Friday ... The New Sunday

Sunday has been my favorite day of the week for a very, very long time.

I believe it was tagged as my favorite during my old, crazy life. The life where I ran a daycare for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. Then (for a change of pace and to surround myself with adults for a day) worked 6 hours on Saturday outside of my home. Then, for a few years, I tossed in paper &/or flyer delivery into the mix. The one thing that kept me sane during that time was the fact that Sunday was my day off. From everything.

Even in my new life (where I go to school, run my daycare only before and after school and squeeze bookkeeping into my life where ever I choose), Sunday has remained my favorite day. Because it incorporates our new family tradition of 'Sunday suppers'. No matter what I do on Sunday, it must be wrapped up in time to cook or go out for supper (working on a Sunday is ever-so-much-easier when you know your family won't expect you to cook).

My new Sundays have a different flavor than the old. But I love them just the same. It is a day to stop and focus on my family. I love it.

But my Fridays are starting to develop their own unique qualities. Qualities that I'm learning to love as well.

I believe that Friday started having its own special 'flavor' because it follows Thursday night. Thursday night = dance lessons. Dance lessons = a new lease on life. Every single week. I wake up Friday mornings and I'm energized and excited from the night prior. Friday mornings are the best!

More often than not, I am able to wrap up my school hour commitment by Friday. Which means that Friday is often 'my day'.

I can spend the day doing what I want to do. This may never become a novelty to me. After 11 years of being bound to my home from the hours of 6:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday ... I may never lose the appreciation that I have gained to simply be able to be unaccountable to no one for six hours, one day per week (while the kids are in school).

I can choose to work. I can choose to run around to various appointments and tend to errands. I can putter the day away doing what I want, when I want. As long as I'm home for my after-school kids.

The past handful of Friday nights have been devoted to going out with a new group of friends. It is fun and exciting to take the tentative steps of getting to know this new group. This new Friday night tradition makes me feel like I'm back on my Great Dance Adventure. It is a time where I can step out of my life and into a group. Become part of a whole. And get to know people that I've had only a nodding acquaintance with, a little better. I love this new experience and I do hope the tradition carries on.

Yesterday, this new group of friends didn't come up with anything to do or anywhere to go. I hope that doesn't stop a good thing. I hope we can pick up the ball and carry it onto new adventures in the Fridays that follow.

I didn't have this Friday Night Adventure on my agenda this week, but in its place I reconnected with old friends.

I spent the afternoon with good friends. I talked too much ... but in the end, each of us had the chance to tell the others what was going on in our lives.

What I love about these friends, is that when we sit down and talk ... we really talk. We trust each other with the under currants of what is going on in the lives that we are living. And there is a lot going on.

I sat and I listened (yes, novel for me ... I know). As each of them talked honestly about the challenges that they or a loved one faces, it changed my perspective on so many things.

These friends are my heroes. They stand up to whatever curves life has to throw at them. They champion for their family. They have such capacity for loving, giving, caring and fighting for those they love. It takes my breath away.

I look up to these friends. Unbeknownst to them, they were my mentors long before we became friends. They have qualities that make them stand out. Qualities that I aspire to incorporate into myself. I am still awe struck that these heroes of mine ... have become my friends. I know that I am a better person because of them.

After a most excellent afternoon, I returned to my easy and predictable life. I reflected on our conversations. I simply savored the afterglow of a visit with close friends.

I confronted the bookkeeping task that was facing me. And that is how I spent my Friday night. Not a night out with friends ... but it was a good night none-the-less.

Then ... just as I was winding up my work, the phone rang. A friend that I have been trying to reach for quite a while now, returned my call.

When a few calls/emails/letters aren't returned, I always take a step back. I don't like to push myself on someone. I know that life is busy and most people are much busier than I am, so I don't take offense when I don't hear back from some one. More often than not, I'll think that they are busy and I'll try back at another date.

But this particular friend is one that has been through a rather rough time lately. I knew that I wanted to make contact but I didn't want to push it. When my calls weren't returned, I thought that perhaps the message wasn't relayed. I wasn't worried. I thought 'I'll try later' ...

And yesterday, I did.

We are going out for lunch today. We talked for half an hour on the phone last night and I was updated on the myriad of reasons why she hadn't had a chance to call me back (hospitalization is perhaps as good a reason as any, to not worry about returning a call. Don't you think?).

I have had a handful of heart-to-heart talks with this friend. It's a mutual give and take of conversation. Our lives are parallel on so many levels that I believe we were related in another life (I feel this way a lot ... just last week, I chatted on the phone with a sister-from-another-life ... yet another friend I want to know better).

Yes, Fridays are developing their own personality. As I carve out my new life, I am planning to incorporate this new found flexibility into my working days. I took a tentative step and asked my current employer what lies in store after I'm done school. And the future looks bright. I believe that my next full-time job will be one that affords me the luxury of the feeling of my New Friday.

Flexible Fridays. Yup ... I like the sound of that. But I'm still holding onto my Family Suppers on Sundays. And dancing on Thursdays. Pretty soon, each day will have its own Flavor of the Week. I kinda like that.

One Drawer

There is one kitchen drawer in my house, that contains the utensils one would need if they wished to cook or bake anything. If the attachment for my Magic Bullet wasn't in that drawer (for my daily morning smoothie), I would have very little use for the contents inside of this drawer.

As I opened the drawer this morning, I was struck by the knowledge that I had utilized almost every gadget in this particular drawer within the past five days.

This means ...

That I cooked pork tenderloin (which I sliced with the electric knife) on Monday; I made spaghetti and meat balls (I needed the adapter for the electric frying pan) on Thursday; and this morning, I actually baked a batch of muffins (thus, requiring my electric mixer).

