talk to your friends, talk to me.

Clearly I don't have my shit together, since it's now Saturday and so far only one of my planned posts has made it onto the Internet. Also, when is the I in Internet going to be made lowercase? I'm pretty sure we can stop making the argument that "Internet" is a proper noun. Because it's not.

Onward.

Setting a routine while on vacation (oh, and sleep).

We had an unusually high degree of luxury when planning our vacation because 1) boyfriend and I both have highly flexible jobs that allow for fluid accommodations, and 2) we took the poor (and practical) route of driving instead of flying to our destination. The first item was particularly useful in that I was able to stay at work until midnight the night before departure so that I could squeeze more work in and still be able to plan to hit the road early in the morning. For most people, I think they usually have to wait til the end of the workday before they can travel (true facts: my parents are notorious for the 11pm Friday night arrivals during their travels for this exact reason). But for us, leaving at 6am on a Thursday morning is just par for the course.

This back story has a purpose...

Our alarms went off at an ungodly hour (5:30am... so not fair) after careful, careful planning. Our travel time is 11 hours, plus driving east means we lose an hour to the time zones. We very well could have left at 9am or even 11am and still made it to our destination at a perfectly normal hour, but we were sticking to a routine. The plan was to arrive at around dinner time so that we would avoid having to eat on the road (besides lunch, that was unavoidable) and still have time to go about our day as usual, albeit in Pennsylvania... in a house that wasn't ours. Small details.

Let me tell you why this is genius:

1. Boyfriend and I have worked entirely WAY TOO HARD over the course of the last year to have our efforts unraveled by a few days in another state. We were losing the routine of sleeping in our own bed, cooking our own foods, and going to our gym every night. But, that did NOT entitle us to throw in the towel and give in to all of travel's temptations. It was important that, even in all the chaos, we still went to bed, ate out, and had meals in our same daily patterns. Let's explore more on those subjects.

2. Sleep. Boyfriend and I are students, we have highly variable schedules and it impacts our lives as such. That being said, we have adapted and created a routine out of all our chaos. Some days we're in bed at 2am (and that is not limited to weekends), and other days it's 11pm; there's no set schedule, we just follow the rhythm of the day. It's a dangerous game to play, because without a set bedtime one runs the risk of going to bed out of boredom (bad) or ignoring sleep urges and staying up way too late (also bad). While on vacation, we had to plan accordingly. On our first day, we knew that being pent up in a car for 11 hours would leave us mentally, but not physically, exhausted so we planned our arrival to leave us a few hours' time to expend some energy and mentally unwind. That first night we were in bed by midnight and soundly slept... exactly as planned.

3. Eating out. It's inevitable when taking long road trips. Trips beyond 5 hours are impossible to plan without having to consider food options, which span exactly two options: first, to pack food; second, to eat out. We chose a hybrid method. We ate a breakfast of sorts at home, packed snacks (cucumbers, carrots, beef jerky, bottled water) for in the car, planned dinner for the arrival at our destination, and a purposely scheduled stop at a particular Oasis outside of Chicago. It's almost a tradition for us now to stop at the Panda Express right off the tollway. It's a treat we never enjoy in our daily lives but it's a road trip staple, a guilt-free break from routine that anchors our travel schedule. We planned a similar treat on our way back home: a stop at Michael Symon's B-Spot outside of Cleveland. If you're going to travel through five states in the span of one day, you might as well take a gander off the highway to see what other parts of the country have to offer. Our car trip was purposely designed to embrace the inevitability of eating out while still maintaining a degree of normalcy to the process.

How could you NOT eat at a place with these kinds of adverts? NOT FAIR, Panda Express, NOT FAIR.

4. Eating in... in a place where you don't cook. It's basically the same as eating out, minus the rude-as-shit waiter leaving you with the bill expecting a tip grossly overcompensating their mediocre service. We (kindly) laid down the law with our hosts (boysfriend's parents) informing them of our lifestyle changes and prayed we would have the common sense and self-control to refrain from making poor decisions. I am a control freak, and it was extremely difficult being in a situation where I couldn't demand politely ask for less butter and more fiber. We did, however, make arrangements to have a few grocery staples waiting for us: for me, yogurt, bananas, and blueberries; for him, baked chips and pretzels.

Now that I've made your eyes bleed from typing so many words detailing the first day of our trip that you oh-so-laboriously read through, here's some more notes on our trip:

• We knew going in that there were going to be days that we would be out until 2am. Buzzword: accommodate.
• We knew going in that there would be days that we would eat nachos and Crabfries during baseball games. Buzzword: accommodate.
• We did not anticipate shopping so hard that a nap was necessary. Buzzword: accommodate.
• We did not anticipate our plans falling through, such as: the one really kick-ass plans we had for a Friday night to be spent drunkenly hanging with old friends to be turned into pathetic 20-somethings napping IN PUBLIC (yeah, that really happened). Turns out, even though it's Friday and your brain's ready to party, if your body is tired then your body is tired. Buzzword: accommodate.

Our sleep was all over the place, and we knew it was going to be, so we snagged every opportunity for a nap and every opportunity to go to bed early and every opportunity to sleep in late that our plans would allow. Sleep deprivation is an ugly thing and can too easily ruin a vacation.

We took physical activity wherever we could get it. I would have preferred our usual 9pm gym habit, but I dealt. Running at the track where my mother-in-law walks every morning: check. Spending five hours walking the paths of a super sweet outdoor mall: check. Enthusiastically accepting an unexpected invitation to swim at the lake: check.

Food tempted us everywhere we went, and we indulged! ... sparingly. We made sure boyfriend's mom didn't cook decadent meals on the days we planned for a heavy meals at a restaurant. I was promised Primanti Bro's which I enthusiastically collected on the day we had grilled salmon. My introduction to Crabfries came on the day that I ran 4.5 miles to earn it. I spent almost two hours at our hotel gym the night of our friend's wedding, knowing full well that I was going to partake in cake-inhaling and four hours of open bar (I polished off a fifth of vodka all by my lonesome).

So totally worth it.

Now that we've been back home for the better part of a week, there are a few things I would like to comment on:

I only gained a pound on vacation, which is now off my frame. I imagine most of that was bloat from my alcohol binge at the wedding, but the point remains that I took thoughtful steps to ensure that our 12 days in PA would not derail my ten months of progress and it worked. I got to eat/experience/enjoy everything I wanted while keeping a routine that made it easier to jump back into regular life back at home. Going back to the gym this week was a seamless transition that would not have been possible had I suspended the activities that I just described.

Friends don't let friends leave suitcases unpacked.

A super, SUPER, SUPER important thing that I wish I could stress more when returning from vacation is to unpack IMMEDIATELY. Pleeeeease do yourself that favor! It's hard enough living out of a suitcase for weeks without also having to do that in your own home. Traveling is exhausting, but spend half an hour putting your items back into place so that you know where your stuff is (saves time), you know what's clean (saves embarrassment), and you know what still needs to be tended to (saves frustration). Also, if possible, clean your place before you leave. In doing these two things, you'll wake up that first morning home having all your stuff in order and your home clean and tidy, thus reinforcing a nice transition into daily life.