I need a vacation from the vacation.”

It was The Chef’s answer to me after we wrapped up our Thanksgiving travel, when I asked how he was feeling ahead of his first day back at work, just a few hours away.

We had five glorious days off, five consecutive days, where our agenda was possibly a tad too ambitious. Heading over to Asheville to spend Thanksgiving with my son and his housemate was supposed to be relaxing and restorative, and a welcome change of scenery for a few days—it at least delivered that last bit. The digs at our charming, historic bed and breakfast in the heart of Asheville were cozy and delightful, as were our hosts and the delectable breakfast we were served every morning (and homemade cookies for us and a dog treat for Scout every evening). But traveling with a dog, while we’re experts at it, is its own kind of exhausting as you may know. And my kiddo fully expected his mama to hang out in the kitchen and help him with dinner prep on Thanksgiving Day instead of relaxing on his sofa; I would not have had things any other way.

Imagine though, if you will, a small galley-style kitchen where there is about an inch of available counterspace owing to a daunting collection of small kitchen appliances (because who doesn’t need an espresso maker and a coffee pot and a convection oven and a rice cooker and a toaster and, and, and…), and where every single light fixture’s bulb, and I mean every one of them, is burned out, a condition that had not changed since my last visit in May on my way down to Chattanooga. During one especially comical Thanksgiving moment when my kid summoned the chef to ask whether it was okay to cook rice in the lamb-roasting pan juices (no, in case you’re wondering), assessing the situation was possible only using a cell phone to shine a light in the dark, windowless kitchen.

Add to this scenario a few moments where four grown adults and one good-sized canine were squeezed inside the kitchen, and you get the picture.

Here’s the thing: Dinner was fantastic, and spending all that time in the kitchen with my son was priceless. Mission accomplished. I am ever impressed by the culinary skills those two seem to have mastered, far more than I at the same age.

On Friday The Chef and Scoutie and I drove over to Knoxville to visit with some of my extended family I had not seen in decades, time well spent. Thence a few miles to the other side of town for a quick howdy with my brother and sister-in-law before heading back over to Asheville, absolutely wiped out. On Saturday we’d already made plans to go down to Brevard with the fellas for barbecue at a tiny little drive-up joint they swore would be the best we’d ever had, a truth one of my cousins who lives in Brevard had underscored on Friday during our Knoxville visit, but as fate would have it (and despite checking their Facebook page) it was closed, as was every. single. bakery. we wanted to try. So our culinary tour of Brevard was a bust, but we still enjoyed walking all over the downtown in this smallish but appealing mountain hamlet that possesses the most interesting mashup of old and quirky and new and imaginative, in both commerce and built environment; we’ll be back at some point, for sure.

Before our runout to Brevard, we were back at the kids’ house so I could offer some digital marketing help for one of them as I’d promised in recent weeks, while The Chef was able to grab a little time taking the other on an errand to the local hardware store and then demonstrate that, in fact, buying and changing lightbulbs (even irksome fluorescent tubes) is possible and not all that difficult, and the result is useful and even desirable. Because the two of them had somehow talked themselves into thinking they preferred a dark kitchen. So despite heading back home thoroughly exhausted, we managed to leave their place brighter, their basic home keeping skills a bit sharper, and the fridge and freezer stocked with enough leftovers to last weeks.

Meanwhile, back home.

We’re settled once more into the daily grind, but feeling a tad rushed in preparations for Christmas, almost here. This morning the air was mild and the sky a little gloomy ahead of the long front marching across the eastern US, the same that wrought tornadoes upon Nashville yesterday. So Scoutie and I sat outside, a rare occasion in December, I reading my book and he on high alert for the squirrels, at times vexingly on just the other side of the screen, his screen. We don’t have foliage down this way like we had it in New England, but I love that this one tree in the wood behind our patio is showing off so boldly, perhaps a hickory, among the loblolly pines and live oaks around it.

Our patio will soon get the first part of a major overhaul, our Christmas gift to each other.

And who knows—maybe we’ll find time for a bit of relaxation and restoration.