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I recently wrote an article about going on a mini-vacation, I thought I should follow it up with an article about returning home afterwards.  Because there honestly is just no place like home.

Often times after returning from a trip, you’re a little discombobulated for several days to a week.  Usually you’ve got to clean up the place, unpack, do some laundry, pay some bills, make some phone calls, and get back into the swing of things.  But, I can think of no better feeling than coming home, after a trip away.  No matter where you’ve been or who you’ve seen, there’s just something about coming home to your own environment that helps a person unwind and lay back with a feeling of satisfaction.

If the thought of returning home after a vacation makes you cringe, than maybe you need to do something differently in your home to make yourself feel more comforted in your own space.  Maybe rearranging some furniture, buying additional accessories, painting the walls, putting up new photographs or artwork, etc.

Getting into the kitchen and whipping up a delicious meal or making a decadent dessert is another step towards getting back into your normal routine and may set your mind at ease.  The smell of food cooking  is enough to take me back to childhood remembering the aroma of Mama’s kitchen, it makes me feel at home, comforted, and loved.

So don’t forget, when you’re preparing to go away for a while, once you return you may want to feel some of the same feelings you felt while you were away, but in your own cushy environment. There’s no reason why you can’t bring a little of your vacation back with you, and bring a new spark to your life.

People all over the world view their ideal climates very differently, according to their own personal taste.  Some people like the sun and warm weather; others like cool air, with rain and breezes, for most of the year.

I have lived in several states in the USA, as well as living abroad, during my short lifetime.  The three states that I tend to think of most often when thinking of the “good times” are usually California State, Washington State and the state of New Jersey.

Living in these different states, at one time, are very different than living in other states, as you can imagine.  The climates couldn’t be more different.  They are like night and day. People who like one state don’t usually like the other, because they are so different.

Southern California is nice most of the year, sunny, breezy, pretty dry, with mildly warm weather.  Going to the park, on picnics, driving around and all of these things can be planned in advance without much looking at the weather channels for details. You can almost guarantee that you’ll have a fun outing without getting rained out. But, when the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer emerge, forget about it.  The heat turns up and it becomes unbearable to most folks, even to native Californians.  When you step out of the air conditioned environments and go out into the raw elements, you feel as if you’ve stepped into an oven.

Western Washington State is known to have a pretty mild climate, year round.  In the Winter, its cold but not extremely cold (may snow on occasion, but doesn’t usually stick much); in the Summer it’s warm, but not extremely hot.  But, the problem with our state is that it’s almost always gloomy or rainy, most of the time. If you see that you’re having a sunny day, with warmer temperatures, you’d better go out now, before the weather changes.  Because you’ve got to monitor the weather channel pretty closely to see what they predict will be going on that day.  Being rained out of amusement parks, water parks, picnics, etc. are pretty common place.

Northern New Jersey is what I consider my home since I was born and raised there during most of my childhood years.  But, Northern New Jersey is anything but mild.  In the Winters, it may dump 3 feet of snow on you, in the middle of the night; and in the Summer it is so humid and sticky that you feel as if if you ever would try to take a running leap from the ground onto a wall, you’d absolutely stick to it. Just like a little fly.

I guess the moral of the article is, every state and country has it’s own benefit.  It really depends on your point of view and your personal taste.  Some people like warmth; others like cold; others like the urban, busy lifestyle; others prefer to live in the country, on a large piece of land; yet others want to live on the beach and breathe in the fresh salt sea air.  But, everyone must stay where they feel it’s the best for them, all around. Not only a place with a great climate, but also an affordable city and state, with a good dotting of relatives or friends, good schools, or whatever matters are important to you the most.  I think it’s lots of fun to live in different places and travel around to see the vast differences from state to state, country to country.  You never know whether the grass really is greener on the other side.

Since almost everyone is suffering without much money nowadays, most people think vacationing is not possible. When in fact, they can take a mini-vacation and enjoy themselves just as much as a lavish expensive vacation would have been.  But, they can have a vacation on a budget.

They can call friends or family members that are within a few hours drive of them, pack lightly, and drive to that destination.  They can tell the people they are going to be visiting in advance and ask them to look up fun things to do in their area that may be free or very cheap. They may take you to parks, camping areas, fishing, boating, kayaking, or just to see beautiful trails and the sites.

