My mom leaves me notes wishing me a good day.  When I first wake up in the morning, before doing anything else, I walk to the fridge to read her note.  Some days she doesn’t leave one, and that’s when I know they were in a rush or perhaps I was awake enough to have a bit of a conversation with her when she came in to say goodbye.  When I was little, she wrote notes on the small chalkboard in my room…cute messages or pretty poems.  She would also stick them in my lunch, up through high school, when she packed a huge lunch to give me strength to run all those miles for cross country.  Yes, I’m spoiled.  Although I’m now 31, I still love reading these messages, and I admit, I expect them.  :)  Today she wrote “Have a fun day!  Love, Us”.  I read it twice, and I thought, “she wrote a fun day, not simply a good day”.  Somehow this was different.

As I prepared my yummy FiberPlus cereal with blueberries, I pondered the fact that I don’t have many responsibilities right now in my life.  Each morning when I wake up, I feel excited to start the day, but pressured to make each day worthwhile.  As you know, my to-do list is always long, and come bedtime, I often have to re-evaluate it and promise myself I’ll be more efficient the following day.  I’m pretty sure this happens to everyone, but when you’re not working, you feel as though there’s no excuse for not accomplishing everything.  That’s what I think about when I wake up, everything I should be doing…stuff that most definitely is not fun.

Today though, my mom’s note gave me a pass!  At least, that’s how I took it.  :)  She wrote to have a “fun” day, so I decided not to feel so guilty about reading all the short stories in last week’s “Washington Post Magazine”.  I made myself some coffee, and heck, maybe I’ll even use those cute sugar stirrers she brought me the other week to mix my milk in!  I wonder if I’ll have time to head over to Burke Lake Park with the pups to go for a long walk.  Or maybe I’ll try to delve further into the new book I started. I also need to check out the food section from yesterday’s newspaper.

No matter what, I won’t feel guilty because Mom told me to have fun.  She doesn’t know it yet, but her short message really made my day!  I know I’m a lucky gal because I’ve had all this time off (despite the reasons).  I do fun stuff all the time, but I’m always thinking about what I should be doing.  Not today!  Thanks, Mom.  Can’t wait to see what today holds for me.  But first, let me pour my coffee and start reading “The View from Lake Como”…because I can.