I'm Still Here

It's been quite a month. I've intended to blog several times, but have had trouble summoning energy this month.

There's something about having a months-long buildup to a long, fabulous vacation you've planned out in your head, complete with gorgeous beach pictures for your Christmas card, that leaves you completely drained and devoid of energy when said fabulous vacation unravels in a swirl of tropical storm winds, continuous rain, and lack of continuous power in the hotel room you are stuck in due to the aforementioned continuous rain.

It started well, then...

disaster struck (tree knocked down outside our room).

It looked like this for 80 percent of our week..

So, yeah, Jamaica did not turn out to be the fabulous vacation I hoped for. We had decent weather for the first 2.5 days and then the rain started and did not let up until we went home. Which might've been okay if the power had stayed on in our room. But we had about 1.5 days of no power in our room. Ever changed a dirty diaper on a wiggly toddler in a dark room? It's messy and no fun.

And still, it all might've been okay, if it was just the power in our building or room...however, it was the power on our side of the resort. So if we didn't have power in our room, neither did three of the restaurants, the kids' camp for our daughter, the XBox gaming room, and the spa...pretty much all the other things you do at a resort when it's raining and you can't swim. (To their credit, the spa managed to keep going by candlelight when the power was out, which was awesome.)

No power also means no air conditioning, which means massive humidity, which means feeling wet and sweaty for five days straight. Yuck. I'm high maintenance. I'm Glam-O-Mommy. This is my nightmare, people!

Mommy should be in this picture instead of me, because the bad weather turned her into Mommy the Grouch!

We ate almost every meal the last four days in the same single restaurant on the side of the resort with power...the last two days I was so tired of the food and depressed, I quit eating. Seriously. I came home three pounds lighter from vacation. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS.

It was incredibly stressful, especially not knowing if and when the power might go out again, and what might go wrong next. I couldn't relax. I was completely on edge. I was frustrated that the resort didn't seem to have a decent plan in place for handling the storm and the power outages. (They couldn't relocate the kids' camp to the side of the resort with a power? Add extra activities in the areas with power to give people something to do? Had they never had a storm before?!) All in all, I came away feeling like I'd spent a week on Survivor, which is a show I am not cut out for. It was like we went camping in the jungle instead of staying at a nice luxury resort. All that money down the drain.

Now, I should mention that while I had a pretty unhappy time on this vacation, my daughter loved it! She's two, so it's not like all of the weather and lack of power and sweating meant anything to her. And since they managed to keep the power on on the side of the resort where they did the nightly Sesame Street shows, she got to dance with Elmo, Ernie, and the gang for one hour every night--AND LOVED IT. She was a total Elmo groupie, standing right in front of the stage with her little arms up to him. It was the absolute saving grace of the whole trip, because I enjoyed watching her have such a fun time, even when I felt miserable. :)

ELMO! I'm right here!!

I don't know why Mommy is so upset. I'm having an AWESOME time with my Sesame Street friends.

And I don't mind that this is the dirtiest I've ever been in my life, because check out the cool sunken boat behind me!

Obviously, I need to take a page from her book about making the best of a bad situation. :)

Unfortunately, I came home drained and depressed, and that feeling has dragged on a bit. It took me two full weeks to unpack all the suitcases and do all the laundry, something I usually do right away. I let the house get a little crazy until the maids came to clean, which only added to my depression. I had a hard time focusing at work.

Worst of all, I feel terrible whining and complaining and being depressed about my vacation, because it's what I call a "high-class problem" to have...not that I'm high class or anything, just that it's not a real problem. It's not a real disaster. We all survived, we were lucky, our vacation just kind of sucked. Some people lost homes in the storm. Other people have real crises in their lives. I shouldn't complain.

However, I can't help feeling let down and like we wasted a bunch of money (oh, what else I could do with that money!) and I think I needed to write about this one more time just to purge it from my soul and move on, you know?

I've turned a corner in the last two weeks...got the laundry caught up and the house mostly back in order. Took my daughter to get two-year portraits made, which made me happy, since I didn't have family beach portraits from Jamaica (Note to self: next time, take family pictures on beach at first opportunity). Went to dinners with girlfriends and three Spurs games, which always cheers me up. And I'm rocking and rolling at work too.

Our ONLY family picture from the entire week. Cute, but not exactly what I planned for our Christmas card. Note that my daughter is snuggling up with Elmo. We tried to take a few family pictures after the characters left, but she pitched a fit and tried to follow Elmo, so this was it.

So I'm still here, I'm moving on, and I will try to get back to regular blogging (and NO WHINING) soon.