When You Need a Vacation (at Home)

It had been a tough week. I needed simple ways to relax.

As pathetic as it is, I will admit it: We were only 3 weeks into a new school year, and my daughters and I needed another summer vacation.

So last weekend we did the next best thing and made HOME feel like a vacation…

We promised each other we’d fit in a few moments of down time, even though we knew it would be hard, surrounded by numerous responsibilities on the homestead this time of year. Thankfully, September’s Harvest Moon helps extend our hours of light. Even so, fall’s chores are bittersweet, reminding us that summer is indeed gone. And she’s left the short, cold days of New England winter eager to take her place.

So we hurriedly harvest the garden’s bounty and preserve it in any way we can. We hope that our efforts–pulled off a root-cellar shelf, or uncovered from a freezer drawer, and warmed on a snowy January day–will bring the smells of summer to our kitchen, the tastes of summer to our table, and the joys of summer to our cold winter evenings, to sustain us through another long, northern winter.

We try to squeeze in harvesting chores among the cracks of our homeschool days. Last Friday that meant breaking beans while reading history and keeping the day’s science lesson short to allow time to can pasta sauce before making dinner.

As we struggled through a Chemistry conversion problem, I realized it was time. I knew it was the weekend to make home feel like a vacation when my daughter announced, in no uncertain terms, that if she was on a desert island with only her chemistry book she would simply no longer read.

Yep, only 3 weeks into the new school year, and I needed simple ways to relax and I needed them quickly. Truth be told, we were ready for another summer vacation. So we did the next best thing and made HOME feel like a vacation. Tauna asked me to share on Proverbial Homemaker the 3 simple ways we accomplished this feat.

So go check out the three piece-of-cake ways you can make your home feel like a vacation today.

What are some of your favorite simple ways to relax and make home feel like a special retreat?

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 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31