The easiest way to achieve one’s goals is to amend them regularly.

Recommended wine for today’s entry: Much to my surprise, I found that not only do 7-11 stores sell wine (in areas where wine sales are not still limited to liquor stores, like Kentucky) … but they actually sell cheap, decent wine! This link to an article in the Huffington Post gives the Consumer Reports’ take on the offering: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/08/7-11-chardonnay-consumer_n_601094.html. Wow. Who knew? For those readers who can access these $3.99 beauties, let me know if they’re really OK. I mean, we all went through our Riunite phase and lived to tell about it – this sounds like a step up!                

So today is a totally LUCKY day. 7-11-11. Not only does it hold the promise of endless riches for those surrounding the craps tables in Vegas … it must also be a high holiday for those lucky workers of the 7-11 convenience store chain who have not, at least yet, been the victim of a holdup. I am no expert on the odds of a 7-11 worker being the victim of a holdup; I am, though, an observer of doorways and, in my estimation, the presence of a multi-colored yardstick that determines a fleeing outlaw’s approximate height leads me to believe that a reasonable amount of risk does exist.

 Today, though, I would like to speak about goals and the way they change over time.

 As children, our goals are as lofty as our deluded imaginations allow. We could be prima ballerinas, NBA stars, creative advertising geniuses, writing things FAR more memorable and insightful than I can’t believe I ate the whole thing … and  Where’s the beef? (which was, I might add, a heinous, heinous mockery of an old woman in who needed way more calcium than a hamburger offered).

Then for those of us lucky enough to attend college, we are often oriented directly toward our goals. For awhile. But then BAM! Some buffoon puts an ice-cold keg of Budweiser right in our path. Most of us can maneuver our way around it, but it’s not without effort. Those of us whose parents made it abundantly clear that not graduating on time was NOT an option, did just that. But the poignant lesson was learned: everyone else in college is like 900 times smarter and more driven than we are.

 And so we work harder.

 Nooooo, silly. We adjust our goals. Let’s be realistic. At this point, we’re already 21 years old … ancient by Aboriginal standards. But we can still achieve great things. Just amended great. Now we can be superior middle managers, the bad asses of the corporate slow-pitch league, perfect corporate wives. (OK, for me, that last one never really got off the ground…so I changed my goal to just not be the direct cause of his demise.)

 And then we have children. Our primary goal is for them to be happy and productive and support us in our old age, which suddenly feels much closer than it did before labor started. This is, I believe, is known as passing the baton, living vicariously, giving up, retiring. Personally, my goals were for my daughters to be princesses. No, don’t be stupid. Those were their goals. I wanted them to be Olympic gymnasts and Julia Roberts. Wait. Those were their goals too. I guess our goals are for them to determine and achieve their own goals. They can do something on their damn own.

After our children head for college with our sage words about the pitfalls of the Bud keg ringing in their ears, we adopt our Empty-Nest Goals. Like for me, I decided I will write the next classic novel, the coming-of-age novel that defines life in the 2000s the way Jane Austen delivered the complexities and contemplations of life in the early 1800s. 

… or I’ll write a stream-of-consciousness blog about possums, wine, cat vomit and friends who push coolers through carpool line with their SUV. 

See, things are truly advancing nicely, aren’t they? 

Now I set goals one day at a time. It makes it easier to find fulfillment. For example, yesterday I achieved all my goals.

 They included: 

Successful grocery shopping. This wasn’t easy because Kroger was swarming with angry elders yesterday. First I had to accelerate to 35 mph in the parking lot to get to the close space before this mean old lady (who later had a hissing fight with the checkout girl) could maneuver her mammoth vehicle into my favorite spot. When she glared at me in the store, I gave her my best Seriously meemaw? Look at me – I’m no spring chicken myself look. Then I faked a limp and ran into the salad bar like I didn’t see it. Later, I had to beat this other like-90-year-old lady to checkout line 3, because I knew she would take forever to unload her cart. So I had my daughter set a screen and I slithered right past her.

 Successful meal planning, prep and clean-up. The key here was to unload the dishwasher before serving dinner, even if it was already 10:00, because then everyone could load their own dirty dishes when they finished. Again, they can do something on their damn own. Also, by holding off dinner until the whole family is starving, they seem to think it tastes better.

Mental exercise. Well, my goal was to get at least TWO words on the Wall Street Journal cryptic puzzle that I have been working on for – and I am not exaggerating here – three full weeks. I have to confess that I only got one.

 Physical exercise. If you don’t give me credit for climbing back onto my pool raft when I tumped over by accident, you have to agree that flicking at least 40 Japanese beetles into soapy water took some exertion. I even managed to do it while sipping a glass of wine. 

See? There are a LOT of things left to achieve when one reaches age 50. It’s all a matter of managing expectations. Today’s goals, for example, were to write a blog entry and get to Vegas to take advantage of 7-11-11.

I’m not sure how that one’s gonna work out. Maybe I’ll get a bottle of 7-11 wine and play poker on my computer. Adjusting goals.