It’s good to be back

I think this has been my longest blogging break ever!

The latter half of August into September has been different and great — for three weeks I’ve been away from the routine, to the point where I wasn’t sure of the calendar day (I was always sure of the day of the week — hello time tracking). That said, I am happy to be resuming my routine and starting new ones as the school year begins. I look forward to sitting down at my desk for an uninterrupted work day! (Which is not today — we’re spending Labor Day catching up on last minute school shopping, hair cuts, etc.)

My family spent August 13-26 in Ocean Grove, NJ — the town we visit (almost) every summer. I elected to rent the house we always rent for two weeks, rather than one, and I think that was the right choice. A week would be too short, though perhaps two was a bit long (the kids were tiring of the beach at the end).

We did all the usual things, including eating ice cream at Days, playing pinball at the Silverball arcade, and visiting the Asbury beer garden for a date night. We also did some (relatively) new things such as eating lobster rolls at the Asbury Cousins Maine Lobster outpost and having brunch at Toast. We took many walks out the newly constructed pier (the old one was destroyed in Superstorm Sandy many years ago). We tried a whale watching boat, though we didn’t really see anything, so that was kind of a bust. We went to the beach multiple times most days and I ran on the boardwalk many mornings. We ate almost every dinner on the big front porch.

We had rented the house through to Sunday the 27th, but we left a day early to get home and get organized and repack to head to Norway!

If the beach was a familiar vacation, this was all new. We flew Sunday from Newark overnight to Oslo and stayed until the next Sunday. We did not take the 3-year-old, which made for a far more doable trip (he had the time of his life doing local excursions here), and we had a great many adventures. I will write more about this trip in a separate post in case anyone is interested in the exact itinerary. There was Edward Munch, hiking, cruising on the fjords, and electric biking in the mountains. And sometimes herring at breakfast, which hopefully my children have forgiven me for.

In any case, wow. Three weeks is a long time already, but travel and new locations makes it feel even longer. The three weeks since mid-August feel like an eternity even though they weren’t. You can’t really slow time down, but adventures make time feel more thick and rich. I’m already scheming for how to take a similar pause next year (I did do some work and stayed pretty close to current on email — I never really disconnect completely, but I’m fine with that.)

In other news: I’ll be hosting a September Time Tracking Challenge from September 11-17. I’ll be posting my time logs here and you can track along. Sign up here to get daily motivational emails from me during the challenge. You can download a time tracking spreadsheet here.

You can obviously track time any time you want (I’ve been doing it for 8 years now!) but September tends to be a time of new routines for many people, which means it’s good to do a little check up. By tracking 168 hours, you’ll be able to see where your time is going now, so you have accurate information to decide what you like and what you don’t. I also know that many people appreciate having some accountability.

Here’s the sign-up link again. Please join me!

In other other news: Today is my husband and my 19th anniversary. No real celebrations planned (that I am aware of) but perhaps for the 20th! Maybe I’ll start thinking of that now…

Photo: Alpine landscape in Norway