Holidays At Home - Intro

Home Sweet Home.

Not everyone wants to go away for their holidays, and not everyone has the opportunity to go to foreign parts. So, this blog series is here to help fill the gap between needing to have time off and the fact that a lot of us stay at home for our vacations. The times that I have stayed at home for my holidays have often been the most fun! This is a good time to say that from the very beginning that this series has been created for adults on their own, or with partners. I feel children's holidays have a lot of air time and I hope in this series to give the adults some TLC!

So, let's begin to plan the holiday. Remember that 'Holidays At Home' do need planning in advance, just as if you were going away, otherwise the time just slips through your fingers with mundane normality. Also, it's a great idea to call it a holiday or vacation, rather than just telling people you are 'staying at home'. The words we use are powerful and if you say that you are on holiday, it means so much more and you can make it feel very special. Remember, the time away from work is supposed to be fun and recharge you both emotionally, mentally and spiritually and this blog series is going to help you through the thinking and planning of it, so hopefully nothing will get missed.

The first thing to do is sit down with your calendar and work out a time that you would like to take a week or so off work. I would personally make it at least a month from your first planning stage, rather than next week. This helps you organize things really well so that you can totally relax and enjoy your time, as well as help build up the anticipation for your holiday.

The next big thing is to ask yourself what you need your holiday to help you with. Do you need to do any of the following?:

• Relax
• Restore
• Energize
• Detox

If you know what you need your holiday to do, then you can plan things that will help you do that. For example; If you have been through a really tough time at work and you want to get some peace, then it's a good thing to start planning how to relax and restore your general sense of being. If you have been through quite a placid time, you are a bit low at work and you want time to think of how you can change things, maybe an upbeat energizing holiday may be for you? Or, if you have had a series of late nights, parties, deadlines and the like, maybe a gentle week of cutting back and cleansing your systems maybe more up your street. At this point it is often a good idea to get the diary out and see what you have been doing up to this point, so you get a good reminder of what life has been throwing at you. It may seem silly, but it has helped me in the past. 

By now you should have a date in the diary to book time off and you should have a clear idea of what you want that time to do for you. 

The third and last part of this blog is to have a look around your house. Is it somewhere that you would like to stay for two weeks? Does it calm you down? Do you like the look of it? Now is the time to get your home into a state that you would like it to be, but not in one go! The reason why I encourage you to look around now before you even begin planning your holiday is so that you have time to get your personal space sorted out. 

Is your bathroom somewhere you could take a relaxing
Time-Out? Simple baby-steps like adding candles
can make all the difference. 

I did this last year with the FlyLady system. If your house is the last place you would want to relax in, (and mine sure was), then click on the website and take a look around at how you can follow the Baby Steps to a clutter free home. The reason why I think this system works is that it is gentle, it's not filling you with guilt and it does actually work! It takes a month to go through the house from top to bottom and this first month is the ground work for some great habits to clear your house, and head, of clutter and chaos. Remember, your holiday time off is not time off to do the chores and decorating!

I love the fact that the first day of 'Holiday At Home' planning means that I get to work out exactly what I want to do for a whole two weeks! The next blog will be the next step of your planning process with ideas and tips on what to do four weeks before your 'Holiday At Home' to make your time special, memorable and above all, personal. 

Side note: (I had this idea for a blog series last year, which was the second year in a row that we decided to stay at home for out holidays. However, I do see the comedy value that it wasn't until I was at the beach yesterday that I had time to sketch it out and plan it! I hope you enjoy it and that it is helpful.)