Salon post : March 16

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!

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Topic of the week
I took Monday and Tuesday off this week, to play catchup on life. It got me thinking about how I use vacation time, and what makes my life easier.

What do you do that improves your life? (Especially if it's a somewhat new thing.)

What I've been up to:
I am now cheerfully into the Martha seasons of New Who. But today, I'd love to rec a podcast, This Is Love (from the same people who do Criminal, which I also like a lot).

I listened to episode 5, "A Private Life" on the way into work this morning, and it is both adorable and a fascinating view of legal history around same-sex marriage and changing attitudes.


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Comments

[jenett]

So, to answer my own question - my job is very generous with vacation compared to most US jobs, and I get 22 days a year (or a hair more than 5 weeks).

I keep a chunk stored (in case of medical issues and a buffer in case of changing jobs - I live in a state where it has to get paid out) which has taken me a couple of years to build up.

I've started getting in the habit of taking a week every 4ish months to stay home, sleep in, and work on projects I can't get traction on. (Usually with a day in there of going and doing something touristy locally that I don't normally have the energy to do.)

This week was a 'March is a very long month, with no long weekends in it', and having four days off in a row was a lovely treat. (I live in Massachusetts, where Patriot's Day is a state holiday, so we do have a three day weekend in April.) And I ended up with an extra day off due to a snow day on Wednesday.

Anyway, I'm finding this habit to be a great way to recharge and it's making me feel a lot less overwhelmed by bigger projects at home I want to sort out.

Of course, I also want to do a bit more travel (like the trip to London I did in 2015), but that's a different kind of vacation.

[alexseanchai]

That is a good habit that I wish to be in :) but I don't accrue annual leave fast enough to pull it off, not if I want to take off for holy days and the occasional "I really want to do this thing but it's during my work hours" activity and especially not given I keep ending up eating annual leave for things that should be sick-leave problems :(

[rmc28]

This is something I might think about. My employer is generous by UK standards so I get over 6 weeks a year, 3 days of which *have* to be taken between Christmas and New Year. My family has had a habit of "recharging at home" during that December break for some time now, mostly to avoid the seasonal travel rush, and it works well for us.

Everyone is still a bit wrung out from the big long holiday we did last summer, so although I have booked some specific weeks of leave during the summer school holidays, I have not yet booked any travel. And there is a lot of touristy stuff to do in Cambridge.