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A Summer Schedule

1. Set a schedule
2. Stick to it
3. Read lots of books. The trashy kind you haven't had time for because of school
4. Work out. Beat him in the P90X challenge
5. Take long baths and stay in until your fingers look like pink little prunes and you think you might drop your book
6. Wake up at 9am everyday, even when you don't have to
7. Write, but only things that don't have anything to do with the memoir you've been staring at for the last year
8. Go see bands, even if they might be bad. El Paso is full of free summer concerts to go to, sit on prickly crab grass and enjoy the cooler evenings
9. See your friends, the ones who have stood by the sidelines cheering as you wrote and wrote for the last few months, the ones who checked on you, gave you the love you needed to finish, even if from a distance
10. Celebrate being married, finishing your thesis, and being at a giant crossroads marked Future
11.  Purge things: all the things that clutter and get in your way, clean your closet, the garage, and those drawers where you throw everything you don't know what to do with
12. Sleep in; stretch long from your fingertips to your toes as you fight the sheets embrace to stay in bed all day, then stretch some more
13. Watch all the movies on the "Classics" and/or "Best Ever" list
14. Last, and most important: breathe
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