Let’s think about some nice uplifting topics for a change! What good things are headed your way?
I, for one, am looking forward to Stephen King’s newest book coming out in a couple of weeks. I think he gives us something every spring and fall. What a nice man!
I am looking forward to my evening sitting out on the porch with my husband, my dogs, and a glass of wine. My favorite thing, every day.
Okay, and I know I said “uplifting” but I am looking forward to some awful things as well, like Donald Trump’s mugshot.
my volunteer organization’s big annual fundraising luncheon
In a more mundane/near-term vein, I’m looking forward to:
Clearing out and reorganizing my third bedroom this weekend. I use that room for storage (the house has no usable basement or attic), and I recently got rid of a treadmill that had been taking up a huge chunk of space. I tend to be very neat/organized, and that room has bugged me for years!
Going shopping (I need shoes for the aforementioned wedding) and having lunch with my BFF on Sunday.
Calling Verizon and pulling the trigger on cutting the cord.
My husband has gone out of state to fish with a buddy so I am looking forward to a week of solitude, He will return on the 22nd and I am looking forward to him being back home.
And since we have had about a million days in a row of over 100 degrees, lots of sunshine and no rain, I am looking forward to winter. I see that it’s going to be down in the 50s tomorrow where my husband is staying so I hope he’s enjoying it (she said through clenched teeth),
This is me, so much. I always look forward to the crisp and cool fall days, the decorations for Halloween and Christmas, and the rain. So many people hate the rain but I love it, and while I’m glad to see sunshine come June, I really prefer rainy weather. I was already over this 110 degree heat before it started.
Both my kids finished high school this summer. One barely, the other basically said f@#& it and took a GED so he could go to college early. So, I’m really looking forward to not having weekly email conferences with my older son’s teachers or dealing with my younger son bitching about how stupid high school is.
I’ll be getting a raise this fall. I’m looking forward to that, especially since we have some significant electrical work on the house that needs to be done. My wife hasn’t worked since Covid hit in March of 2020 and I’m really looking forward to her going back to work. She and my younger son are going to visit her sister in Tacoma this coming weekend so my older son and I will likely go see Oppenheimer, get a pizza, then watch horror movies while the new AC keeps our house bearable. Definitely looking forward to all that, especially the two of us going to see Oppenheimer. I haven’t been to a theater since before Covid.
In a few days I will get a project shipped to me, and I’m looking forward to working on it and also to finishing it. It is an old, metal, beat-up machinist’s end mill storage cabinet with shallow drawers that are the perfect depth for fountain pens. The finish is badly scratched and worn, so I have to sand that out smooth. Three of the drawers are no longer quite square in the front, and I was hoping I could beat them back into shape, but apparently that’s not possible with metal, so I may have to do the best I can with bondo to make the outside presentable. Then I will be able to prime and paint the whole outside to be nice and shiny and new-looking. The drawer insides will be lined with pen trays, many of which I have already made (I was going to build my own drawers from wood but I have become ever more allergic to sawdust, so that’s a no go).
This will not be exciting for anyone but me, but I am really looking forward to working on this, and then re-organizing my pens, and also my office space.
My son is starting school in two weeks. Two. Weeks. I didn’t expect him to start school so soon, but he needs Early Childhood Special Education. It’s going to be 15 hours a week for him to work on peer to peer interaction and other desperately needed skills. I think he is probably going to love it. He’s going to pick out a backpack and a lunch box of his very own and it will all be very adorable.
For my part, I very much look forward to having a bus come in to pick him up in the mornings rather than having to schlep him to daycare. And they are so nice that they are going to bus him after school to daycare so I won’t have to worry about midday transportation. I think it’s going to make the schedule chaos a little easier.
(This also comes with a tentative decrease in the cost of daycare, but that’s yet to be determined.)
Looking forward to a raft trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. It’s a “wine” trip, so fancy food and a sommelier. Looking forward to hanging on the lawn tonight with our 2 playful dogs. They are all that is keeping me sane.
Big item on our bucket list - we’re taking a cruise to Antarctica in January. We won’t actually set foot on the continent, but the ship will get really close for most of 4 days and we’ve booked a balcony cabin, so we can sit there and watch the scenery go by!
We’d booked a similar trip right before the plague hit, so this has been a long time coming. Can’t wait! Plus I’ll turn 70 while we’re aboard - yay!!
I’m on a two week countdown now to a two week holiday in Brittany, France.
I’m most excited at this point in getting there - packing up the car for every eventuality, dropping the dog off with the sitter, driving to Plymouth (the original one), and catching the overnight car ferry. Boat departs at 10pm, by which time I will be in the ferry restaurant, having my first French meal of the trip (it’s a French ferry) with a nice bottle of wine - the key advantage of getting the overnight ferry. Meal, wine, sleep, wake up rolling off the ferry into France. Happy days.
I’m looking forward to a family gathering Friday, where we will make plans to work together to do some serious food gardening for the next year. I’m already looking forward to tending a wheat patch and harvesting a pint or so of wheat to make into flour and then a pancake, along with bushels of tomatoes, kale, and the like. And I’m looking forward to teaching in September, with new undergrads and their enthusiasm. And, of course, as always, looking forward to the uprising of the masses and the ushering in of utopia.
After being gone for 5.5 weeks, and nearing completion of a home improvement project that started in May, I am looking forward to having everything back to it’s normal place. For example, currently the suitcases are in the extra bedroom instead of the cellar space, which will stay that way until the stuff in the cellar space can go back in the shed.
Tomorrow the contractors will pressure wash the front and back patios which means we can put the grill back on the front patio. The backyard awning is supposed to be installed on Monday, which will be helpful as the next heat wave starts tomorrow.
I really enjoy my job. I’d keep working if I could limit it to half a month per m9nth & have the other half absolutely free. Or work alternating months.
As Dad said of his worklife in the same industry in the Good Old Dayes, my job is to drag the party from city to city one jump ahead of the cops.
If I was 10-20x richer I could buy my own jet. Since I can’t I borrow theirs and put up with their silly ideas of where to go when. Which is sometimes pretty awful and sometimes pretty great.
