TGI -- Eh, Forget It

I’m super excited to have been invited to join a blog group alongside three talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  

 

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock

 

This week’s topic comes from Moma Rock, who asked:   What is your favorite day of the week, and your least favorite day of the week?

 

Here’s my take:

 

                  I’ll admit it:  I struggled with this one.

                  Since losing my lawyer job last July, my full-time job has consisted of taking care of my kids and running our household (that sounds so very Downton Abbey but it is so not).  Although each day is a little different, for the most part, my days are remarkably similar (and most, much to my husband’s disappointment, tend not to include cleaning of the actual house).  During the school year, each day dawns with me making breakfast, packing “cold” lunch for the 10 (the 7 likes hot lunch), keeping after the girls to get dressed (read:  “yelling”), and then driving them the handful of blocks to school.  With the exception of Thursdays when the 10 needs to remember to grab her cello (or I need to remember to remind her), the mornings rarely vary.  Afterschool introduces a bit of variety; the girls are both on swim team, which means swim practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at differing times (on Wednesday, they swim at the same time – at two different locations).  There’s no swimming on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we instead venture out to another suburb for the 10’s therapy appointments, again at times that vary by day. 

                  If I had to pick one day to dislike, I guess Monday fits the bill because it is the most trying.  The 10 swims early, and both girls have gotten out of the homework routine and need a firm push right back in.  I pick them up from school at 3:35, ply them with a snack, and hound them to stop arguing and do some homework until we leave the house one short hour later to drop the 10 at practice.  By the time she gets home and eats dinner, she’s in no mood to do any more work, which often means a struggle with a tired pre-teen still clinging to the freedom of the just-passed weekend.  It’s not particularly fun for any of us.

                  The easiest days would be homework-free Saturday or Sunday – no therapy and no homework and no arguing about finishing math or vocabulary.  Unless it’s a swim meet weekend, we only take one trip to the Y – and my husband kindly volunteered to take the 10 to her 7 a.m. swim practice on Saturday.  I can’t say the weekend days are my favorites – there’s nothing particularly special about them – but they tend to be the least stressful.

                  Kinda boring, right?

                  Because my answer was so dull, I started thinking about how I would have answered that question a few months ago, before my days were completely ruled by the whims and schedules of little people.  Prior to losing my job, I used to work Tuesdays and Thursdays – roughly 10-11 hours each day – and then as needed from home.  I dreaded Tuesdays, not because I minded work, but because I had to wake up early and dress like a semi-professional and mentally get back into the swing of being in an office.  Thursdays were better because I knew I didn’t have to come back downtown for another five days, but they were still long.  I didn’t have the typical TGIF attitude because my “F” fell on a “Th” – and I still had to take care of the kids and the house on F. 

                  But one of the things I liked about working was that my Tues./Thurs. schedule gave my otherwise amorphous week a bit of structure.  Whenever I needed to schedule anything non-work related, I always blocked off those two days.  If I ran out of time with errands on Monday, I’d think, “Ok, I’ll do that Wednesday or Friday.”  Tuesdays and Thursdays were automatically off limits.  When that went away, I found myself strangely feeling like I had too much time.  If I ran out of time on Monday, I’d think, “I can do that Tuesday.  Or Wednesday.  Or Thursday.  Or Friday . . .  .”  It was odd; instead of feeling relief at having so much more time, the added hours overwhelmed me.  I felt like I was taking big gulps – not of water but of time.  And I felt like I was drowning. 

                  I’ve worked in one capacity or another since I was fifteen years old and a candy girl at my neighborhood movie theatre.  Not working feels foreign.  I haven’t yet been able to find a new job, and I can only do so much writing and crafting, so I decided to sign up for some volunteer work.  I chose to do so at a hospice.  As it should, volunteering to work with terminally ill people in their homes requires training and a background check, among other hoops, and I completed the physical and the fingerprinting and the training a few months ago.  I’m scheduled to begin the actual volunteering in the coming weeks.  I’ve committed to a few hours a week, divided however I choose.  I’m thinking I will do all of the hours in one day, and I’m curious as to how this will change the landscape of my week.  Will volunteering day become my favorite day of the week?  I’m certainly hoping so.   

                  But if nothing else, I’m hoping the time commitment will give me back some of the structure I’ve been craving the past few months.  Maybe I’ll do my volunteering on Monday to counterbalance the inevitable after-school storm I’ve come to dread just a bit, or maybe I’ll wait until Wednesday to break up the week.  Maybe it won’t matter what day I do it – maybe I just need to do it.

                  I do wonder whether, a few months down the road, my answer to this week’s question will change, just as it has from a few months past.  My fellow writing women and I may need to revisit this one down the road.  Stay tuned.

 In the meantime, bonus content:  Sir Jon Bon Jovi and Sir Bob Geldof singing about their least favorite day:  "I Don't Like Mondays"