Looking forward to

One thing I realized as a kid was that a certain amount of happiness in life can come from always having something to look forward to. It doesn't have to be a big thing (like Christmas), but having something on the horizon that looks pleasant makes things a lot nicer, and makes any difficulties easier to tolerate. (Hence my doing things like having promised myself a trip to my favorite quilt shop ever after having endured my first-ever crown preparation).

My friend got back to me - she's free on Friday, so we will meet in Longview for lunch and hang-out time. (Yes, Friday. Feel free to insert a Rebecca Black joke here if you wish.)

(I have taken to thinking of these mid-fall-break trips as My Own Private Rhinebeck, since I never get to go to the much-vaunted Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool festival. Okay, so there won't be sheep where I'm going...but there will be wool. And good food. And books. And other things. And I probably would actually be rather overwhelmed by the crowds at a place like Rhinebeck.)

This is about perfect...it will give me Thursday to either get caught up on work-stuff, or do a bit of house-cleaning, or just decide to be lazy and either knit or sew and watch cartoons at home. (And I will have a chance to get to the bank and withdraw some money).

It will also give me time on Saturday to go grocery-shopping. I (possibly foolhardily) signed up to feed the youth groups on Sunday night - we've been having trouble getting people lined up, and while those who teach were traditionally not expected to cook...well, it's been difficult to get people lined up to cook, and sometimes the little goad of "Look, look, I'm busy, I'm teaching, and I still managed to cook something" sometimes helps.

(I'm going to do spaghetti. I got my mom's good, relatively easy sauce recipe - I figure making it from scratch will probably be better and likely will be cheaper than buying already-made sauce. And I will probably get salad as well. Not sure about dessert....if I could find those little Italian ice cups, even though they'd be pricy, I'd do those, just for the kids to have the experience (some have probably never HAD Italian ice), but I've never seen them for sale here, so I might just do Rice Krispie squares or something like that.)

I am really looking forward to a break. (To the point of which, I am already telling myself: If you can get good research work done today and tomorrow, you can take Thursday off and stay home and sew or whatever).

I don't really NEED anything...then again, I find the shopping trips where I specifically NEED something are the ones that tend to frustrate me (either because the store I go to is out of it, or because I'm otherwise in a hurry and it seems that everyone else out shopping is doing their best to thwart my ability to buy my stuff and scram). I am giving half a thought to thinking about Christmas presents for people already...though I usually do most of that via catalog shopping, still, if I see something good for someone, I will buy it.

And there will be yarn. I miss being able to go into a real yarn shop, a shop whose main raison d'etre is to sell yarn, as opposed to a general craft shop with a few shelves of yarn...also, in a lot of the general craft shops, it tends to be believed that Washability and Reasonable Price are the main virtues of a yarn, and while those kinds of yarns are nice for a lot of things (amigurumi, for example), sometimes you want something that's less...practical.

(I think that's actually my complaint with a lot of the "superstore" mentalities on stuff - everything seems to be chosen for sheer practicality. Or for minimal cost. And while it's good to be able to buy things at a reasonable price...sometimes you want to splurge a little and buy things that aren't simply the most economical version. Again, too many "petty oeconomies" make me tired.)

It's also supposed to (FINALLY) get cooler. Today it's going to be 90 (wharrrrgarrrblll. I wound up leaving youth group early last night - I didn't have any of my kids there but did help out one of the other teachers - because I was getting a bad headache, and I will not be surprised if I get one today, because of the cold front) but the rest of the week it's supposed to be in the 60s and 70s - which is what I think of as perfect traveling weather. (and it's supposed to be sunny).