A Mental Vacation

The past two weeks have been a glorious limbo of no class, easy work hours, and hanging out. It has in essence, been a much needed mental vacation. I've enjoyed sleeping in, and making a more delightful and very loose schedule.

For the first leg of this vacation, I took a little staycation with Gunther, a cool beagle friend of mine over on the East Side. We have been friends for a while and like to go on long walks, watch movies, and cuddle. In fact, this is him under the covers with his head on the pillow. Hilarious little guy.

For the next leg of the mental vacation I've done a bunch of random things in no particular order. The weather has been ridiculously hot, and I told Niki that I hope heaven is climate controlled (pleassseeee God?!) 

I decided to spend one night on a little solo midnight roadtrip. Originally I wanted to take some night photos of Providence from the East Bay, but alas, I forgot my memory card. So I ended up driving from East Providence to Pawtucket, Central Falls, and back into Providence. Just for fun. Discovered a lot of little nooks and crannies. Perfect.

Special indeed.

One night a few of us went over to Norm and Cheryl's house and made them dinner. They are an "eternally young" couple from our church. Below is Jake and Melissa cutting up the chicken for some sort of terriyaki pineapple concoction we cooked up. The fellowship with them is rich and full of hilarity and wisdom. At one point, Norm got on his Djembe and went to town to Spanish music. It was awesome. For dessert we had chocolate and vanilla frozen yogurt and tons of fruit. It was a glorious refreshment to a sweltering evening!

Monday I had off from work. It was a disgusting 90-something degrees, humidity turned on full blast. I practically swam from my house to the car. I picked up my friend Eileen and we went to Colt State Park in Bristol, Rhode Island. It is right on the bay, it is beautiful, and has scenery like whoa. It is one of my favorite parks just because you can walk along the water and see all the sail boats. After that we had lunch at Panera and hit up Target, Home Depot, and Walmart. I bought some spray paint. 

Luxe Burger Bar has trivia night once a week, and we got a team together. Trivia night is fun because along with just grabbing some food, you have a great, automatic conversation carrier, team building, and hey- it's just something to do! We ended up in 3rd (or 4th?) place, I cant remember. But all I have to say is Milwaukee for the win! 

It has been great to have this kind of free time. It was great to hang out with people without being stressed out or having a crazy time limit. My brain has been able to just take a breather, get some extra sleep, not worry about deadlines of any kind. I can read a book now for pleasure? WHAT!? haha. 

Anyways, that's been my little mental vacation. 

What do you like to do to give yourself a mental break?