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My family can’t handle stay-cations. Me? I travel with my work, speaking, training, consigliering (Not a real word), so I am happy to lounge around home and do some local things (or nothing).

Ok, who am I kidding. If I am around home, I’ll be doing yardwork, writing, going into the office or something “productive.” There is no “cation” in my staycation.

And even though we live near a tourist destination city, we can’t seem to figure out what to do in a major metropolitan area that millions of people come from around the world to experience.

And my kids refuse to consider it a vacation if they are sleeping in their own beds at night and my wife is pretty much on the same page since household chores never stop. (No, not everything is her job, and yes, we try to split the chores, but laundry and grocery shopping is pretty much all her. No nasty sexist emails please).

The point is is bless the staycationer’s little hearts. The Van Meter’s just don’t do it well.

And this year, We pretty much staycationed because of lack of planning and this is what my kids looked like:

Now, in a previous article I quoted “plan for the future but live in the present.” That is such wonderful, syrupy sweet motivational advice.

Advice which I totally did not implement this summer. At least not when it came to vacation.

Don’t judge, it’s been crazy. Launching a business, writing a book. Taking the trash out, mowing the lawn, weeding, raising teenagers who don’t want to do those things…. blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine.

Fortunately, at the last minute my in-laws offered us their lake house for 4 days and we said yes. But here’s the rub, I know my kids are going to say we didn’t get a “real” vacation (and they don’t buy into the metaphysical discussion of “What is real?”). Sigh..

What really happened was the opposite of what I wrote about in the previous article. In that article I wrote: “…, leaders often plan for the future, but they forget to live in the present.” In this case I was stuck on the other end of the pendulum. I was so much in the present, trying to keep up with the workload that I didn’t make summer plans. So, we are flying by the seat of our pants. And it will be ok.

The lake house is wonderful, relaxing and simple. Simple can be a nice change from the hectic pace of the everyday. And the kids won’t be in their own beds, so it counts as a long weekend.

That balance thing I mentioned last time? It can be quite elusive.

I can help you with that, even though I muffed our vacation.

Give me a call, I’ve got some ideas that could work for you. And, sometimes you’ll muff it up, and it will be ok.

Integritas,

Dr. Jeff

815-277-9033

www.www.humanleader.com

www.drjeffvanmeter.com

 

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