Last year, a few friends convinced me that it was a really good idea for me to book an extravagant vacation for several weeks. I planned way ahead and book to the vacation for the following year. If you’re keeping track, that means I just returned from my super luxurious vacation a few weeks ago. Sure, it seems like a really great idea to cut loose and spend some money on myself. My friends were saying that I never do anything for myself and I deserve to kick back and stop worrying so much. Of course, returning home last week, my life was anything but stress-free. When I got back to the house, immediately I saw that there was enormous damage from a storm that had passed through. A tree limb had fallen straight on my roof, and none of the neighbors had bothered to call and tell me about the damage. The second thing that I realized upon arriving home, was that my energy bill was sky-high. I opened the mail and found an energy bill waiting for me. It was over five times the normal monthly rate, which was already very expensive. Clearly, the entire time I was out of town my indoor air quality control equipment was attempting to moderate the indoor air temperature. Meanwhile, significant damage to the roof was letting all of my expensive treated air flow right out into the sky. I was literally paying the energy company to cool the neighborhood. So much for going on a long vacation, next time I’ll be more relaxed if I can stay home and keep an eye on the energy bill.