Tomorrow I head back to work after a luxurious 11 days off. I feel ashamed to admit that it doesn’t seem like it was enough time when I know that there are people who didn’t get to take any vacation time at all during the holidays.

I’ve never aspired to be a lady of leisure. And yet that seems to be what I crave right now: time to do the things I enjoy. I don’t feel like I’ve read enough or knit enough or talked with enough friends during my break from work. I didn’t bake cookies and I’m still not done writing out my Christmas cards (apologies still to you folks with names that start with late letters in the alphabet), let alone Christmas boxes to friends.

I did catch up on sleep. I watched movies. We spent nearly a week with my family. I hung up our Christmas cards today. We saw friends here the last few days, including at a lovely low-key party this evening.

But I’m greedy. It wasn’t enough. And clearly what that means is that I need to work on re-prioritizing my free time so that I spend more hours doing those things that I feel like I haven’t gotten a chance to do during my break. Less tv. Less time on the computer. Get to work earlier so I can leave earlier. Just spend more time with the things that actually matter.

And, in the mean time, I’ll head back to work and start accruing some more vacation days.