...so last week I skipped the Friday Forum in favor of a much more important topic, which was the futile search through my videos to find a copy of “Electric Dreams” that I thought I had but instead found a tape of DH performing with an old company band.

While that was funny, and a good topic, so were the questions of the Friday Forum, and I decided I’d break those up into pieces and focus on one or two of them with lengthier answers. Today we’ll visit question 5, which will give you a peek into my life as it stands at the moment.

5) What's on your mind right now? Are you stressed out about anything? What are you most looking forward to? Do you have a lot of items on your to-do list? What are you happy about right now?

What’s on my mind right this very minute? This question. In general, however, it’s how I’ll manage to make it through the next few weeks until Nashville CATS, and all the things that I need to do at work before then, and all the usual things that I need to do at work. That and coming up with blog topics that continue to interest all of you, because I tend to worry about whether or not I’m entertaining enough or just talking to myself some days.

Clearly, I’m not completely just talking to myself because I get comments back from the rest of you, and I know how many hits a day I get on this thing (a LOT!) so I know people are reading, if not speaking back.

Stress is a normal part of my life. I wouldn’t say that I’m stressed out about anything truly serious at this point in time, maybe just a little worried or concerned. There is the never-ending stress that DH is unemployed, but I’ve pushed that to a far corner of my mind – after all, it’s been 2.5 years. I think I’m used to it by now. Absorbed stress, you could call it.

I think I’m a little stressed out about whether or not I’m being an effective parent and teacher to the DDs, but every normal sane parent worries about things like that, so I’m not going to get wound up about it. Not worth it.

In fact, there’s very little worth getting wound up over, and maybe I’m lying to myself, but I don’t think that I carry all that much stress with me these days.

What am I most looking forward to? There are lots of things vying for first place. I’m looking forward to going home and getting my daily welcome home hug and smooch from DH. Tomorrow night is the season premiere of Stargate SG1 and Battlestar Galactica, and I’ve been waiting for those for awhile. Saturday I should have the new Harry Potter book in my hands, and I’ve been waiting for that for a few months – actually I’ve been waiting for it since I finished the 5th book, which was on the day it was released. B’s 8th birthday is coming, and I’m looking forward to that. CATS Nashville (which I plan on attending) is coming too – and I’m looking forward to that. But I don’t think that there’s one that can top the other because they’re all in different realms with different amounts of importance. And those are just the things that I look forward to that are a daily basis sort of thing.

I'm looking forward to the start of hockey season. I'm looking forward to the release of Chicago 30 (Yup, they've got another album, finally, coming out close to Christmas, so I hear). I’m looking forward to watching my daughters decide the courses of their lives, and what they do with themselves as they get older. I’m looking forward to grandchildren (should I get to have any). I’m looking forward to another trip to Fiji someday. I’m looking forward to going to Europe. I’m looking forward to lots and lots of things, and I really don’t think that there’s one that I can put on the top of the list.

See? I’m a very forward looking sort of person. Cop out? Maybe. But there’s nothing that I’m so overly excited about that I can make it be the top of the list, even by a miniscule percentage of a percentage point. I like being enthusiastic about things I’m interested in, and that’s why I have lots of things that I look forward to. These are also the things that are on the list of things that I’m happy about, and you can add being happy that I’m in good health, and being happy about having a job, and good friends who support each other through thick and thin and happy and sad and downright miserable and totally upswung ecstacy. Even if it’s manic.

Damn skippy I'm happy that there's going to be a hockey season next year.

I’m happy to be me, and to be alive, and to have that state of mind in my friends – even the ones going through rough patches at the moment (and they know who they are, and that I’m there for them).

As for my to-do list… it’s probably as long as the list of things that I’m looking forward to. There’s the usual work stuff, and then there’s things that need doing around the house, and things I’d like to cook, and the organization of the stash closet (again, a re-inventory that I’ve been putting off). There’s playing games with the DDs and putting together their summer lesson plans, and all manners of other things.

I’m a busy person. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And I manage my time pretty much on the fly – so I’m not anal about what needs doing when, but rather see what I can do in the time that I have on my hands right in front of me. And I love having free time at home because I'm the first person in line to do things that are totally unproductive with it. Currently I’m trying to figure out how to edit an Excel spreadsheet that’s recalculating everything, and still manage to type this out between re-calcs, without 1) having MS Office just freeze while Excel grinds despite frequent switching between the two windows and 2) not losing any time in making another edit in Excel after the re-calc is done so that it can start another one, and I can type some more in this window.

It’s a fine balance, and makes for a crowded workspace sometimes, if I tile the important windows. Which I don’t do too often because it’s annoying and I don't get to see enough of what I want to see at one time.

That’s it for today, I never know how to end something like this, so I’ll just tell you to have a great day! And take heart in the fact that it’s almost the weekend...

...which is a whole nother set of time on my hands that I won’t know what to do with, except for a big slot in which I will read Harry Potter 6.