Sabbatical...

It's time for Brent's sabbatical again.

Okay, technically it's been time for Brent's sabbatical since last year but he couldn't get away to take it. And I was kind of writing it off as a missed opportunity, but you aren't really allowed to miss them so he has found a time that he thinks will work and so it's time for sabbatical.

Which means planning. 

Last time I had a list going of things we were going to do and the travel and projects. It was our first no other responsibility sabbatical. We ended up moving a few things around because he had to shift the dates at the last minute, but we still went on an Alaskan cruise, went to Hawaii for a week, went to Bend for a concert, went to Canada and I think something else, OH we went back to Michigan. 

But I didn't really have anything on the list this time. Because, like I mentioned, I really didn't think it was going to happen.

Brent has added in a few things that we've sort of talked about at different times. Maybe doing a Viking River Cruise touring the Christmas markets? Maybe a side trip to Iceland to see the Northern Lights? There was a train across Canada that we've seen, but the dates he is thinking about don't line up for that. The standard Disney and Hawaii pop ins. A couple Michigan games. 

Our other challenge is the cats. Friends of ours used a house sitter for their last long vacation and that worked out really well. We have Katie here in town but I'm not sure how willing she will be to come here for a week, back to her house for a week, come here for a week, back to her house for a week, for a couple months. That and going back to Michigan and going to Disney are often full family trips so it seems sort of like a dick move to have her stay here while we go there. But we will see. 

 Last sabbatical we didn't have cats so we could just go and do things without worry. Which was my point to Brent when he decided he really wanted cats again. That we had a lot of freedom without them. I, obviously, lost that argument. All in all it works out just fine. They are really good boys, and I do think they helped him so much after his mother died. Something small and helpless to focus on was the perfect thing right then. But since it was the pandemic, and he had a lot of focusing he needed to do, we ended up with extremely social cats. Daily check-ins are not good enough for them. They really need hours of companionship.

And I fully understand these are what Brent refers to as high class problems, and other people call first world problems. They aren't really problems at all. Oh woe is me, how ever will we spend the two months off that Brent gets through work? What sort of travel will we be able to do? 

I mean, I get it. But it's still the thing that will keep me up at nights for awhile while we figure it out. There is so much to choose from. And so many different ways to go. And it's all just a lot. I mean how am I supposed to stay focused on planning one thing when there are 3,000 other things that we could do instead. And how do I quiet the voice in my head screaming about how much money it all costs? And what about the cats? And Katie? And....

And in other news I'm seeing my doctor on Monday to talk about possibly going on medication for ADD... I'm not sure yet if I'm going to try it. I'm leery of the drugs. But I'm also curious if it would help me find a middle ground between no focus at all and hyper focus on specific yet unimportant things. 

So how amazing would that be? Me getting a sabbatical from my distracted head just in time to plan a sabbatical from Brent's busy schedule?