I've Got Issues

Before I forget... I have a Pay It Forward going on. Enter it here. Now back to your regularly scheduled post.

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If I could take the day off work tomorrow, I'd so get organized and caught up on the things I like. I tread water pretty well and get the daily stuff done that I need to, but the things that I'd like to do just don't always get done, and a day off work would really help me. I'll give you an example.

I was reading the paper yesterday, and when I got to the sports (yes, I read the sports and I save that for the end because it's the best part of the paper) I read about football and hockey and some high school sports.

What were those high school sports? Baseball, of course, with some track and field thrown in. And the football? Talking about the upcoming draft. Hockey? Talking about who was going to make the playoffs.

Yeah. It was a paper from April. Like I said, I've got issues.

We get a daily paper, and in my mind, if we pay for the paper (and the extra $0.40 per week to have it delivered), I'm darn well going to read it. Eventually.

Every day, my goal is to get through reading the paper. I start with the neighbor section, then read the business section, then whatever "special" section that day has be it Lifestyle and Entertainment or Health or Food, then the front page, and then sports. Same order every day. But some days I get busy or caught up in something or am tired, and I don't finish it.

Whatever sections I don't finish go on my nightstand. And for awhile there, I was only sometimes even getting to the beginning of the front page. My stack grew and grew. It got pretty sad, actually. My husband urged me to throw them away, but I couldn't throw them away without reading them first!

For the last two months, I've been concentrating on getting the day's paper finished and then trying to read at least a section or two of the unread, older paper. And I did. The trips to Vegas and Minnesota and St. Louis helped me whittle the stack down some, fortunately.

Reading the paper backwards (because I had to read the newest old paper first just because) was actually really interesting. Some stories stay in the news for awhile, and as I would read older and older stories about the same item, it was fascinating to see how information changed and sources changed their slants on the item. Kind of like an archaeological dig in a weird way (OK, maybe just in my head).

But yesterday? I read that last paper. I'm officially caught up. And right now, I have only the sports section to finish off. So what does that mean?

Now I need a day off to read the magazines that I've been ignoring for the last oh year or so. Actually, I may need more than one day off work for this one. I subscribe to no magazines right now. But yet, I still get them. When I started to think about how many magazines I get, it started to make me giggle. Let's walk through them, shall we?

1) My alumni magazine comes quarterly.
2) The alumni magazine for the school I went to within Northwestern comes quarterly, as well.
3) My health club sends me a (I think) monthly magazine. I actually discovered this on the plane to St Louis -- and there's more to that story yet to come.
4) The consulting company I used to work for sends me a quarterly very dense (but interesting) business journal they put out.
5) I made the mistake of subscribing to Parents for four years when Mister Man was one. That's still arriving every month.
6) A friend bought me a subscription to Cooks Illustrated two years ago for Christmas, and I still have a few of those issues that I haven't read (LOVE that magazine, by the way, hint hint).
7) My SIL bought me a subscription to Southern Living for Christmas last year. I'll say no more on that one, either.
8) I did a four year subscription to Cooking Pleasures awhile ago. I used to really like that magazine but I've grown weary of that one. I think Cooks Illustrated killed the joy for me.
9) Costco sends me a monthly magazine.
10) Our Realtors send me a home and design magazine that arrives monthly, as well. Not that I rip out pictures from it of beautiful bathrooms or kitchens or anything....

I was going to post a picture of the stack of magazines I have to read. It's over two feet high. But then I decided it was too embarrassing. And I refuse to officially measure it. Do you think my work would give me a sabbatical so I can catch up on those magazines? Maybe that one day off wouldn't quite do it.