Squawk Radio
Monday, August 14, 2006
What Liz Didn't Do on Her Summer Vacation
My son goes back to school a week from today. My husband’s classes at the preschool officially begin a week from tomorrow. That means we have ONE WEEK--this week--to do all the things we haven’t yet done on our summer vacation that we’d planned to do. So let’s see now. Let me check the list. What’s left?
1. Visit my brother and his family in Florida. (All of us.)
2. Clean out the basement and garage. (All of us.)
3. Paint the deck and front porch. (All of us.)
4. Go to King’s Island. (All of us.)
5. Camp out in the backyard. (Hubby and son.)
6. Plant an herb garden. (Son and me.)
7. Take cooking classes. (Son and me.)
8. Read all six Harry Potter books. (Me.)
9. Lose another fifteen pounds. (Me.)
10. Paint and artfully stencil kitchen cabinets. (Me.)
11. Write sweeping, 800-page family saga unlike anything written before. (Me.)
12. Write dazzling movie screenplay that will make Orlando Bloom show up at my front door weeping with gratitude for its creation, and begging me to not just sell it to him, but for twice the usual rate for a first-time screenplay writer, and insisting I star alongside him. (Me.)
Okay, so maybe I was a tad optimistic in my summer planning. It wasn’t like I didn’t get ANYthing done. I planted about ten pots of marigolds. (Only to have them all spontaneously combust when the temps hit the 90s and stayed there.) And I finished the last book of the OPUS quartet. (Though by the time I got it in, it was two months late.) I lost ten pounds prior to conference. (Though two have already crept back on.) We went to a family reunion in South Carolina. (Wherein it was hammered home yet again that yes, in fact, it IS only our branch of the tree that’s, um, bent and, ah, twisted.)
And hey, it's not like I can't put all these things on my fall to-do list, right? I'm absolutely positive that, by December, my son and I will be cooking Chateaubriand with herbs we plucked from the pots under our newly painted cabinets, and Orlando will be knocking at my front door.
So what did everyone else NOT do on their summer vacation? What grand plans have you seen fall by the wayside when time--or disinclination--prohibited their fulfillment? What one project do you wish you had TIME to complete?
My son goes back to school a week from today. My husband’s classes at the preschool officially begin a week from tomorrow. That means we have ONE WEEK--this week--to do all the things we haven’t yet done on our summer vacation that we’d planned to do. So let’s see now. Let me check the list. What’s left?1. Visit my brother and his family in Florida. (All of us.)
2. Clean out the basement and garage. (All of us.)
3. Paint the deck and front porch. (All of us.)
4. Go to King’s Island. (All of us.)
5. Camp out in the backyard. (Hubby and son.)
6. Plant an herb garden. (Son and me.)
7. Take cooking classes. (Son and me.)
8. Read all six Harry Potter books. (Me.)
9. Lose another fifteen pounds. (Me.)
10. Paint and artfully stencil kitchen cabinets. (Me.)
11. Write sweeping, 800-page family saga unlike anything written before. (Me.)
12. Write dazzling movie screenplay that will make Orlando Bloom show up at my front door weeping with gratitude for its creation, and begging me to not just sell it to him, but for twice the usual rate for a first-time screenplay writer, and insisting I star alongside him. (Me.)
Okay, so maybe I was a tad optimistic in my summer planning. It wasn’t like I didn’t get ANYthing done. I planted about ten pots of marigolds. (Only to have them all spontaneously combust when the temps hit the 90s and stayed there.) And I finished the last book of the OPUS quartet. (Though by the time I got it in, it was two months late.) I lost ten pounds prior to conference. (Though two have already crept back on.) We went to a family reunion in South Carolina. (Wherein it was hammered home yet again that yes, in fact, it IS only our branch of the tree that’s, um, bent and, ah, twisted.)
And hey, it's not like I can't put all these things on my fall to-do list, right? I'm absolutely positive that, by December, my son and I will be cooking Chateaubriand with herbs we plucked from the pots under our newly painted cabinets, and Orlando will be knocking at my front door.
So what did everyone else NOT do on their summer vacation? What grand plans have you seen fall by the wayside when time--or disinclination--prohibited their fulfillment? What one project do you wish you had TIME to complete?
Elizabeth Bevarly, 9:26 AM
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