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Dear Reader,
Tomorrow my husband and I leave on our vacation. We're headed for the Blue Ridge Mountains. We're leaving a day early, because when we visited the travel agent the other day, we got so jazzed thinking about our vacation, we decided to get out of town early.
Before we sat down with the travel agent, the only preparation we'd accomplished was to buy a book about the Blue Ridge Mountains--but neither of us had read any of it yet. The other day when I suggested to my husband that we should probably start planning our vacation--because we didn't even know what roads we were going to take--he assured me not to worry. "It's simple," he said, "we live in Florida, the Blue Ridge Mountains are North, we're just going to get in the car and start driving North."
Nevertheless, I decided we should visit a travel agent. It's amazing what a skilled professional woman can do. Why, in 30 minutes the travel agent had us mentally on the road, with yellow highlighted lines on a map--and yes I conceded to my husband that those lines headed North--but she told us which roads to avoid because they were under construction. Three clicks of the travel agent's mouse, and we were instantly booked in a great hotel--top floor with a jacuzzi--for the first three nights of our trip, and then on to a rustic cabin in the mountains.
I cycle through a series of emotions before I go on a vacation. At first, I'm excited about going and I'm counting the days. Then, I get down to business about who's going to take care of what while I'm gone, planning the trip, making reservations. But then two days before I'm supposed to leave, I always get nervous. I start thinking that maybe going on vacation isn't such a good idea after all. I worry about what might happen while I'm gone--not that anything bad has ever happened. Then, I have to talk myself down from pre-vacation anxiety and remind myself that I spent one entire vacation worrying about things. And when my vacation was over, I was so disgusted with myself, because truth be told, nobody really missed me and everything went along just like normal. So now that I've reaffirmed myself that it will all be okay, I'll say good-bye because tomorrow I'm on vacation.
Be assured, I'm leaving my column in good hands. Thursday and Friday you'll be reading the winning "Write a Dear Reader Column" entries. And then, every day next week, I'm featuring a Guest Columnist. I asked five, busy talented friends of mine--all writers and authors--to fill in for me, and they all graciously accepted.
I'll talk to you soon. This girl's hitting the road!
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Gone on vacation,
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
www.DearReader.com
P.S. My husband and I had a "Bread Bake-Off Contest" over the Labor Day Weekend. For recipes and photos that will make you hungry--my cinnamon rolls looked mighty fine--go to:
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