God! I want so badly to organize my rubber stamps! I just want to sit down on the floor in the den: just me, my stamps, a blank book, and an empty box. I want to organize all my stamps by theme, index them all in the blank book, and get rid of the ones I no longer want or use. I want to do this because I desperately want to stamp something! I want to create something - and I don't mean write a story or a poem, or take a picture, because I've done that; I'm doing that - I want to stamp something! Anything! A card, a picture, a scene - anything my imagination can come up with!

And, I want to write a fanfic! (I know I just said I didn't want to write stories, but writing fanfic is a totally different thing. I think.) Writing "real" stories is hard; fanfic is so much easier because you don't have to spend very much time describing the characters or locations - your audience already knows what everyone and everything looks like - so you can spend more time on the story itself. Just sitting down and writing a silly little fanfic sounds so yummy and delicious right now!

Sadly, I just don't have time. I need to work on my "real" stories for class, plus I have to read the assigned readings for class, plus reading Pickwick Papers, reading my Bible, and organizing everything in the whole darn house! Gah!

Oh, and work!! I have to work, too! Double gah!

Actually work was pretty cool today. I got a lot of work done at work today, although by the end of the day, I wound up with more work than I started with, but that's okay. I believe they call it "job security" or something like that. It felt good to get stuff done - rather like that good feeling I had after accomplishing all the organizing and purging and "Clean Sweep"ing last weekend. Good. Really, really good.

But, still, I'd like to just stamp or write or read or do something else. I just don't know what.

I need a vacation. Yes, I know I just took time off from work, but that wasn't really a vacation vacation, it was a working vacation. A hard working vacation! I need some time to just sit around and chill, and not think about writing or reading or working or cleaning. Where I can drink as many cosmopolitans or other fancy-pants martinis as I want without having to make them for myself, or worrying about driving home, slightly buzzed, in the rain. Where I can indulge in a certain, um, vice without offending anyone. (Ugh! That sounded so dirty! I didn't mean for it to! It's not a dirty vice! Really! It's just a vice. Just a little one. A teeny-weeny, not dirty, humble little vice. That's all.)

That is what I need right now. And that is exactly what I'm getting! Not right now, but in a couple weeks. That's right: my friend Jewel and I are heading out on a brief vay-kay. Next month. Umm hmm. I'm certian it will be as wonderful, fun, and relaxing as our trip to Catalina was last fall. I'm also certain it will be filled with adventure, shopping, and beaucoup photo-ops. But, mostly I'm certian that it will be just exactly what I need!

Reading: You've Got to Read This ed. by Ron Hansen. This week's stories are: "A Mother's Tale" by James Agee, "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, and "Pie Dance" by Molly Giles, as well as the short stories submitted by classmates, one of which is, gulp! MINE!

Classic Book: Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. I am woefully behind on reading this book! I haven't had time, or I've been too tired to read it. Plus, the book I have is a collection of all Dickens' work, so the print is really, really small! I picked up a lighted magnifier at Borders last week, and that helps, but there's still the issue of not enough time.

Previously: Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Listening to: Switchfoot, Tait, and Stacie Orrico.

Writing: Nothing.

Gratitude: Finally getting some significant rainfall.