Foul mood February morning

(Aileen)
I recall writing some time in December about the expectation and coming of the most depressing month of the year – February. It has arrived. Today is the day when statistically most people call out "sick". Today is an absolute foul mood February Monday morning. Humbug.

It’s cold, grey and dreary out. I’m feeling completely out of control and unprepared for the coming week. I’ve been weighted down all weekend with the horrible sinking feeling of finding a gazillion emails in my work inbox and not being able to catch up or keep up. I did not manage to go through the mound of mail this weekend so who know’s what’s lurking in there. I need to remember to pay bills and such this week but work has been absolutely crazy and I’m dreading missing a bill accidentally and being hit with a finance charge (hate those!). And I had to spend 20 minutes at 5:30 this morning looking for my blasted black skirt that was dropped of at the drycleaners some weeks back and has not been seen since. No success this time either.

Grumble. I need a vacation, or at least the expectation of one.

On that positive note, last week Ed booked our return tickets to Japan in May. Woohoo. He’d managed to accumulate enough air miles to book to return tickets using miles so we’re only paying taxes (not an insignificant amount but half of what we’d be paying otherwise). My laptop bag is now weighed down with a Japan travel book and my plan is to do research in the evening during the week. I’m already daydreaming of slurping down a steaming bowl of ramen noodles at some Tokyo ramen stand.

Also, my high school girlfriends and I are planning a trip to Miami/Bahamas sometime in April. I’m so proud of us for planning such a grown up endeavour. We’ve all had such varied and different journey’s since graduation – different careers, migration, different cities, marriage, heartbreak. Through it all we’ve managed to stay in touch and relevant in one another’s lives, and I am so looking forward to a long weekend of catching up and comparing of battle scars while reverting back to high school silliness.

Lastly Ed and I have also planned a long weekend in Oslo at the end of February – one last dose of snow for the year. We’re toying with the idea of taking skiing lessons again. We’ve started watching skiing events on TV so I can safely say we’ve managed to catch a bit of the bug, and I strongly suspect 2 to 3 days more of lessons will have us rightly hooked.

OK. I feel better now. And the sun’s also beginning to make an appearance.