Vacation

Newport May 2010, originally uploaded by maybeemily.

I don't go on vacation enough. But I take a lot of days off. I need to stop taking so many days off and just do it all in one big swoop. Because 4 days away? Totally not enough. Especially when 2 of those days involved driving for 6 hours!
Our family went to Newport, Oregon for a long weekend, and it was quite lovely. The house we stayed in was up on a hill, and we had a lovely view of the Pacific. We drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of seafood. I suppose those types of vacations are the best, where you don't really have anything to do in particular, and can just zone out and relax.
I had a lot of thinking time on this trip, and a lot of it was prompted by the book The Secret Language of Birthdays. Have you ever read that book, or looked up your birthday in it? Of course, I realize that what they write is somewhat general, and if you believe in it you can twist the words to make it sound just like you. But really. My birthday was EXACTLY ME. So much, that it made me realize what kind of person I am. Ben's was also EXACTLY LIKE HIM.
The birthday book told me that people born on my day have extremely high standards (that sure does explain a lot) and the thing that I didn't realize was me until the other day: they expect SO MUCH more from the people around them, and especially expect so much more from themselves. Perfectionism within my crazy standards. Have any of you fine readers experienced me while I am working on a project and the deadline is approaching? Or dealt with one of my freak outs as I work on something creative for someone else, and it JUST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH EVER?!? Now that I realize that this is me, that I am like this, I feel like I can control it a little more. And I will make an effort to accept the imperfections in life as wonderful things that make us all different and unique. And perhaps I will not need to push myself so hard on the small things that really, really, don't matter all that much.