Amy Lu's View

I officially declare the “Chamy Staycation of 2020” a success.

It may be the only staycation of any length (3 work days plus the weekend) we’ve ever had–definitely the only one in recent memory (and yes, for me, “recent memory” only covers a range of 3 hours–3 months).

I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about this staycation thing. Would we be able to strike the right balance of getting some things done that we wanted to (that is, “decluttering”) with doing things that were fun? And let’s get real, would Chamy be able to weather their staycation together time without the distractions of a typical vacation–we rarely (much to Chad’s sadness) just spend time at home.

And would decluttering just devolve into bickering? Ah, “decluttering” is such a cute word, and totally not accurate. We are well beyond cluttering. We were decrapping.

I think the key to our staycation success was managing expecations. We knew we couldn’t possibly do all the decrapping that we need to in just 5 days, but we made significant process. Yes, there were (and continue to be) moments of despair as our successes only seem to highlight how much we have left to do, but this is a journey, right? Now that we’ve started down the road to Having Less Shit it can only get better (although at the moment, one of the rooms we’ve tackled actually looks worse).

And I can celebrate the personal satisfcation of having figured out how to take paint and electronics to the Hennepin County Hazard Waste Drop-Off Facility in Brookly Park. (The staff was super nice but I found it extremely confusing!)

Of course we didn’t spend the whole staycation decrapping–there was Day Drinking (we made a Happy Hour at 3:30, excitingly scandalous, at Centro, a place we usually don’t frequent) and we met with our minister (NOT for Day Drinking) and hung out with some good friends and checked out the newish NE Arcade and saw the new Harley Quinn movie and watched episodes of the Harley Quinn animated series (I’m a little shocked but how much I adore both!) and I made pizza for National Pizza Day. And we went to the gym every day, because that’s how we roll and there was Day Drinking and chip binging to attempt to burn off.

So as staycation ends I’m feeling accomplished and inspired and wanting more–more time to decrap and go to bars/restaurants I’ve never or rarely been to (not to mention all the museums!) and to just hang out and chilax with Chad and the furry members of the household. Luckily, I do have quite a bit of vacation days stored up so there could be more staycations in my future.

I don’t think I’ll feel like I’m missing out, though, if I never go to a hazardous waste drop off site again.