Accomplishments are often hard to measure, except when you’re on vacation. Work can be featureless.

There’s a routine and a certain level of expectations if things are to run in an orderly and predictable fashion. It’s a problem when it doesn’t happen the way it is supposed to. Maybe a computer has gone haywire; something didn’t come through as you expected or somebody you were counting on didn’t show up.

Guaranteed that happens to all of us, and those are days you’d like to forget.

And then there are vacations, a break from it all and a time to get away.

Read the brochures and the adventure of a vacation, whether to the Caribbean or Hawaii come alive with white sand beaches, moonlit boat rides, entertainment and sumptuous meals. The days are spelled out with one discovery after the next and, of course, the free time to get to know the locals, which really means shopping. When it’s time to return to reality, whether it rated high on the scale of enjoyment or not, it happened, you did it.

Indeed, there are vacations like that. More often than not, they’re the exceptions.

Funny, isn’t it, that if you said you did nothing on vacation, people would question if you “really” had a vacation? There has to be something to show for a vacation; that you have a tan, read a book or went to a concert…something to post on your Facebook page.

A good part of my vacation was being with family. That’s difficult to measure. It’s nice, a good feeling and fond memories. It was also filled with accomplishments, small things that won’t make the scrapbooks or be remembered in years to come. And yet if it weren’t for a vacation those chores probably never would have been done. I replaced the sash cords on a kitchen window that we had to prop open with a board; scraped flaking paint on the porch and primed it for a fresh coat; power washed the terrace and built a replacement door to the exterior staircase to the basement.

“And what project do you have today?” Carol would ask.

On occasion she had something to suggest, but more often than not I had my own list.

Scraping and power washing gives one plenty of time to think. It’s monotonous and mindless work, perfect for vacation from what consumes most of the time. Undoubtedly, it would be fun discovering new places and meeting new people across the globe. However, don’t underestimate the project. Rarely it is time wasted although there can be the frustrating times when the job didn’t come out as you had hoped.

God forbid that we should waste time, even on vacation.

“It was a fun vacation,” Carol declared when it was over and the kids and grandkids went their way. She was right and I realized I had done many things I would have never done – in addition to playing golf with my son and grandson and as a group, watching fireflies sparkle in an open filed.

Projects filled the days and the satisfaction of their completion made for a vacation.