The Week Off

Aaron and I have done something unusual this week - we've taken it off work. Apart from when I've been forced to take Christmas off for Christmas closedown, we only take leave when we're going away somewhere, usually on a longish overseas holiday. In fact, the last time we can remember taking a week off just because was in 2004!

We do always take birthdays off and Aaron's birthday was this week so this was the impetus. Plus I think it's well known, that I've found my new job very stressful (I'm accepting it's just not me so I'll have to think about what to do about that over the next while - that's a blog in itself) so it was easy to decide to take a week off rather than just the day.

So Monday was A's birthday and we drove into the Barossa Valley to his favourite bakery for lunch, and then to a mini-golf course in Tanunda. It's fair to say that reminiscent of the differences in our personalities, Aaron and I have different mini-golf styles. Aaron's very considered and steady with his shots, while I'm of the just pummel the heck out of the ball without any sense of actual direction or finesse. That's so similar to how I stumble through life! However, in this case, it turns out that random smacking of the ball was the most effective play and I won. HA HA HA HA HA HA. (I mean, how unfortunate that he lost on his birthday.)

We then came home where I iced the "churro" cake I made for the birthday cake. I am still reveling in how proud I am of the birthday cake. I've never made a cake from scratch before, I had to convert a cupcake to cake recipe which meant guessing a lot of measurements and I was making a new kind of icing (Cream Cheese) and yet it worked. It worked well. It was definitely dense, and the kind of cake that causes sugar coma even just looking at it, but it worked. It was tasty, and cooked right. I'm so happy, I was terrified I'd ruin his cake.

Then we went out for dinner with A's family to an Argentinian restaurant.Mmmmmm steak...

So all in all a good day and thankfully the weather wasn't too bad on the day.

The rest of the week though has kind of reminded me of yet another one of my hypocrisies - I'm terribly lazy so have been sleeping in way too much and not doing much but I hate being lazy. I'm the sort of person who gets terribly stir crazy if I'm just at home not doing anything (cleaning doesn't count as doing something) so I always try to be doing something on weekends, even if it's just walking around a shopping centre, and I don't actually like weekends if I don't have something to do every day. (I don't like weekdays either, but I like feeling useful.) I'm grateful for this week, because I really did need a break, but it's made me realise that for me holidays are for actual holidays, whether it's going on a local trip, or overseas. I just like always doing something or exploring something new or something I love. Man, I sound really ungrateful, I'm not at all, just realising that I'm no good at just relaxing. Like my mini-golf persona, I need to be charging at something.

We have one more official day of holidays, I may not totally relax through it, but I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it.