Some people are experts at time management. Others, like myself, are master scramblers.

We scramble to get to work, scramble to appointments, scramble to squeeze in household chores, see friends, get to the gym, and any place else we need to be. We race around, trip because we're hurrying, spill coffee on ourselves frequently and walk into things because we're distracted.

Scramblers never have enough time in the day to get it all done, and we admire those who appear to be able to.

One friend always has her nails perfectly done, the ends of her tresses neatly trimmed, her blonde hair freshly coloured,and always manages to make it to her Body Boot Camp classes.

This friend knows the importance of taking care of herself, even if it means she often runs late when it comes to dinner plans.

For scramblers, however, we are last on the list. If something's got to slide on the to-do list, it's usually ourselves.

For $12 and about 10 minutes of time, I finally got a haircut a little over a month ago. In Cuba on vacation recently, I sat back for a pedicure for the first time in well over a year. At work, I've never used up the coverage alloted to massage, lucky to squeeze in three appointments a year.

But, it is a new year, and man I am tired of scrambling to keep up. After three consecutive days of having mid-afternoon headaches strike while at the computer, I took a break. A proper break, in fact.

About six months ago I'd noticed a sign at a massage clinic located about two minutes from my work that said 'Walk-ins welcome.' Magical words indeed (scramblers are terrible with appointments). Today, I finally walked in.

While it took about half a year to get there, skipping out for a half-hour massage was tremendously relaxing and, so far, there's no computer headache in sight.

Yes, the desk chains have been snipped. Next week I may actually sit down and eat lunch without typing away at the computer at the same time. Now that would be something.

Shove over James Dean, there's a new rebel in town.

Among my girlfriends, only a few of them are married. In a city where challenging careers are pursued and independence is a powerful motivating goal, tying the knot hasn't seemed to be up high on the to-do list.

Marriage, kids and all that stuff has been on my mind lately. Sure, occasionally I've mentally thumbed over the subject but I quickly move on to the next topic, which usually boils down to where I'd like to travel next.

But, when my dad, brother and I were surrounded by a rather obnoxious family (which included about four or five restless little rug rats) on the airplane ride over to Cuba, I guess that got my dear dad to thinking.

"Do you think you'll have kids?" he asked.

Looking at the smeary faces and hearing the loud squawking voices of the children seated near us while they climbed over seats, clogged up the aisles and ran around like they'd been shooting pure 100% sugar into their veins, I thought it a rather bizarre time to ask.

I mumbled something about liking freedom and travel and damn, dogs are hard enough, can you imagine the pressure of having to look after small humans? Of course he can, he is my dad and all.

"Well if you're going to, you don't want to wait too much longer," he said. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' I think to myself, even though I know he's right.

The marriage and reproduction topic keeps poking its head up everywhere. Before leaving for Cuba, a couple I know announced they are having a baby. Meanwhile my boyfriend's good friend is in the midst of planning his wedding and just a moment ago, my coworker popped her head over the cubicle wall to tell me this: "Oh Tanya, I forgot to tell you, when you were away I had a dream you were getting married! You couldn't believe you were doing it ..."

"No doubt," I said, asking her if she got a glimpse of the groom. She hadn't.

Sadly, there comes a point where women are forced to seriously sit down and think about these things - love, marriage, kids - and I suspect my time has come.

Hmm, conventional life vs. adventure-seeking world traveler. Any chance of love, marriage, kids and traveling the world all coming together in one thrilling package? And to be clear, I am not talking about Disney World here ...

At about the moment President Barack Obama was officially being sworn in on Tues. Jan. 20th, my feet were touching Havana soil. Well, pavement at least.

In this striking moment in history, Cuba took the spotlight almost the instant President Obama got down to business. Of all the places to be in the world at a time when change is resonating across nations, Cuba tops the news-making list.

The U.S. president is looking to sit down and negotiate with Cuban officials, with hopes of eventually ending the U.S. embargo.

To do that one of two things would need to happen: The Island would either have to agree to implement democracy or Obama would have to accept the communist system as is. After years of turbulent feelings swelling between the two nations, both seem unlikely.

Asking the cabbie who drove five of us from Veradero to Havana what Obama's presidential win might signify for Cuba in terms of building relations with the U.S., he pointedly tells us "We don't need them."

"What we need is our freedom," says the cabbie.

By freedom, he doesn't mean making the choice between eating a Big Mac or Taco Bell burrito, but, rather, the freedom to earn decent wages, to work for something that will eventually be in his name, like a small home or a vehicle.

The shiny new car he's driving is rented and is government owned. Under Cuba's system, he won't have a vehicle of his own anytime soon.

