the sound of silence

I woke up this morning to the theme song for The Office playing merrily from my phone at 10:14 am. Otherwise I might still be sleeping. I stumbled out of bed and fumbled with my phone until the Happy halloween message displayed proudly on my phone.
normally I LOVE Halloween, but this year I'm just not feeling it. Every single weekend since August has been jam packed and filled to the brim with stuff.... birthday parties, weddings, cleaning, shopping, football games, concerts... and unfortunately for Halloween, it lands on the first weekend that I don't have any  major obligations. And I am taking full advantage of that!
Right now, I am sitting in my slippers with the fur and bathrobe at the dining room table while sipping on coffee that was brewed inside my shiny new programmable coffee maker and then drowned in Chocolate Mint Truffle creamer. The sun is shining and all 3 puppies have been outside since my manfriend left for work early this morning. As I sit here contemplating what to do today, I am basking in the sweet glory not being able to come up with a single thing that has to be done.
I saw it as a sign to do nothing today, when my salon called and rescheduled my appt I had originally booked for 11 am this morning. Then my boss informed me that the OU vs. Kansas tickets he had promised me, had also been promised to someone else due to his increasing memory loss. So I happily traded those tickets for tickets to see OU vs Texas A &M in 2 weeks. Within a matter of an hour, 2 obligations flew out the door. Adios.
So here I sit... surrounding myself with endless possibilities. Book shopping? Reading Twilight... again? Browsing on Etsy? Painting the new canvas in my closet that has just been begging me to make it pretty? Taking a trip to the Farmer's Market? Taking a hot bath?
The beauty of today is that all of these are possible because I have all day long to myself. All weekend actually, as the manfriend will be working all day long tomorrow as well.
Are you ready for the very truly best part yet? It's daylight savings day... so I gain an extra hour to my self-indulging weekend.
I read a review for Eat, Pray, Love the other day... don't ask me why because I love the book so much that no other opinion really matters, but I was disturbed to find that a woman wrote a review saying she hated the book because Liz (yes, to me she is Liz, not Elizabeth... we've went through a lot together) was so selfish. Selfish? Selfish for getting out of a marriage that she was not happy in and traveling to countires she has never been before to learn about herself. I was absolutely stunned that I woman could have an opinion like this... every single woman I know who has ever read this book has admired Liz for being brave and taking chances and trying to learn about herself. Speaking from personal experience, you cannot love someone else, or allow someone else to love you, until you love yourself. I believe the world just might be a lot happier of a place if people took the time to cultivate their relationship with themselves rather than trying to please everyone else around them. Self confidence and a good sense of self is incredibly attractive. It seems that when you know who you are and you love yourself, everything just falls into place.