Tonight I had to walk two big dogs all at once. I wanted to get the walk out of the way before dark so there wouldn’t be any fireworks scaring anybody. (Grr.)

It occurred to me that there are two stages of life: planning and doing. Right now I’m in a planning, and that’s why I feel unproductive, because I’m not doing. Doing will happen lately, and there is no doing without the planning. (Well, there is, but the planning makes the doing better.) There’s your motivational speech!

I had a day off, and Louie is off on a short vacation with his family. I couldn’t go due to some work commitments, but today I had free, like I said. I made the most of it by cleaning out my dresser of clothing I don’t wear, returning lots of emails (it looks like we are playing another house concert!), writing a variety of blog posts (the others perhaps far more interesting than this one), reading, and doing tons of vacation research.

We are going to the Smokies and to Asheville for just under two weeks in August, and I have the accommodations (mostly camping, one airbnb) booked but wanted to start really planning the rest. It’s mostly going to be hiking, except while in Asheville we are visiting the Biltmore House and sightseeing in the town. So I added some hike ideas for each area (I have a google doc I have all the info on) and then did some reading. Some of it will be decided in the moment, but I wanted lots of ideas to start from.  Each vacation we take I try to learn from, and I want to make sure to plan to the end this time, and not stop before I’m finished.

I’m also researching a few vacation ideas for next summer, ha! And I got sucked into rereading some previous blog posts…sometimes I get on a kick of reading old posts, especially about vacations. I’m struck by how neurotic I can be, and how obsessed with food and exercise I was for awhile. Granted, I was thinner then, but I am still trying to figure out a way to stay in shape and eat decently without making it my life’s work. I did sign up for a 10K in October, and have been trying to run regularly to get better at it. It’s nice to not be obsessed though. Balance, right?

I was a little nervous about walking both these guys at once but they didn’t give me any problems!

From a church I played at yesterday: I think I might have to join just for the photography session.