But, hope is in the air. A recent poll indicates most Cuban-Americans living in Florida would like to see an end to the embargo. This airier feeling has been signified by a few symbolic changes, a major shift occurring when an ailing Fidel Castro handed the presidency to his brother Raul in 2006.

Gauging Obama, Raul Castro has said, "He seems like a good man."

Even Fidel seems to have been touched by the new president. "No one can doubt the sincerity of his words," he wrote recently online. He continued to say Obama's "intelligent and noble face" has become "a living symbol of the American dream."

Already Obama has made significant strides. His policy includes ending the strict policy that limits the number of times Cuban-Americans can return to visit loved ones, as well as expand the amount of money they can send back home.

Meanwhile, just days after taking his place in the Oval Office, Obama signed an order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. It became the home of the U.S. naval base after being leased from Cuba, however the terms of this agreement came about after American troops occupied the island in 1903.

"The road to freedom for all Cubans must begin with justice for Cuba's political prisoners, the rights of free speech, a free press and freedom of assembly, and it must lead to elections that are free and fair," Obama said last May.

What a time to travel to the island. It may never again look the same as it does now. Things will evolve, some slowly and others at a hurried pace, and man, to see this historic land the way it has existed for so long was an exhilarating experience, one captured at the right time at place.

Yep, it's cold here in T.O.

No, make that freezing cold, even with long underwear and a thermo shirt tucked beneath one's clothes, the biting blast outside is certain to get a few nips in.

No better time to make a great escape. Leaving for Cuba tomorrow and I am begging the skies to burst with sunshine and the air with warmth. It's time to de-stress, warm up the bones and chill out the mind.

Expect a blog from Cuba if a) I cross paths with Castro, b) It pours rain & I am stuck indoors with nothing else to do but blog or c) I've run off to smoke Cuban cigars and bask on white sands with no immediate plans of returning

Otherwise, I'll be back in week (hopefully a little bronzed and a whole lot more relaxed).

There's only one item that annually appears on the mental resolutions list (which doesn't qualify as a list I realize), but, nevertheless, every year it's there: Quit nail biting.

Yes, the nails will grow long and strong and be prettily rewarded with a good buffing and smashing coat of electric colour.
They will shine and be proudly displayed. They will scratch the boyfriend's back, turn the pages of books, tap away to radio music, and be capable of scratching the eyes of any attacker who happens to come my way.

Okay so this resolution' is never actually scribbled down on paper. That's far too official and, really, who needs such tactile evidence hanging over them as a reminder of their potential failures?

Back when I was a nail-biting child and still naive enough to believe that when the ball dropped at midnight, every single one of us could - and would - shed our old skin and slither away in a brand-new shiny one, the vow to quit chewing would be handwritten in permanent ink.

Eventually though, the paper list was scrapped altogether.

Like smokers who continue smoking, overeaters who keep eating, and drinkers who still get drunk, year after year, I kept chewing away.

Thing is, good or bad, our habits offer us some sort of pay-off.

Sure a booze head might feel like he's wolfed down a stack of sandpaper, whacked his melon against the kitchen counter, and thrown himself down a set of winding stairs following a night of partying, but even if he scribbles down a resolution to quit boozing in a notebook somewhere, he's probably drinking again.

That's because he hasn't created a plan for carrying out this lofty goal.

Same goes with nail chewing. Sure, I may want nice pretty nails, but I haven't come up with the steps to get them there.
In other words, the New Year's Eve resolution list is little more than a quacky tradition, a nice sentiment that carries very little weight. A two-pounder barbell at most.

Whereas daily to-do lists succeed because they're easy to get through (wash dishes; book hair appointment; return e-mails ... check, check, check), resolution lists doom us from the get go.

We pack 'em full of unreasonable, big-picture goals (get skinny; quit smoking; stop drinking, quit picking at nails) with no baby steps in place to see help us carry them out.

We don't need bullet-point resolution lists - we need action plans. Some ABCs and 1-2-3s.

As for the nail-biting, it's still kicking around (even as I write this column).

What can I say? Old habits die hard.

Then again, maybe I am just a bad planner.

Oh, Sunday. The day of sleeping in, lazy afternoon brunches and random sex requests, apparently.

"Have sex with me!"

This is the first sentence I hear this morning after getting off a streetcar and noticing a scraggly, twitching stick of a man a couple of feet a head.

He stops in his snowy tracks, rubbery arms and legs outstretched like a crazed cartoon character, stares with psychopath intensity, and then ... no he isn't ... yes, yes he is ... the dirty, cracked out dude is maniacally groping himself.

