I’m leaving for vacation in a week in a half, and I’m seriously stressed.

I have never gone through this before. Always, in the past, I purely looked forward to vacation. I’ve never had a job where work was mine specifically to do. If I was gone, someone else would do it. Now, I’m worried about making sure all the complaints assigned to me have been responded to. Even if I manage to keep my own work up-to-date, regulatory agencies can come back and request more information at any time. Those requests come into my email inbox, so someone is going to have to be able to check those for me and be able to respond to them.

My boss seems remarkably unconcerned about this issue. I’m not sure if I regard his everything-will-be-all-right stance as a sign that I’m being too pessimistic and borrowing trouble, or if he’s not even realizing the chaos that could errupt. I love that this job is a challenge and I’m always learning something new, but at the same, the work is not leisurely and the deadlines are very serious. Today I didn’t even take my lunch hour until almost five at night because I was hammering out a complaint response.

The hectic schedule hasn’t done great things for my weight worries. This morning I set my alarm for 5am so that I could make it to the gym for step class before work. I slept badly and didn’t make it. Instead, I slept until 730. I’m tired, and these early mornings to work out feel a lot more like a punishment than something good I’m doing for myself. When I got to work, my meals for the day consisted of a cup of coffee and two cupcakes. On my late lunch hour, I made myself a bag of popcorn to munch on. NOT healthy. I’m too busy to remember to eat, which is bad, because when I do finally eat it’s whatever’s on hand and not good for me.

Tomorrow I’m going to do better. I’m trying out a different gym, doing strength training instead of an aerobics class. I can go in as early as 5am or as late in the morning as I can get away with before work. Since I have to be at work by nine, I’m thinking I can hit the gym around six and still be fine. Maybe that will help. I’m also stocking my drawers at work with healthy soups and snacks so that I can grab something easily that won’t be terrible for me to eat.

And there will be no cupcake vendors at the office tomorrow. So that will help.

Last weekend I cleaned our house. I know that sounds like a terribly mundane activity, but for me, it was truly mood-changing. I love my townhome when it’s freshly cleaned! It feels so Zen now. It’s completely changed the feeling I get when I arrive home. Just picking up the clutter and cleaning up has given the place a completely different vibe. A clean home is just so relaxing, whereas the dirty mess we WERE living in left me wanting to run far, far away and get out of there.

Saturday morning I’m going to get up early to work out and clean a little, then my buddy Sarah and I are going out to IHOP for brunch and then taking her five year old son to his school egg hunt. After that I’m off to the salon for a nice relaxing mani/pedi.

And then I have one week to completely clear out my inbox so that I can go on vacation.

Woohoo!