....anyone else figuring on getting tickets to the Sing Off tour?

So part of my whole 'trying to be a sane and healthy person' involves learning to take better care of myself. Which, for me, is less about trying to eat more veggies and get more exercise, and more about getting enough sleep and time off instead of working myself to a crispy frizzle.

Part of this means not overscheduling myself with work. Things have started picking up for the summer, schedule-wise, and given that the spring was a little slow, it's hard not to just grab as many days of work as I can. But with umbran reliably employed again, it's a little easier to justify an extra free day here and there. So, among other things, I have seized a weekend in July and declared it to be a three-day mini-vacation for us.

We can't make the trip to Latvia that we were planning this summer, due to circumstances beyond our control. And three days isn't exactly enough to fly to Places Far Off - and even if it were, I'd like to try to keep expenses to a reasonable level. But it is enough to go somewhere moderately nearby and run away for a little while.

So - any suggestions for weekend escapes in New England? I'm new at this whole vacation thing, and not quite sure where to start....

Okay. So way back at the beginning of the year, I promised myself that umbran and I would go on a vacation sometime this year. I never actually expected to be able to follow through on that - we haven't gone on an actual vacation since 2006, I think, and didn't expect that to change - but... I've had it brought home to me that I do need to take better care of myself, and that that doesn't mean fasting, working out until I collapse, or working six-day weeks, and calling it practicality and tough love.

And now that SuperHusband has something resembling a job, we can start to think on this again. The problem is, I have no idea of where to go or what to do.

We never went on vacation when I was a kid. We didn't have any money, and my father didn't like.... well, as far as I can tell, he didn't like anything. I haven't traveled anywhere; when I was a kid my folks couldn't afford to send me for Study Abroad programs, and since then my money went to planning for vet school, going to vet school, and recovering from vet school. Other than one week in London, I have no real travel experience at all.

So I have no idea of how to plan a vacation, or where to go. There's a whole huge world out there, and I don't know where to start. In my fantasy world I'd love to go on a Mediterranean cruise, but while funds are improving, that's still a little bit out of reach.

I want to go *somewhere.* I'll be honest, as nice as Vermont and D.C. are, they still feel a little bit too much like home. I want something I can't drive to in a day. I want to wait until it's cold, and go somewhere warm. I'm slightly enamored of cruises, mostly because they'll let me go to a handful of places without unpacking and repacking and spending time in cars, but I'm not married to that idea. I'd rather avoid Hawaii and Disney, since the two vacations I've had as an adult have been to those places - I want someplace new.

So.... any suggestions? I know there are people reading this from all over the world, and who've been all over the world. Where's your favorite place to go on vacation? Any suggestions on how to choose, or how to plan it, or what to do when I'm there? Travel brochures are nice, but they actually tell you much that's practical....

A little while ago I mentioned a fundraising project that tpau and I were planning in order to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure that we're going to be participating in this summer. Finally, details have been worked out, times have been confirmed, and we can start planning for real. So....

What: A Community Crafts Day, Raffle, and Auction
When: Saturday, April 24th, noon-5pm
Where: Camelot Cohousing Community, Berlin, MA

Details: We're trying to put together the biggest, best bake sale and crafts fair you've ever seen, and I think we can do it. I know that enough of my friends are talented artists, artisans, and bakers, and we should be able to get an amazing collection of treats and goodies for sale.

We're also collecting some pretty amazing prizes to be raffled and auctioned off at the same time - we've been lucky enough so far to get prizes from such diverse businesses as the Boston Babydolls, Tealuxe, Burdick's Chocolates, Prospect Hill Forge, Three Trolls Games, the talented author seanan_mcguire, and at least a handful of others that I can't remember right now.

So mark your calendars, spread the word, and please come. Bring something to donate, either to the bake sale, crafts fare, or raffle - it can be as simple as a batch of cookies or some knitted toys, though we'll gladly accept more grandiose offerings as well. And bring some spending money, buy some treats that other folks made, and get a few raffle tickets. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

Feel free to forward this information far and wide - and if you're an out-of-towner who wants to send goodies, just let me know and I'll pass on my snail-mail address.

And, as always, if you want to donate directly, please do - http://www.the3day.org/goto/drbecky

Thanks so much, and hopefully I'll see you there!

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Sometimes I set goals, sometimes not, but they're more general things, most of the time, and not so much linked to the turn of the year. Things like 'try to get more sleep,' or stuff like that.

But this year... I am setting a solid, concrete, no-dodging-this goal for 2010. I am - we are - going on a vacation, come hell or high water. A real, far away, relaxing, go-somewhere vacation. Where we go is probably going to depend on when umbran gets a job; we can't afford the week-long Galapagos cruise I just saw if he stays unemployed for another six months. But we're going *somewhere.* I'm starting now, setting aside a little bit of money every time I get paid, and we can afford this. I want to go in the fall, and by then we should have saved up enough.

This is scary in a lot of ways. I've always had a problem spending money; growing up poor will do that. There's the deep-down-inside fear that if I throw that money away now, on something that isn't a necessity, it won't be there if and when there's a crisis and we need it. And it's even harder spending it on myself, because there's a strong feeling that I don't deserve this, haven't earned it, there are more important and worthy things that I could do with that money.

But I've spent years telling myself that we'll do this some other year, next year, later, when we have the time and the money. And if I keep doing that, and don't put my foot down and tell myself that this *IS* going to happen here and now and no arguing, I'll never actually get around to it. So. This year. Europe if we're shorter on cash, Galapagos if we're not. For real.

I feel bad, and wasteful, and overindulgent, but it'll be worth it.....

Any of my readers in Ohio have an idea of what the job market is like for project/product managers out there right now?

And, say, the housing market?

If, you know, a veterinarian and a project manager were looking to move out there sometime in the next six months?

Just hypothetically speaking, of course....