How do you define “home?” For some of us, “home” is where we grew up as children, no matter where we moved to as adults. For others, “home” is wherever our toothbrush happens to be! My wife and I, we like to travel from time to time on vacation, but we are essentially folks who like to put down roots and enjoy ourselves right in our own little house. My wife’s sister, however, she likes to travel around and “see the world,” not staying anywhere very long.
We found a website that talks about how different people are in their attitudes towards home; the website calls the different types of people growers and nomads. The website is called growersandnomads.com. It really is a very interesting site, with links to blogs and stories from a lot of different folks with different tastes and opinions. All of these different people make up the growers and nomads team, and I think they’ve done a fine job of creating a lively and informative site. I especially like the link to the Home Improvement Tools that they provide. That link goes to a wizard that helps you to figure out what the costs of repairs and remodeling might be. It also takes you to some informational links that helps you to learn about the basic systems of your home.
When my wife and I have gone on vacations together, we have tried a variety of lodging accommodations. We have tried the standard hotel/motel room, we have tried renting hotel suites, and we have rented vacation condos. To be honest they have all worked out fairly well, but for the most part we have preferred renting out condos. The hotels and motels were nice enough, but we frequently found our sleep disturbed by noisy people walking down the hallways in the wee hours of the morning. And in a hotel room, or even a hotel suite we found it difficult for one person to watch television without disturbing the other’s sleep.
We much prefer renting out vacation houses or condos. It’s easy to find a place we like through the homeaway.com website!
We like the spacious feeling of being able to stretch out, and not be cramped all up in just one room. We really like the convenience of having our own kitchen so we could put restaurant leftovers in the refrigerator and heat them up later in the microwave if we wanted. And the best convenience was being able to go to the local grocery store and buy breakfast foods so we could eat breakfast right there in our place and not have to try to find a restaurant for breakfast. We really don’t mind eating one or two meals out during the day on vacation, but we don’t want to eat ALL our meals out! We like the extra amenities that often come with renting a vacation condo - access to a swimming pool, a nice private patio/balcony, and private jacuzzi tubs right in our own bedroom suites! And the price of renting a vacation condo is usually less money than renting just one cramped room in a hotel!
So for us, when we are planning a vacation that is more than just a one or two night stay, we usually try to rent a vacation condo, and a hotel is usually our last resort option.
My wife and I went to eat lunch at one of our favorite local restaurants this afternoon. We had received a coupon in the meal good for $9.00 off one meal, and we decided to take advantage of it today. We also had to stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and at the grocery store to pick up some hamburger rolls and bananas, so we were combining errands into the trip (made us feel less guilty about driving into town just for a meal!)
As we were driving home we were noticing how many trees were already starting to drop their leaves. The colors don’t seem to have changed yet (much) but the leaves are dropping. It surprised me to see so many leaves on the road and the ground without having seen much color, but there it was. I wonder why the color doesn’t seem to be changing? I wonder if that is a sign of too much rain, or not enough rain. One way or another, however, it is a sure sign that autumn is approaching, and winter won’t be far behind!
