A near perfect recipe

• Several days of warm, mostly dry weather (but I admit I've spent a lot of it in air-conditioning)
• No work (at least not the required kind that I get paid to do)
• Outdoor baseball in a sparkling new, packed ballpark (and a win for the home team)
• Time spent helping and having fun with with family and friends
• Sleeping in and taking naps
• Reading a good book

Thank you, God, for Memorial Day Weekend! Being on a lake was about the only thing I missed, but hopefully I’ll have that opportunity sometime. What were you all up to?

And, of course, a gigantic thanks to all those for whom we celebrate this holiday!

So, am I the only one now counting the days until July 4th weekend? Welcome summer!

It's the little things

Yesterday, I was just beginning to facilitate a big meeting at work when my phone rang. Thinking it was one of the meeting attendees calling for directions, I quickly took the call. My side of the conversation (overheard by others in the conference room) went like this: "Hello this is Heather. Yes. Mmm hmm. Ok. Yes, I will definitely be there. Thank you so much for letting me know. Ok. Thank you. Bye."

An important update from a colleague? No. It was my hairstylist calling to confirm my appointment for today. I don't know which is more sad: The fact that I tried to make the call sound important or that, had I actually looked at the number when my phone rang, I would have immediately known it was my hair salon. What? Not everyone has that number memorized? I thought that was one of those emergency contacts.

I don't think I enjoy getting a hair cut or color any more than the average gal, but particularly with the gross humidity and 90 degree temps of the past couple of days, my hair appointment was one of the major reasons I got out of bed today. Isn't it funny how we so often need these "little things" to make the other 90 percent of our days more tolerable?

So I escaped work a little early and I feel about 10 pounds lighter with a fresh haircut. And now that my stylist and I are all caught up on the gossip of each other's lives, I get to settle in at home for a couple more little moments that I love: An evening of Glee and reading my favorite Bachelorette recap (so far I’m cheering for Chris from Cape Cod!). Reasons to get out of bed tomorrow? I haven't decided yet. I'd better think fast!

True confessions

So far this week I…

• Got all situated in my car only to realize my keys were still inside my house
• Cried for almost no reason while at work
• Stopped singing a Christian song in my car in order to yell and honk my horn at the oblivious cell phone talker who cut me off (totally going against my post from last week, I know)
• Seriously contemplated walking out to the parking ramp around 2 p.m. to take a power nap in my car in the middle of my work day
• Got up three times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom
• Cooked dinner with my husband only to decide once it was ready that he was going to have to eat it all by himself because it was totally unappetizing to me

So yes, to quote a t-shirt I saw recently: “I’m pregnant…what’s your excuse?”

Of course, the truth is that all of the above could easily happen to me sans pregnancy too, but alas, I’ll take an excuse where I can get one. And, sarcasm aside, I’m excited and anxious about becoming a m…mo…MOM in six short months (not to mention there are a bunch of happy soon-to-be grandparents, aunts and uncles in my family)! So, I may not know the first thing about being a parent, but thanks to my amazing family and friends, I have no doubt that this child will be very loved.

My week in haiku

A busy and stressful work week, plus a warm and sunny Saturday, equals me not wanting to sit in front of my computer for very long. So just take a moment to catch up on my life using everyone's favorite 5-7-5 formula.

Rainy, cold weather

Ceiling leak above my desk

Wet files make me mad

Car hit baby bird

Already dead before me

I did not kill it!

Exhausted Friday

Daiquiri and shopping help

Slept for 10 hours straight

Tried a run today

Almost met same fate as bird

Will stick to walking

Pumped for Tuesday's Glee

Neil Patrick Harris guest stars

Sings Aerosmith. YES!

Anyone have their own haiku for the day? Maybe some other time I'll summarize my life in txt msg or tweets instead. And speaking of Glee (because of course I couldn't haiku my life without mentioning Glee...did I just use "haiku" as a verb?), see if you recognize any blonde chicks in this classic "glee club" video. Ah, high school.

Slow down?

