i’m not one to hold a lot of stock in long-term plans. i hate those interview questions where they ask you where you see yourself in 5 years; i know you’re supposed to say something about how you’ll be with the company and moving up and professional development, blah blah blah, but my answer is always more deviant than they’d like. i always say something to the effect that i don’t like making long-term plans because you never know what will happen tomorrow, let alone the next five years. there are so many variables to life that a long-term plan is not something i place a lot of stock in. 
which is REALLY weird, because i’m a planner. i enjoy making lists, plans, itineraries for vacations. i like to stick to the plan. when something goes awry or differently than the plan, i try to go with the flow, but it’s a little difficult at times. 
when there IS a plan. if it’s my thing, there’s a plan. if it’s other people’s, i tend to go more with the flow and the changing ebbs and tides of their plans. 
but i still like a plan. a short-term plan.
so someday sunday is not something i’d necessarily write about, but i take my readers’ suggestions when i can, and jane came up with this one. 
i have an idea of places i’d like to go eventually, when time and money permit. one of those places is machu picchu. i think it’s fascinating to have an abandoned city in the high mountains of peru. i’d like to go and see what it was like, experience the south american culture a little bit, and just get out of this country.
i mean, how could this not appeal to people?

getting there is always the problem. generally, when i decide to do something, i’ll do it, so at this point, i just need to say: ok. in 4/5/6/7 years, i’ll go to machu picchu. 
the thing with big vacations for me is that i will always be looking more to the small vacations because i like what i know. and the smaller vacays are easier to do. packing up to go to the black hills for a week is a lot less expensive that going abroad. getting to a lake for four days during the summer will always be something i do. and at this point, it’s not time that’s the issue; it’s money. i could stop spending money on the little things to save up for the big things, but the little things are a lot more helpful to my instant gratification problem.*
at this point in my life, i have to take a step back and think: is this REALLY something i need or want to do, or would i rather stuff this $50 away to go to a place i’ve never been and want to go? i have everything i need, really. it’s just the allure of stuff. so maybe i need a realignment of thinking. we’ll see if i can work on that.
*interesting side note: people who have last names that begin with a letter toward the end of the alphabet have more problems dealing with instant gratification than those with letters toward the beginning. and this is all rooted in childhood, so no, moving up in the alphabet with a married name won’t help you at all. think about all those years of being at the back of the line while the Bs, Ds, Ms, Ts, Us, Vs, etc. all go ahead of you. i was the last in line all through gradeschool. sure, we rotated, but the first day of school, i was always last. one article here about this