I’ve got a bad case of the post-vacation blues. You know what I’m talking about. That terrible, longing feeling you get when you return from vacation only to find a desk full of to-dos and a phone blinking with messages. The heavy weight you feel on your chest when you walk into the office and the sun is blaring outside.

It’s terrible. And with the lovely weather we’ve been having in the Northwest this summer, it’s the absolute worst.

For me, the feeling came about Sunday night, when I returned from a long weekend at Lake Chelan to find an inbox full of messages – and I’ve been struggling to get out of the slump ever since.

In the past, it wasn’t so bad. When I was high school, we had winter and spring and summer breaks. Even in college, I had the freedom to take off for days on end during the holiday break.

Now, with a real job, vacation is limited to those rare weekends – and those beloved vacation days. But that’s the problem – weekends just aren’t long enough. Right when you’re getting in your vacation groove, you have to come home and get back to real life.

So what’s a girl to do when she’s feeling the blues? Watch the missed episodes of “True Blood”? Take her lunch outdoors? Read a new book?

I’m open to suggestions, because I’m still trying to figure it out.