Set a daily budget for your trip and try your best to stick to that number.  If you can only afford $50 a day (excluding gas) you may decide that you can’t afford to eat out and go to all the different costly amusement places.  So, you may decide to purchase groceries and make sandwiches, take it along with you, and then go to amusement parks. It’s really how you look at things and decide to tweak your plans to fit your budget.

The idea of a vacation is to get out, breathe in the fresh air and be out of your usual day to day grind.  Of coarse if you have more money to spend you can go to more expensive places including (but not limited to): amusement parks, aquariums, zoos, restaurants, museums, historical areas, etc. These places charge a costly fee per person, so you may have to take turns going to pricey places on certain days and inexpensive or free places on other days.

The point is, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Just do things that you and your family find fun, and don’t worry about impressing anyone with tales of being on the open waters of the Bahama’s (on your vacation).  Sometimes the simple mini-vacations can mean a lot more to you and your family than being on a big vacation abroad could have been.  Becuse you can do things together as a family unit, and grow closer over the long drive and time together doing the simple things…

Today is the 39th year of environmentalism and activism for Earth Day.  Today is a day we are encouraged to do things for our environment by volunteering for a clean up, motivating others to take action, and doing small things throughout the year to make a difference in our environment.

When most people hear about earth day, the first thought that crosses their minds are probably a bunch of hippies dancing around in the rain.

But the question I ask you is this, “Do we need to really wait for a specific day to make a change?” Most of you would probably shout a wholehearted, “No!”.  But, at the same time, what are we doing to help our environment and lend a helping hand?  We need to get up off of our high horses and take action, each and everyday, to change the world’s pollution around us.

Since Earth Day started in the 70’s (as an annual reminder that we must make a change for the better), we’ve most definitely caused more pollution, which has had horrible effects on nature.  We have done a lot of damage to the environment and most of it was done by people who did it unintentionally.  Earth Day isn’t just an American holiday, it’s celebrated by 175 countries worldwide.  But again, do we need to wait until Earth Day to take action?  We need to strive everyday to become better at using up less fossil fuels and look up ways that we can make small changes that will make a large positive overall effect.  We should now be involved in reversing the effects of damage from years past.

If you enjoy the outdoors and doing fun things like: taking hikes, biking, kayaking, snowboarding, skiing, etc.  You’ll know that every negative thing that we do to the environment, has an adverse reaction to the earth and thus may change these once loved hobbies forever.

If our environment continues being abused, things will drastically change for the worse.  If you enjoy watching nature shows and sifting through endless photos of the amazing landscapes around us, you’d be disappointed to know that in years to come, they may slowly begin to disappear.

The ice caps are melting, the jungle is dying away, the beautiful trees in Alaska are dying by droves due to beetles that live off of the trees and kill the entire tree.  They  then move off to other trees, thus killing acres and acres of trees at a time.  The beetles are thriving because the increased temperature in that region, compared to the temperatures of long ago, has increased to a level that they are able to multiple quickly and do the most damage, thus causing a nearly irreversible chain of events to happen.  Less trees equals less clean air, less clean air equals more illnesses and deaths attributed to the pollution (by humans and animals), and so on…

From today on out, we need to analyze how much waste we are creating, cut down to the bear minimum, try to use vehicles that emit less pollution, force companies to begin manufacturing with a green concept in mind, use less electricity by using florecent bulbs, unplug unused appliances, keep the lights off in the rooms we’re not using, turn off the facets and stop overusing much needed water and on top of all the other things that can be done, we must teach the future generations about how blessed we are on earth with all of it’s natural beauty.  If we do nothing to change it now, and continue being heedless and careless with our planet, the worst is yet to come.  A world that none of us can fathom and something that we will all kick ourselves for, in the end.

If you feel motivated and recharged and wonder what you can do to make a positive change, you can do some things privately in your own backyard by planting a tree or cleaning out your yard, or you can look up what  Earth Day events are happening locally.  You can do that by going online, thumbing through your phone book, calling a friend, picking up your local newspaper and  researching ways to make a difference in your town.