Does anyone else feel like 2007 is just whizzing by? The first part of the year seemed to go slowly enough, but once spring hit time started going at light-speed. Suddenly, without my realizing it, it's early September and fall and there's that crisp feeling in the air. We're headed straight towards Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and my guess is, New Years Eve will come sooner than anyone realizes it. Suddenly it'll be 2008.

I'm feeling much happier today than I have all week and I do believe the extra sleep I got last night is the major contributing factor to that happiness. Also, I'm making good progress on my new portfolio website and I'm pleased with the results so far.

I have a family gathering this afternoon (hooray for presents!) and later I'm getting together with a friend to play cribbage and maybe backgammon. Rennie has a "play date" tomorrow morning with the yorkie owned by the fiancee of one of my co-workers. So, all in all, it should be a nice weekend.

But I'm afraid it might be the last truly nice weekend of the year given how quickly summer has flown by. Ya'll, I am really not ready for the loonnnnggg, grey winter we've got ahead of us. I've never been much of a fan of summer - even though it doesn't usually get miserably hot here in Portland - but summer does give the area a bit of "nice" time to help make the lengthy rainy season tolerable. Still, I'd be a happy camper if seasons went from late spring directly to early fall and skipped any and all 80-degree+ days. Sunny and 73 degrees is perfect, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, once school's over in a couple weeks I really want to drive to the coast for a day and enjoy the feeling of not having to do anything I don't want to do. I'm also going to try to live a bit more deliberately in terms of what I do and how I spend my time. I have hardly touched the piano the last few weeks, Rennie has not gotten enough attention, and I am feeling edgy in general. I hope that slowing wayyyy down for a little while will help infuse a bit more balance and sanity back into my life.