At my last house, my commute to work took 12-15 minutes every day. Now, my morning commute is about 20 minutes on a good day (with some minor speeding involved) and up to an hour and 20 minutes on a bad day. While I know plenty of people who have it worse than that, it does mean that most days I spend a least some time just sitting in traffic. Those are the moments when I feel like the guy in the movie Office Space who sat in traffic and watched an elderly man with a walker pass him on the sidewalk. It's frustrating, wasteful and an extreme test of patience.

However, I recently was forced to think about my disdain for the slow lane from a book I'm reading. The Life You've Always Wanted is about practicing spiritual disciplines, and in it I was reading about the importance of an unhurried life. Let's just say I couldn't relate very well to the unhurried life, which was not a good thing. In looking at suggestions for the hurry-sick, the chapter talked about the practice of "slowing," described as "cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait." Say what? No thank you. Then, the very first illustration instructed this: "Over the next month deliberately drive in the slow lane on the expressway. It may be that not swerving from lane to lane will cause you to arrive five minutes or so later than you usually would. But you will find that you don't get nearly so angry at other drivers."

Well, I admit I haven't made a month-long committment to this, but on numerous occasions it has come to my mind (usually right when I'm about to scream at another driver), and it has caused me on at least a few occasions to pause, relax and simply sing along with some good music rather than yelling in my car for no one but me to hear. I guess that's progress.

Of course, if you're like me the "slow lane" pretty much follows my car around anyway (ala the Office Space clip mentioned above), which might be another reason to make the most of my car time with a little music and reflection rather than the sound of my honking horn. I think in some small way it actually may help me to add an ounce of patience to my life.

Hug a mom today

It's been a nice weekend of celebrating my mom (whose birthday always falls on the same week as Mother's Day). She's smart, funny and patient and has given me more hugs than I thought humanly possible. (And just like me, she likes to tell the long version of every story. Every detail is important!)

I moved back home for a year after college and on one day—a really bad day—I remember my mom coming into my bedroom, sitting on my bed with me and singing this song:


We laughed, we cried, oh yeah, it was like something out of a Hallmark movie—a Hallmark movie MUSICAL, even better! Nine years later, I can still hear my mom singing (badly) "Where can you goooooooo, if the world don’t treat you right? The answer is hoooooooome…"

Many days since then, I've needed that reminder. What a blessing that I can always go home and have such a dear friend waiting to see me. I love you mom!

My life as a musical

I may have said this before, but my perfect world involves a life lived as a musical. Yes, whether I’m at the office, at home, or in a public place, I would randomly break out in an inspiring musical number that reflects my mood. Others around me would join in, we’d throw in some choreography and, in the end, it would make me feel happy.

But the real, not-so-perfect world often involves feeling like you’re one of the few with common sense, where you work your rear off to please people and they still seem disappointed, and where things simply don’t go your way. (And the soundtrack is silent.) Alas, welcome to my week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty happy person. But sometimes I have those days…and sometimes those days string together and I just want to throw in the towel. That’s when I need a little reminder of my perfect world. Hence, I found this to cheer me up…

Ah, I feel a little better now (and might want to go back into the restaurant business). Now I should just stand up and start singing “Tomorrow” from Annie and things would really start to turn around!

What are you reading?

A good book at the end of a bad day has a way of turning things around. I love stepping into someone else's world (real or fictional) for a laugh, a cry or some good drama (but not the scary, gory kind of drama). I'm lacking anything new on my bookshelf right now and I could have used a decent page turner this past week. And now that the lounge chairs have come out of storage at the pool in my condo development, I'm definitely going to need some quality reading material (other than People magazine, of course) for some poolside weekends.

Since Jen got great music suggestions a few weeks ago, I thought I'd follow suit by seeking some reading recommendations. What are you reading that I need to put on my summer reading list? What are the classics you could read again and again? What made you laugh? What made you think? What made you say "I wish I had written that!?"

I don't necessarily need a deep read. I don't care if it was featured on Oprah's Book Club or won a literary award. It's almost summer, and since I have no vacations planned, a fun and light-hearted read might be my best getaway of the season. So please, arm me with a reading roadmap to help me navigate the next few months.