I am breathing a sigh of relief. After traveling off and on for nearly three months, my husband Chuck and I are home the rest of the summer. No trips abroad, no city vacations, no professional conferences. These days, I can actually work a regular schedule, rather than squeeze my writing and editing chores into off hours at airports and in hotel rooms.

While overnights aren’t on my agenda anytime soon, everyone needs an occasional break from their daily routine – no matter how satisfying. To this end, I am an enthusiastic proponent of what I call “vacation excerpts.” A vacation excerpt is a short, jam-packed representation of any experience that makes a long getaway so memorable. Here are some examples of what I mean:

An ocean lunch in the middle of a workday. I dined on very rare tuna and hushpuppies with a friend at the Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach on Tuesday. I was tired of editing, bored with writing and fed-up with email. Simply put, I needed an excerpt.

So my friend and I pretended we were on vacation, surrounded by young couples with kids, ladies in straw hats and pastel Lilly Pulitzer ensembles and a group of rootin’-tootin’ senior citizens who kept sampling each other’s seafood. In true vacation style, we bypassed the rice pilaf that came with our meals and ordered French fries instead.

A fast game of digital cards. Long afternoons of pinochle and hearts have been a favorite vacation pastime as long as I can remember. When I crave an excerpt, I save the file I’m laboring over, click on one of my Big Fish Solitaire icons and have at it. If I close my eyes, talk to myself and laugh at my own jokes, I could swear I’m in Nags Head playing 500 with my husband, sister and brother-in-law.

A big batch of gorp. Gorp is a confection of M&M’s, cocktail peanuts and raisins. We mixed up giant bowls of the stuff on the many family vacations we spent in Nags Head. Every night, we munched and crunched until only a few stray raisins remained. In fact, vacation week was the one time of year we adults allowed our kids to stuff themselves with junk till they turned green.

Now, a few handfuls of grownup gorp – M&M’s with smoked almonds and dried cranberries – still spark memories of salt and sweet and warm blue ocean.

A drive in the country at dusk. In Wilmington, North Carolina, back roads are never very far away. When summer’s at its hottest, my husband Chuck and I will hop into the car after dinner, wind down the windows and head toward Burgaw and thereabouts. The feel of warm, damp air in my face, the strangely pleasing scent of Confederate jasmine laced with fertilizer and shrill canine barks mellowed by distance bring me back to childhood, when Sunday drives were our only vacations.

So, there they are – my favorite vacation excerpts. My guess would be that other folks wouldn’t find it too difficult to come up with a few of their own. One thing I know for sure, I couldn’t get by without indulging in an occasional excerpt. My deadlines may not go away – but for an hour or so, I sure do.

Check out some of Bon’s Eye Marketing’s latest work. Our firm recently created a four-page promotional section for PPD – a pharmaceutical Clinical Research Organization with global reach. The section ran as an advertorial insert in July’s (first) issue of The Greater Wilmington Business Journal, with some 15,000 copies distributed.

Throughout the process, our team collaborated with PPD’s marketing department to create an insert that conveys the CRO’s professionalism and success. The company wanted to showcase its 25 years of industry leadership.

Aside from designing the layout and other graphic elements, Bon’s Eye wrote several articles for the piece. With PPD now planning to print additional copies for marketing purposes, we thank them and the Business Journal for the chance to tell their story.

“To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world – that I am able to change it in positive ways.”

This is how Maxine Hong Kingston, a Chinese American author, views the importance of personal contributions to society. Her quote was my central theme when I spoke at a Rotary dinner last week. The occasion was my installation as president of Wilmington West Rotary Club, both an honor and a challenge.

Kingston’s words define the vision that lies at the heart of Rotary. Still, many people envision these clubs as groups of middle-aged “good old boys” chewing the fat over weekly lunches and maybe closing a business deal or two. This is not so.

One of my goals for 2010-11 is to raise community awareness about the real Rotary – and I can’t think of a better way to launch the campaign than blogging about it. So, consider this a crash course on who we are and what we do. The scope of it may surprise you.

Rotary began in Chicago in 1905. A non-political, non-religious international organization of men and women, their mission is to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Clubs are open to all creeds, cultures and races. Today, Rotary operates in more than 160 countries worldwide, with approximately 1.2 million men and women belonging to 30,000-plus clubs.

Key projects focus on at-risk youth, disabled persons, health/education initiatives and environmental concerns, to name a few. On a global level, Rotarians also are wiping out polio, providing clean water and striving to build international peace and good will.

I believe all the good Rotary does collectively starts with individual clubs like Wilmington West, made up of busy people who simply want to make their community – and the world – just a bit better.

The internationally acclaimed Full Belly Project, which designs and distributes income-generating agricultural devices in developing countries, started with seed money from Wilmington West. We endow scholarships at the University North Carolina Wilmington and Cape Fear Community College. We also provide financial and hands-on support for the Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina, Wilmington Family YMCA, Carousel Center, Communities in Schools and other life-changing programs.

Proud as I am of all Wilmington West gets done, we’re not the only game in town. A total of six clubs in the city and 48 across our district are devoted to Rotary’s mission.

As for me, my first board meeting as president comes up in a couple days. And I can’t wait to get started.

This week, we’re packing up the ol’ auto Bon and heading down to Florida. It should make for an interesting trip… Eight hours in the car with a little boy who mumbles gibberish like an auctioneer on “the sauce.” In Grayson’s (my son) case, milk – with a dash of Nilla wafer backwash – serves as his drink of choice.

While we’re in the sunshine state, Sarah and I plan to take the boy to Disney World. I figure this can go one of two ways.

A: He loves Mickey Mouse’s army of oversized characters, and even tolerates the heat and crowds of people.

B: He becomes “that kid,” raising hell in the happiest place on Earth.

Seriously, this is the first real “vacation” we’ve taken as a family. I feel so paternal. We’ve even bought a child leash to keep Grayson in check at the amusement park. I swore I’d never tether my kid, but with his sudden bouts of running toward bright objects, we want to be extra careful.

Ahhh, what a perfect postcard: Sarah struggling to get a grip on the toddler rope and me devouring a funnel cake, grease dripping down my shirt. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited. The fact is, we’re going on a family trip.

For some odd reason, I feel like I’ve reached a new point in life. Maybe it’s the Ozzie and Harriet Rite of Passage. There’s just something about hitting the road with the wife and kid that seems slightly momentous.

I remember my father always getting ramped up for summer getaways. He’d watch the weather channel nightly in the days leading up to our departure. I’d go with him to fill up the gas tank, check the air pressure in the tires and buy snacks for the car. I didn’t think much of these preparations, until lately.

I wonder if he was proud to be able to take his family somewhere new, different. I know he didn’t say much during the drive, other than “Damn it, Stephen, look out your window and quit bothering your sister.” Still, I now understand the sense of accomplishment – even if it’s little that he must have felt.

Alright, enough nostalgia – I need to go pick up a collar for the boy.