On being careful what you wish for

As the one-week-till-Key-West milestone approached last week, I became painfully aware of an undeniable fact: I had spent a lot more time counting down till Key West in recent weeks than I did counting the number of things that needed to get done before Key West. Beth and Sam’s first anniversary (which was last Monday) present was still sitting on my floor, waiting to be wrapped and sent; I had a growing pile of mending; the end of month bills needed to be paid; the garden was in want of tending. I was borrowing a movie and book from Chris that I needed to finish and return to him. And, of greatest paramount, the alumni newsletter was not spontaneously throwing itself together anytime soon. I had no idea where the time I needed to get things done was going to come from - I had weekend plans I didn't want to cut. What's a girl to do?

Well, it would figure that I woke up with a sore throat Friday. It wasn’t nearly bad enough to stay home, but enough to be annoying. And when Saturday morning rolled around, I wanted to do nothing that would require makeup or outdoor wear. So my roommates headed off to the zoo without me, and I set my (stuffy) nose to the proverbial grindstone. I stayed up till 1 am on Friday night and 2 am on Saturday night reliving my Serrandipity (high school newspaper) glory days, seeing how closely I could get Word to act like Adobe Pagemaker. (It does well. Hail the computer geek who invented the text box.) When I needed a break from sorting through many years’ worth of quote documents or making up things for the newsletter, I meandered upstairs to check off another small item on my to do list.

On Sunday night, I find myself having accomplished a round 98 percent of what needed to get done before I get out of town. Plus, I got some containers for the kitchen counter (part of the Macdonald Kitchen Modernization Initiative), a new purse, and cute sandals for the Keys and beyond.

Now, if I can just survive another week of Democrats attempting to manage the U.S. House of Representatives – hopefully, without another “what, did we say we were going to consider that bill tonight? Just kidding!” at 10 pm like they did last week – I just might get to go on this vacation after all.

…that is, if I can kick this cold by then...

* Writer’s note: if the dumb newsletter does actually get published in the next week, I have three entities to thank: the Goo Goo Dolls (nothing quite as motivating as listening to Iris, Black Balloon, and Broadway in succession about five thousand times between 10 pm and 1 am), Virginia ABC stores, and whatever strain of the common cold that is currently inhabiting my sinuses.