So, I'm planning for our trip to Europe later this year. There's a lot going into that, though ultimately it'll be worthwhile.

What I'm really posting this for, though, is that we just returned from a long weekend in Central Oregon. It was great. It was a relaxing time with old friends. The drive back was pleasant enough. I didn't spend much money (with the notable exception of our annual Big Dinner out, which is expensive, but totally worth it).

The downsides this time were:

* I intentionally did very little work on any of my blogs. This let me relax, but at the same time I was a little tense. I felt like I wasn't staying on top of comments at the blog and posts in the forum. Plus, now that I'm home, I need to get something written for tomorrow morning!

* Speaking of which, I found out that one of the blog entries I had pre-written had a mistaken "more" instead of "less", and was filled with typos. Ugh.

* I'm always nervous leaving the house alone. My sister-in-law did housesitting for us, which is nice, but we came home to a couple of mysteries. A chair had been moved to a strange location, and had been clawed by the cats. The cold water in the bathtub was running full blast, and seems to have been on for several hours at least. This has caused some minor flooding in the basement (no big deal -- it's more of a cellar than anything).

I considered this a test-run for our longer vacation this fall. It wasn't wholly successful!

Would it be too extreme to board up your windows from the inside, turn off your water valves, switch off your electrical breakers and lodge your pets offsite? If i were to do a home exchange, i would move garment racks of my clothes to my mother's place as I would hate to go through shopping for new clothes but if a robber came in to my place, would he be interested in my new $5-10 dishes and utensils or my second hand paperbacks?

It sounds to me like you need to practice going on vacation a lot more

Would it be more or less hassle to have some guest posts lined up, and/or to write plenty of posts in advance - including some for when you get back.

I tend to find that if you are away for a longer period of time, you are more able to relax so that might stop you worrying about keeping up on the comments and forums. It also helps if you are going somewhere completely different (like abroad) as it puts you in a different frame of mind.

Ask your sister-in-law what happened about those things. Actually, if its Kris' sister, get Kris to ask her, if its your brother's wife ask your brother to ask her. Then you'll be in a better position to avoid these things in future.