Mondays And Trivial Pursuits

I am never sure what to expect when I go to bed on a Sunday night about what I will find Monday to be like. It really doesn't seem to be a function of how much sleep I've had the night before. It is always a surprise. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. There are days when I wake up invigorated (for me) and ready to get lots of things done. I already have mapped out in my mind what I need to get done on that particular day or week. Then there are days when I have to drag my non-functioning body out of bed, knowing full well that the day will be very non-productive.

Today was a kind of in-between day. I overslept and was startled awake when Himself woke me up to remind me that he was leaving for the Bahamas for one week. We chatted about what things I needed to cover for him for the week... you know... look for such and such a bill to come in to pay... we had already written the monthly bills, but some of the statements have yet to come in the mail. I knew I was going to be late for work. So I called in to tell them I would be and hour late. I had a cup of tea... a definite must for me on these types of mornings... and drank it while we chatted. Himself packed up his car and was off for his semiannual business trip to the islands.

Then the tea started to take hold and my brain started to wake up. ""Wait a minute..." it said, "this is Monday!" Yes, that was true it is Monday. "You are all caught up (for the most part) at work!" Yes, that was also true. "Almost no one is there on Mondays because they have Mondays off!" Yes, that is true as well. When the Organist, Religious Ed teacher and her assistant, and the Youth Minister work on Sundays, they take Mondays off... which is most of the time. "You put in a full day on Saturday, so you really haven't had your full weekend yet!" Well, that is not entirely true. I had put in a full day on Saturday because I had been short hours in the previous two weeks, and I wanted to work ahead a bit on several things including the forms for the payroll changes that would be coming up... they all need to be signed by staff and their supervisors before the end of the fiscal year. So I didn't feel like I had the weekend off. "Allison is home this week except for one or two days and it would be really great to spend some time with her while you can!" That is a hard argument for me to ignore. I treasure every minute I can spend with my kids. Each year that goes by that time is less and less. "And don't forget... you brought home the budget so that you could print it on the color printer to make it easier to read!" Yup, that was true. "And you have lots of errands you could run and some trivial stuff to get done!" Yup, that was true. "You need to get your passport photo taken. You need to get your prescriptions filled and picked up. You need to get Allison's prescriptions filled and picked up. You need to do laundry. You need to get more cat food at the grocery store. You are out of Coca Cola and you know you need that! " Yeah, probably. "Cathy probably won't mind and you may never get to do this again!!!" Ok, now that is a bit of an exaggeration. I knew that Cathy would not be happy about it, but she would let me do it, and if I plan it ahead of time, I could do it again. Perhaps the new pastor will not be as flexible, but I do have vacation days... and Holidays. I picked up the phone and called Cathy and told her I wanted to take the day off if it was okay with her. She reluctantly said yes.

Immediately after calling her I was really in gear. I knew that I had to do the budget adjustment and printing first, or my conscience would never allow me to enjoy the rest of the day. It took about 1 and 1/2 hours to do that...I had to retype it on my home computer from the sheet I had brought home... I wanted it on my home computer for future reference anyway... and make adjustments to some of the Excel formulas so the totals were correct. Had I had my act together on this, I would have copied the file to a disk and taken that home. No spare disks at work, and I was impatient.

That done, my most important other tasks at the time were to show Allison a funny Siamese cat clock that I wanted to get her for next year at school, plan some future expenditures even though Himself had cautioned me not to make any unnecessary expenditures while he was gone, and to get to my blogsite and type this! It is amazing, when I think about it critically, how my mind works. I am a fun person once I get to know me!

So today will be a good one even though it didn't start out as a good one. I will be able to pursue those various things that I can't or don't do on Saturdays and evenings. I will be able to spend some time pestering my youngest daughter (one of my very favorite pastimes!). I will catch up on some cleaning and washing that I didn't do on Saturday. I have all kinds of energy to apply to these pursuits. I feel really good about this.

I wonder what I will feel like next Monday? Boy that cruise isn't coming up too soon for me!