I recently took my annual “staycation” — an opportunity to spend a few days at home with my husband, Mike, working on every project we can come up with.

We managed to do a little better at relaxing this time around. Rather than spending all of our time off from work performing manual labor, we started our break by attending a family gathering. We followed that up with a visit to a local business, Giacinta’s Gelato & Cafe, where live music was offered on the patio.

The following day was Mike’s birthday, which we celebrated by having breakfast at Denny’s and then just running from place to place shopping before visiting Tlaque Paque for a snack and a drink. Then we headed to Route 40 Lumberjaxe to play several games of pool.

We also managed to take in a concert featuring Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie, then later we saw Nightrain, The Gun N’ Roses Experience at Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack.

It was fun to take a little break and actually do some things just because we felt like it.

On the homefront, we did do our usual work, work, work. We cut and completely manicured out lawn, which was badly needed given the ongoing drought conditions that had led to tall weeds poking out of the dead grass.

We also installed a new dishwasher that I had been wanting for five or six years. There was nothing wrong with our old one, but this one matches the rest of our appliances. Little things like that matter to me for some reason.

We also jumped into some unexpected projects and found some unexpected issues. In our basement, for instance, we stripped old insulation away from a wall that we want to clean up and paint and found that a foundation issue we had repaired last year left cracks we didn’t know were there. Now we can repair them.

I know it’s important to occasionally get away from everything. But it’s also nice to sometimes invest a little time and energy in making things better for ourselves, and tackling unexpected projects can lead to that.

Take a little staycation this year if you can.