Rainy Days & Vacations

I mentioned this to someone on Twitter, but since I haven't participated yet, I wasn't sure everyone was aware, so I'm mentioning it here now. This month Melissa has a fun October Blogging Challenge going on and Helene and Tay have a Blogtober Challenge going on! Melissa's has a lot of Fall and Halloween prompts that I'm more than a little obsessed with and Helene and Tay's challenge has some broader, but still fun topics. They're also both really popular bloggers (for damn good reason), so if you're looking for exposure, linking up with them would be beneficial, I'm sure.

Because I'm still struggling to breathe and because I ended up with a killer sinus headache last night and ended up taking a 30 minute hot shower last night and then another 15 (okay, it was 20) minute hot shower this morning, I've decided to make today easy on myself and I'm going to do a little bit of both.

Melissa's prompt for today is "Rainy Day Ritual".

Well, I had to really think about this one, but I think the honest answer is that I don't have one. When I was growing up we never had a tradition or ritual that we did when it rained outside. In my family if things needed done, then they still needed done whether it was raining or not. My parents never let the rain stop them from getting things done. We always just worked around the rain. Occasionally when it would storm really hard my mom always seemed to declare that a deep cleaning day, so I guess I kind of still do that. Anytime we have major storms coming in I always do some kind of crazy cleaning.

For the most part though, I don't have a cute rainy day ritual where I curl up on the couch or always bake cookies or something. Nope. Instead I do whatever I was going to do anyway, because the rain can't hold me down, damnit! Right, Ma?!

#Blogtober14 prompt is your Best/Worst Vacation.

Oh man, oh man! I'm struggling with this prompt!

Honestly, I don't know if I've ever taken a vacation that I'd consider bad? At least I can't think of one. Okay, I just left this blog post to start getting ready and now I'm back and yea, I still can't think of a bad vacation. I didn't even know the words "worst" and "vacation" could even be added together.

Best vacations? Well, all of them! I could name a few of the absolute top vacations though.

First of all, Vegas this past July was fabulous. My sister and I are still talking about it and we both already want to find a way (read: funds) to get back. I knew I'd love it and I knew I'd have fun, but I had no idea how much I'd love that place. Ahhh, loved that vacation!

Second, anytime we go to New Smyrna Beach in Florida is the bomb. That's where my grandparents have a house and where we've gone since we were little kids. So all of those vacations are great, but last summer was the first time we had gone back in a few years and there were 9 of us that went including some of our friends and it was just so fun because it was such a big group and we all laughed so much and made some really great memories. Also my friend and I went to Harry Potter World, so obviously it was amazing. I also loved going to NSB this past June because it was just my mom, my stepdad, my little sister, and my little brother. So it was a lot more quiet and laid back and relaxing compared to last year and it was fabulous. It's really weird, but I actually like my family. Who knew?

Third, the summer after my senior year of high school and the August before all of us went off to college, a bunch of my friends and I drove to Chicago for a few days. This was the first time any of us had ever gone on a vacation without parents. It was just us 6 girls and we planned the entire thing ourselves and spent one whole day in Chicago wandering the streets downtown. Most of us have grown apart or fell apart, but I'll forever remember this vacation and how much fun we had. It was such a huge turning point for all of us and it was definitely the moment we all realized we weren't those high school kids anymore.

sorry for the poor picture quality, these chicago pictures are on my parent's computer and i had to have a friend send me this picture for this post!

So, TA DA! That's all I can accomplish this morning. I'm pretty sure I'm dying. BUT THE SHOW MUST GO ON!  Tuesday, I'm comin' for ya!