to pay for our travels of the last two months.  In the next few days I will post the exact costs of our vacation … I’m hoping that we were able to stay around $200 per day, but I’ll have to do the calculations first and see what turns out.

All I know for now is that it is time for me to go to bed earlier than I have because tomorrow I’ll need to wake up early and do this work thing.  Yep, it’s back to reality.