Sabbatical Recap

There’s only a few days left in my summer sabbatical! Where the heck did the time go?

I accomplished some of the things on my list of goals, although the more expensive activities (mostly travel) were dropped or cut short after working an unexpected septic system replacement into our budget. I made up for that by mapping out and budgeting for a family Disney vacation during the kids’ upcoming winter break, so we have some fun travel to look forward to. Knock on wood nothing else in this house explodes before then. 😛

Most of my time was focused on drawing or working on my print-on-demand shops; I’ll make a separate wrap-up post about drawing later. We took a fun trip to Freeport and Saco as a family. I tackled some minor organization projects that I’d been putting off for a while, decluttering and cleaning out closets that hadn’t been looked at since we moved in. I also continued practicing meditation and French, and caught up on reading and TV.

We spent a couple days at the lake with the kids, and Ellie had a fun week at camp (while Gwen enjoyed a fun week as an only child). After all the drama at the beginning of the summer, things calmed down a bit.

So, what have I learned over the last three months? I’d like to continue to make time for my hobbies (new and old) outside work, and that’s going to require rethinking my work/life balance. I could be better at taking time for myself and not waiting for a summer sabbatical to do All The Things.

Am I nervous about going back to work? You bet. I haven’t checked in beyond the absolute necessities for HR, so I have no idea what I’m coming back to. I’ll no longer be a manager; I’ll have to figure out how to be a regular worker bee. And I haven’t touched code since I logged off back in May, which should make for some “fun” theme bugs while I re-learn how to WordPress.

But I’m also looking forward to seeing my colleagues, and to our annual grand meetup next month. I’m eager to get back into the routine, back to some semblance of normalcy. I am so glad I had the chance to take the time off, though, and I already look forward to doing this again in five years…minus the head lice and septic system woes. 😉