Raising three small children and running a business 5+ days a week is taxing, no doubt about it. I vacillate between enjoying the triumphs of entrepreneurship and the rewards of motherhood, to dreading the work day… and dreading the rest of the day. As with anything there are highs and lows, but rarely do I enjoy actual, legitimate, 100% downtime. Last week my sister-in-law sent me a link to a vacation package on Living Social. 58% off a trip to the Dominican! How could I refuse? We could make this work! This was the universe telling me that I need a vacation, surely.

This comes after back-to-back employee vacations. In a small business, whenever someone leaves for any significant length of time, it is stressful. We all work hard and contribute a solid 8 hours to projects every day, so losing even 5 days can really throw a wrench in things. As much as we prepare in advance, it never fails that suddenly everything that person was working on becomes urgent, clients get grumpy, we have to reassign work, make other clients grumpy, fun fun. Unfortunately for me, nearly everyone in the office took their vacations this fall, so as soon as someone came back (sigh), someone else left (grr), and naturally I am the wizard–in front of the curtain usually–trying to keep it all together, short staffed and increasingly short on patience. (more…)