Ten Lessons Learned From Vacation

1) Save the shopping for the day when it rains. Relish in the sun and outdoors every other day possible.

2) FLY to Florida, if you're further away than Georgia - which means everywhere except in Florida itself. The state's so freakin' large, it takes forever to get south of Orlando.

3) Go on vacation with people who eat like you do. I like Indian food, but I don't think I can eat Indian for quite a while now. And I'd love to have a cheeseburger, but that's not happening on this trip to paradise!

4) Pay for your massage with cash - and don't wait for the incompetent hotel staff (where you're not staying) to figure out how to charge your credit card. Yep, they were using the old carbon copy papers and that ridiculous machine that requires one to push really hard to get an imprint of the numbers.

5) Get more than one type of beer.

6) If you don't want to get into a fight about answering the phone, keep it on silent. Check it only when you want to return calls. It's vacation, for heaven's sake.

7) Give the people credit for at least trying to make it feel like Christmas - even though it's 80 degrees out and sunny. It was their decision to move somewhere that there's only one season, so they've got to mark the yearly changes somehow. (I can't really get over hearing "White Christmas" so often down here, though.)

8) Buy - and read - at least one "bodice ripper." If nothing else, it provides fodder for daydreaming.

9) Make a list of what you want to do while on vacation and do it. One caution: keep it short.

10) Never, never, never take any work with you.