Preparations.

So Thursday is our departure day for Disney and I am most excited about taking a break from the every-day-ness of the everyday.

(This was our biggest complaint about renting a house for the week on the Cape last summer: a little too much real life creeps in when you are unloading dishwashers and making sandwiches and doing laundry and making beds. We did get an email last week from the rental company who carries that listing for summer rental and I admit: I sighed quite wistfully at our lack of ocean-going this summer.)

Of course, there is tons to work to be done to get ready: summer clothes and shoes to choose, purchase and wash before packing, pulling out the hand-me-downs for Jenna, and buying some new summer maternity clothes for me and fretting about how huge they look. (I am juuuust starting to pop out a little but am getting a head start for summer, when I will surely explode with baby-ness.) I spent the whole day sorting, trying on and washing and folding and piling laundry, as well as making lists about what has to get done before we leave, making a haircut appointment for Michaela, changing our dental appointment, hiring the neighbor girl to feed the cat and picking up from the weekend. Yeah, I know: thrilling stuff.

I am so excited about not having to cook, nag about routines, make beds, check email, update Facebook and my blog, do any volunteer work, go grocery shopping, open mail, and do laundry. I am ready to just stroll around, be warm, wear flip flops and capris and sunglasses, breathe the Disney air (which my friend Angel swears is infused with some type of happy drug) and watch my children and husband have a blast. And relax. And order many, many meals off of a menu. And not have to clean up afterwards.

Ahhhhh.

Completely Random PS- I bought real-sized carrots for the first time in years; you know, the long kind Bugs Bunny eats instead of the baby carrots. And I was shocked-shocked- by how much more flavor they have. Very rich and sweet and carrot-y. Michaela is in love with them, like they are a strange, exotic new vegetable she's never tried. Poor deprived girl.

If I get this excited about carrots, I think it's clear how much I could use a vacation.