Ignoring Today's Inspirational Message...

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...to Stay in the Present

Every morning, I read an inspirational message and today's was about not peering too far into the future. Oh, well....

Before I jump into working on my last big paper of the semester, I want to indulge in cataloging some of the fun things I hope to do for the upcoming break between this semester and next -- December 23rd-January 22nd:

• Taking our niece Zoe to a Broadway play - Done
  
• Going to our friends', Fred's and Geoff's, holiday party - Done
  
• Swimming at least three times a week, if not five or six, including three steam-blasts in the steam room afterward - Done
  
• Choosing and downloading my Chanukah gift of many iTunes - Done
  
• Welcoming Pat's adopted Tasmanian Devil into our home, or at least the toy-version, which is her most-wished for Chanukah present - Done
  
• Seeing my childhood friend Sarah, just for fun; it has been since Rosh Hashanah! - Done
  
• Going to synagogue more often; it always lifts me, and we're too often too tired to get to the city on Friday nights after a long week
  
• Seeing "Milk;" "Frost-Nixon;" "Slumdog Millionaire" - Saw "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire"
  
• Catching up on all the magazine articles I started that have waited in a stack patiently on my nightstand, and that are knocked off by Toonces nearly every dawn as she seeks our attention - Done
  
• Finishing Watchmen and Doris Lessing's cats book, and reading Three Cups of Tea and The Zookeeper's Wife - Read Doris Lessing's and Watchmen and opted not to read the other two at this point
  
• Figuring out a writing project for fun -- maybe more blogging, maybe a magazine article, maybe the start of a book(!) - Sent a query letter to a magazine for an article I could write
  
• Seeing the Calder exhibit at the Whitney - Doing soon
  
• Doing some more drawing - Done.
  

That was a fun catalog to create and now, back to the present, which isn't so bad either:

I've got a purring cat curled on my lap; am wearing my favorite, softest, most comfortable sweater for cold weather; already have read the interesting parts of the Sunday "New York Times," including the Modern Love article and the front-page story on the "first friends" of the Obamas, and how they hope and plan to keep their friendships active once Barak Obama becomes president; and now, I get to finish showing off what I gleaned from what I read all semester in six-eight pages, three of which I wrote last night; and then I get to work on refining a set of FAQs further for work that are going to be appreciated by their audience; and in-between, I probably get to talk to family or a friend or two by phone...and maybe, I will get myself out for a swim on this sunny, chilly day -- a swim indoors.