Why I Secretly Love Mondays

It's Monday.  I secretly love Mondays. 

Don't hate me, all you people out there with real* jobs, ok? I remember what that was like and I promise I didn't hate Mondays when I was in those shoes either.  Sometimes the weekends feel too short, and I get that.  But there's a whole host of reasons Mondays are awesome and make me feel happy:

1.) A fresh start.  Who doesn't love a fresh start?  I feel so optimistic on Mondays, like this is the week I will get dinner made at a reasonable hour every night, my house will stay somewhat straight, and we won't run out of clean underwear before I get to the laundry.  Mondays are breeding grounds for optimism.  True story.

2.) New groceries.  (When I actually get to the store on Monday mornings, that is.  I'm getting better at it.) A fully-stocked kitchen is fun.  All the options for dinners this week listed on our fridge whiteboard are still available for the making.  Also, the oreos aren't gone yet.  Oreos = Monday WIN.

3.) Handbells.  Brace yourself: nerd alert!  I have bell rehearsals on Monday nights, and I secretly love bells.  More than I want to admit.  Music is fun.  The people in bell choir are fun.  Bells make me happy.

4.) Oh, the lists.  Mondays are when I sit down and figure out everything I'm going to get done in the week.  And I make lots of lists: a list for each day, then sub-lists for things like groceries and cleaning (and reasons I love Mondays, duh).  And I'm naive optimistic enough (see #1) to believe that everything on those to-do lists will get crossed off.

5.) Spiritually content.  After worship on Sundays, I am almost always happier and relaxed and feeling less selfish than I was beforehand, and it definitely lingers into most Monday mornings.  Feeling close to God, and happily loving the people around me -- that's a good way to start the week.

6.) Snuggles from Anneliese.  Because Nathan is in preschool on Mondays, it's one of my mommy-daughter mornings.  Today I waited til after I dropped Nathan at school to do Anneliese's morning nursing, and we sat and rocked and giggled and cuddled for almost an hour.  Nonproductive?  Sure.  But totally worth it.  (And did you miss the part where non-productivity doesn't bother me as much on Monday mornings?  Optimistic about getting stuff done, remember?) 

Mondays are prettier with Anneliese :)


7.) Still almost a week until football again. The moods in our house are somewhat (ahem) reliant on how Clemson plays on Saturday.  That W or L has a larger-than-appropriate effect on Mark's mental state.  If they win, Monday is still very much a high day, and it will last until Friday at least.  If they lose, most of the really bad grumpiness has worn off, and he's in a healing process -- still frustrated, but starting to look towards next week's game.  Which is still lots and lots of days away.

8.) Classwork.  I am taking a theology/doctrine class on Tuesdays, and inevitably I am always behind in the assigned daily work after the weekend, so lots of Monday afternoons are spent reading and studying.  Which, since I don't have to do it (unlike college), is actually kind of fun.  It doesn't hurt that I really like the class, I'm learning a ton, and there are lots of really bright people who make the discussions really great.  Basically studying on Mondays makes me feel smart, not gonna lie.

9.) Family dinners.  It doesn't always happen, because of Mark's work schedule (read: my occasional housewifery slackness), but Mondays are one of the nights when our evening activities (bells! I love bells!) start late enough that we can have dinner together as a family first.  So usually we can sit down and eat and talk.  These days, that mostly means talking to and about Nathan.  But I'll take it, because having my whole family sitting down together to share a meal just makes me really happy.

10.) Google reader is chock full o' goodies!  Not that many people post over the weekend, and I do catch a healthy handful of updates on my phone, but there is still lots of good stuff to read on Mondays mornings.  I love sitting down to catch up on all the cheesy celebrity gossip and updates from my friends' blogs about their weekends.

And this Monday, today, is special (special? or something) because it marks the beginning of the last week of my twenties.  One week from today, I'll be thirty!  Which kind of makes me feel old, but probably makes my mom and dad feel even older, so I'm ok with it.  :)

Happy Monday!

*{Insert comments here about how being a stay-at-home-mom home executive is a real job, yada yada yada I KNOW.}