It’s rare that I’ve taken vacation in the last few years. In fact, when I took an unwired week in June 2007, that was probably the first vacation where I didn’t have a computer to check on work in 5 or 6 years. However throughout the rest of 2007 and 2008 I rarely got away. That weighed on me a bit, especially as I struggled to get in skiing during the 07/08 winter with my kids. I ended up working early in the am, going out with them for the day and working at night quite a few times.

In late ‘08 that changed, with quite a few people coming onboard the Simple Talk publishing team at Red Gate and I started scheduling a day off a week. Actually that and the fact I was going to lose some vacation got me motivated to take some time off.

So to date, I’ve taken almost one day a week off since late November and a whole week off the first week of February, barely checking any email or posting anything to SQLServerCentral. Then this past weekend, my family and I traveled out to Steamboat Springs as well for another weekend. Some good snowboarding for me, closing on 20 days this year, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

It’s also recharged me, which I hadn’t expected. I hate leaving work undone, and I like to have a long pipeline, usually 3-4 weeks, so all the recent travel has messed that up, but surprisingly I haven’t worried too much about it.

Instead I’ve enjoyed the time off with family, gotten some exercise, and tackled some projects around the home. And I’ve just come back to work and buckled down to get things done.

I’m certainly not caught up, but I’m getting there and looking forward to a few more days of snow this spring.