Saturday, October 18, 2008

Recipe for a really great day

1) Sleep in a good two hours later than usual.

2) Wake up and spend an extra half-hour reading in bed.

3) Make blueberry pancakes and eat them while reading the New York Times. (Bonus points to your husband, who has been indifferent to pancakes all his life but has suddenly decided that they are the world's greatest weekend breakfast.)

4) Head into the study to grade, and take twenty minutes to grade an assignment you were sure was going to take over an hour. Get caught up on a bunch of pesky tasks that have been irritating you.

5) Take a break to head to the park down the street and play an hour of tennis and enjoy the spectacularly beautiful fall day.

6) Come back, grill steaks for lunch. (More bonus points for getting really good steaks half-price on sale at the store yesterday.)

7) Write about the really great day now, because the rest of it's all going to be grading. Even so, take substantial pleasure in the fact that if you stay on schedule, you'll be caught up by tomorrow and might actually be able to enjoy the rest of October at a more sane pace.

8) Get through the afternoon by looking forward to repeating at least steps 1, 2, and 5 tomorrow.