Having just rolled out of bed about a half hour before crossing paths with the creep, I am still waking up and find myself speechless. Don't tell him to buzz off or call him a disgusting troll or anything. Very unlike me indeed.

Then again, he looks crazy in the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sort-of way, like he's freshly busted out of the asylum so, upon reflection, shocked silence is probably the best route.

Anyway, he could be seconds away from pulling the damn thing out, and having to be faced with the horrid sight of 'street meat' from some random sicko is really no way to start one's Sunday, now is it?

Suddenly wide awake, I race over to press the pedestrian walk button and get out of his sight line as quickly as possible.

"I am over here!" he screams after me, presumably his hands are still pawing away at himself through his dirt-soaked clothing, but I don't look back.

Uh, what happened to sleepy Sundays exactly? '

Perhaps all the asylum workers are out taking a nice, long brunch. It is the day of rest, after all.

Tell me, is being natural just too passé?

"40% off Botox!"

That led off an e-mail from a dear friend recently in which she brightly wrapped up with this question, "You in?"

It was the same easy-breezy way a buddy might ask if you're game for Sunday brunch and catching a movie.

Going shopping! Care to join?
Heading to the pub! You game?
Booking Botox! You in?

Err, no.
I mean, should I be?

Hmm. Perhaps she's trying to tell me something.

The question hints at having had some kind of earlier discussion during which I expressed interest in having needles penetrating my skin and shelling out cash for what's seemingly becoming another cruel rite of passage for women.

For the record, this conversation did not happen.

My friend did, however, mention that she was curious about Botox after an acquaintance had expressed surprise upon learning she was only 30.
Perhaps I've missed a trend here.

Is rounding up the gals to get Botox injections the event du jour to which one must rsvp?

Like Ugg boots, hipsters in hoodies, and the '80s style revival (all of which has passed by me with little more than an aloof nod), Botox falls into the same camp, despite the fact that chicks are ordering up these crease-free treatments as commonly as coffee at a Starbucks counter.

Leaf through the women's mags in the waiting room of any doctor's office and you're bound to find a slew of articles dealing with anti-aging trends.

First there was the woman I met in New York who told me that if she could do it all over again, she'd have started injections at age 30.

With cocktail in hand, she confessed to hopping on the Botox bandwagon, although a tad too late in her view, at the ripe old age of 36.
Like a magic eraser, gone was the furrowed brow, frown lines and most other natural markings of life.

Expression smoothed over, she was Manhattan Botox Barbie, void of any wrinkles in time.

Then there's the Hollywood set, all firmed up and free of laugh lines and crow's feet, age spots and pinched brows, all promptly joining the creepy character-less Stepford Wives club.

The Botox-boom is stressing me out, casting light on those tiny lines that might indeed eventually become big, deeply-set wrinkly things, embedded like the twisty roots of a tree.

And there's this: The economic doom and gloom looming over.

Shrinking budgets and job losses. Now these are things certain to add worry lines, non?

Still, I won't be dipping into the savings fund to pay for this vanity venture any time soon.

Going bust for Botox?
No thanks.

Frankly, the cost of being frozen in time is just too high.

E-mail me at: tanya.enberg@sunmedia.ca.

Momentum, oh how it rose while having a little time off.

Typically having a break from work means traveling far, far away from Toronto.

Over Christmas, however, I didn't stray very far away at all. Armed with a check list, I set out to cross off all the things that fall by the wayside while working.

The closet was begging to be organized, Goodwill piles needed to be built, and gift cards that have been kicking around for eons now finally would be used and traded in for merchandise.

Regular gym visits were required as were long long baths, a trip to the hair salon and reading. Lots of reading. Oh, and sleeping in. Tons of that. Creativity soared. Suddenly, instead of living in the world of nonfiction, fictional tales started popping to mind. I felt 12 again writing short stories feverishly, characters coming into focus.

On the to-do list, I ranked first for the first time in a long while. A mighty good way to start of a new year indeed. There was no hurrying around and no panic to get from here to there, to get this done and that done.

So this is what that elusive "me time" concept is, huh? Very nice indeed.

Sadly, it can't last. Or it won't last.

As life returns to the daily scramble, the idea of putting one's self first tends to unravel like cheap fabric.

Every day, the to-do list will get fatter, and, like a little kid still growing into her feet, I'll be tripping over myself to keep up.

But, what a breather is was. Hail me time! Hope we meet once again very soon.

In the meantime, Happy new year everyone! Hope you too squeezed in the time to put yourself first. If you haven't yet, pop yourself on the list ... You won't be sorry you did.