I love Mondays

A few years before I took on Mondays with zeal
In fourth grade we had a camping trip, all you Waldorf kids remember these, they were fun and a bit haphazard:) I remember we had these Garfield Dixie cups and there was a cartoon about Monday. It was along the lines of terrible, horrible, nothing good occurs on a Monday. In my tiny feisty Deirdre self I remember thinking "Well then! I am going to make Monday my very favorite day!" And ever since I have been a practiced fan of the start of a new week.

At my wedding one of my closest friends gave a speech that spoke to the fact I am never very complacent when something is amiss. If I am late taking a route to work I will google the heck out that route and find a better way, if I gain weight I will read books on healthy eating from around the globe to get motivated, if my brain felt dull I would rent foreign language tapes to at least be able to have a taxi cab conversation. I can say "How many kids do you have and what are their names?" in a lot of languages. Some things are just in me:)

Monday to me represents the start of the mundane. The beginning of another week, well wait! Why not spice that up a bit. Create new patterns, new goals, new excitement about that day. It can be the beginning of a new way to do the old, just better!

Yes I am drinking coffee, but really I do like Mondays that much. I hope something mundane in your life can be turned upside down, inside out and made into a fresh start.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vulnerability and Educational Moments...In the Grocery Store!

Image
I had an aquatience last week remind me I had a lot of children, and said she was hesitant to celebrate our family because it seemed like too much .  This was a chance run in on friday. For those of you who know me, know how much I struggle with that assessment. Girls with eating disorders often say: "I feel like too much" kids who have behavioral problems know people say they are "too much" and big families are often seen as really neat from a distance but too much . First, everyone has their own too much threshold. It is ok that my passion is not yours! Spending all day making Kombucha like one of my fiends is too much for me, or singing in a show, but I am able to celebrate this difference without judging this difference.  Welcoming children into our home with a 100% chance of heartbreak (sadness over them leaving or sadness someone I love is loosing a birth parent) is not for everyone! My response to negativity is very often to retreat, get off social media, tr...
Read more

Foster Care and Parenting, What is in a Number

Image
We welcomed eight children into our home between March 2020 and today, we have had twenty five children placed as foster children since 2015, and an additional five as respite placements. These numbers look so bland on paper. Thirty children have been part of our daily living in the last six years, we have nine of our own children. In putting some thoughts on paper about what these numbers mean, it boils down to acceptance and hard work.  If anyone is new to the Otis family speak, "our own" is a loaded term. We have five biological children and four adopted children. Early on one of our sons told us the power of the question "which ones are your own?" And the fact that I answered without hesitation all those years ago, "they are all our children" from birth or adoption, feeling fully accepted and claimed has become the way we walk in this family. This does not take away the respect and open conversation about birth families, first families and sacrifice. F...
Read more

Choosing Gratitude over Stress and Guilt

Image
In a group today a great panel of women talked about how to create margin in family life. This goal rose to the top of the discussion for me. It aligned with a goal I have set for myself of replacing the word gratitude for the word shame, or the feeling of guilt.  I feel guilty at times I am able to be home with our children, when I stop myself and swap the words, it is a mind shift.  I am so lucky to have this choice.  I am grateful for this time.  There is also the feeling of shame if I did a poor job with my day.  I feel guilty if I didn't manage to find time to make that phone call (I hate making phone calls! Next year's goal) or if I missed an appointment or did not get the house tidy by the time my first child rolls in the door.  To replace that flustered feeling of annoyance with one of being grateful is not easy.  “Being grateful does not mean that everything is necessarily good. It just means that you can accept it as a gift.”...
Read more