tomorrow i begin my new job, so i thought i’d take the whole day to spoil myself just a little bit.

i began the day with a massage to encourage my shoulders to stop hugging my ears. she gave me a choice of music, so i chose john michael talbot’s “come to the quiet”– i haven’t heard the album for years, but it was a family favorite when i was younger.

then, i went with my friend (who is also my massage therapist) to brunch at a delightful cafe on the square downtown. we split a sandwich and got soup and hot drinks to go with our meal. i ordered a mint hot chocolate and when it came to the table, the froth on top was sort of heart shaped. and it tasted delicious!

then, i got my car washed. for me, having a clean car always makes me feel pampered! and here in the north with salty roads, it’s less of a luxury and more of a “really should do this more often.” yay! clean car!

after a trip to the dig-n-save (not really pampering, but i hadn’t had a chance to go this entire break and i have a project in mind–something to do with old, crappy terrycloth towels–any donors?) it was time for my hair appointment. i didn’t really need a haircut, but it was looking kind of sloppy and what with the new job and wanting to pamper myself, i indulged. my favorite hairdresser had told me that her prices were going up the last time i visited her, but instead of going up $8 like i’d thought, they only went up $4. woo hoo!

i had a little more time to while away, so i treated myself to a trip to pop deluxe! a drool-a-riffic store if ever there was one. i had been considering getting a pedicure in addition to my haircut, but i finally decided that i’d rather spend the money on cute stuff. so… i bought myself a tabletop fish pod (like the wall-mounted one, only in a wooden stand that goes on a shelf or whatever) and some funny toothbrush holders (they have suction cups and are shaped like little people) and then went across the street to soap opera and indulged in some small lotiony things.

then i went home and tried to work on a sudoku that i’m stuck on while maryann draped herself across my shoulders.

now, i’m waiting for mr. happy stuff to be ready to go out to eat-we’re having chinese! (my favorite, not so much his)

today was the first of five free days between the end of one job and the beginning of another. i spent the entire day helping a friend pack/unpack into a new house (tomorrow is the actual move and i’m guessing i’ll be around for that as well). some people might say this is a terrible way to spend a day off and others might admire my magnanimosity (is that a word?) but really it was a desperate ploy to avoid cleaning my own house. plus, it feels so nice to help a friend. and it truly is easier to work on someone else’s mess than your own. the way i figure it, when you’re dealing with someone else’s mess, what you see is, say, a scattered pile of branches in the laundry room. what she sees is a collection of driftwood that the family collected on a very pleasant vacation to the beach. or, what she might see at my house is a partially shrunken, knobby green wool sweater sitting on the dryer that should be put away somewhere, whereas i see a sweater that i bought in order to shrink it and then cut it up and sew something and then when i washed and dried it, it didn’t really shrink as much as i thought it would and also it got really bulky so it might be too thick to go through the sewing machine and maybe at this point it’s not too small for someone out there to wear, but on the other hand, if i tried to shrink it more, maybe it would eventually get compact enough that i could sew it. so in essence, other people’s messes look like a pile of things, our own piles are layered thick with stories or “yes, but’s” or issues of one kind or another and it’s just so much harder to deal with things when they’re tangled up in issues. so, i’ve escaped cleaning my own house for another day and i have the virtuous feelings that come from helping a friend all day. hooray! now if i could just hire a house elf…