How to Torture Yourself When at Home for Spring Break

Today is the last day of Spring Break, and while it's been nice having Lori and the kids home, I've been going a little crazy not being able to get away. Family health problems have us confined close to home at the moment, so day trips to places like Crystal Mountain have been the only adventures we've managed to do. That doesn't mean that I haven't been dreaming bigger though. It seems that everywhere I look there's something taunting me...reminding me of places I could be visiting, and although some of it is unavoidable, some is definitely self-inflicted. If you ever find yourself in this situation, here's a couple of things you should avoid doing if you don't want to torture yourself.

Stay off Facebook

Just because you're stuck at home doesn't mean everybody else is. My sister is currently posting pictures from the beach in Hawaii on her photo stream. I love my sister, but if a tropical depression were to settle over Hawaii right now, I'd probably see a little humor in it.

Filter your e-mail

I know you can't avoid e-mail altogether, but you might want to skip over anything with the world "travel" in it. Personally I find TravelZoo to be the worst offender in this department. For some reason they think I should be spending my break in the Greek islands...those fools!

Turn off your screensaver

If you're like me and have your screensaver set to show family pictures from your computer, turn it off! I can't tell you how many times I've been reminded this week that last year for Spring Break we were exploring Washington, D.C., and the year before that we were on a Disney Cruise. It's like a slow torture that updates itself every six seconds. I thought the Geneva convention outlawed this kind of stuff?

Don't watch the departures board

I know this is a bad habit of mine, but sometimes I like to leave my local airports departure board open on my cell phone. Every once in a while I look down and think "Sigh. There goes the 09:45 flight to Aruba!" If I happen to be outside, I even look up to see if I can catch a glimpse of all those happy people heading off to somewhere warm. It works both ways though. At 10:25 I get to look up and laugh at all the poor souls heading to Winnipeg. 

This post is a part of Friday Daydreamin at R We There Yet Mom. If you didn't get here from there, you should really go check them out. There's people there who don't torture themselves when they're stuck at home. Obviously they don't live in Winnipeg.

Written by Steve Pratt