Every morning, I pull open that drawer to retrieve what I need to make my morning smoothie. It is a rare morning indeed, when I open that drawer and realize that the only gadget that I haven't utilized is the bottle brush (those days are over, my friend ... but a bottle brush does come in handy every now and again).

My domestic skills could use a little dusting off. So could 95% of the gadgets in that one kitchen drawer.

One Hurdle Down ...

I leaped into the long weekend teeming with energy. I was excited and full of energy as I anticipated three days at my disposal.

I believe my energy was zapped the moment that I realized that my school was open on Friday. Due to a completely avoidable misunderstanding, I thought the school was closed that day and I had logged my school hours accordingly. I ended up being short one hour and forty minutes of attaining my required hours. My perfect attendance record is shot for this month. Energy drain.

The second bump in the road was bookkeeping. I need and want the work. When no extra work walked in the door Friday morning, I was somewhat ecstatic. She gave me a job to do, involving what I had on hand. But it was new and different so I was eager to tackle it. Then ... Saturday morning, she dropped off a bucket of work. Ten hours worth of tedious work. It zapped my enthusiasm.

Walking down memory lane last weekend was rather exhausting. My thoughts were directed to a different time in my life. I looked back and reflected on the months when I was asea. I spent too much time looking back.

I did manage to putter with my family history project. I climbed a hill ... but I have several mountains yet to scale. Not a great feeling of achievement. But at least it's a step in the right direction.

I found the ambition to look at the video of my revised Samba routine. I spent a little bit of time on my dancing. But not enough.

I squeezed all of my bookkeeping work into the last day of the long weekend. I logged ten and a half hours in one day, when I could have just as easily worked four hours for three days and accomplished much more. I crammed six more hours of work into yesterday, when I could have divided that by two and retained a little serenity within. The work that arrived Saturday morning ... is finally done.

One task complete. It took four days to finish one job.

I plan to take an exam at school today. I want to finish another bookkeeping task. I need to get into the habit of working slowly but steadily at my family history project. I must get into the habit of practising my dancing. I have closets to clean (and everything else in the house).

One hurdle down ... so many more to go. But maybe if I simply break these onerous jobs into manageable segments, I will get those mountains moved before the new fall TV season arrives.

The End of a Season

Finally. It's over. The season finales have all wrapped up. Dancing with the Stars has awarded their Mirrorball Trophy. My life can go on.

At the onset of the new fall season, I didn't think that I would have time to watch all of my favorite shows. I had just started school, I had the lofty goal of logging 20 hours per week doing my bookkeeping and a dance showcase was on the horizon (of course I would be practising for that ... ya, right).

As it turns out, not only did I have time to watch all of my favorite shows ... but I found a few new ones to add to the mix. I became a TVaholic when it came to my shows.

I have wasted so much time these past months it isn't funny. It's time to turn off the TV set and get on with life.

I have so much to do that doesn't revolve around making time to watch those silly programs. I need to motivate myself in the evenings and move a few mountains around here. I have a long list in my mind, of things that must be tended.

It's time to pry myself off of the couch and get busy! After rereading my journalling as I mended a fractured heart (not surgery ... just love gone awry) three years ago, I marvelled at my ambition. I painted my way through it. I painted everything that I could reach outside. It was pure therapy. Plus I accomplished a lot.

I hate to think that I need to find an excuse like that to get motivated again. How about I do it because it needs to be done? Or because of the way it feels to accomplish something? Or because it feels good to move ... not just sit still in front of the television set (or computer) and let my life pass on by?

I'm grateful that my favorite shows are all on hiatus. I hope to keep the TV turned off for the summer season. It's time to get moving.

Reaching Out

One of the other things that I did this past long weekend, was call and/or email friends that I hadn't heard from in a while.

As I have dared to venture out of 'the safe zone' I have created in my life and started investing my energy in creating some new friendships, I realized that I needed to tend to the friends that I already have.

Most people were busy or away ... but I did manage to connect with a friend that I made 31 years ago. Once upon a time, we made a promise that we would go on a cruise together when we were 40 years old. Almost a decade has passed since that goal came and went without our anticipated cruise. So I've tossed out the idea that we should make that dream come true. Next year. I wanted to call and talk to her about the idea of taking that long awaited holiday.

Our lives have drifted in two totally different directions. A year can come and go without contact. She lives two provinces away from me. Our paths haven't crossed in over 20 years.

Yet, as soon as she heard my voice on the other end of the telephone line ... the years vanished.

We talked for two hours without taking a breath. Each of us had stories to tell of our present day lives. When I mentioned one particular subject that concerns me, she has the 'history' to know what lies deep under the surface. She was the friend that walked with me through the relationship that left me physically battered and bruised. So when I speak of the past, it is quite likely that she remembers it more vividly than I do - I voluntarily block a lot of those memories.

I don't have another friend that has walked that particular walk with me.

I've come to peace with that time in my life. I don't dwell on those years. At all. I pull them out and deal with them as necessary as my son needs to talk about that time. So much of who he is today, is because of what he saw, felt and lived throughout 'those years'. This is the undercurrent that my friend picked up on. She knew what I was saying without me having to say a word.

Friends. Those who know us better than we know ourselves sometimes. Special people that have walked at our side and saw us through the best of times. The worst of times. Someone you can call out of the blue and remember what it feels like to be 18 again.

We laughed. We shed a few tears. We reminisced and reflected. We looked at our present day lives and dared to dream about what we hope is in store.

It was just like the old days ...

Onward!!

Enough with the reflecting already!

Sheesh! I lost two days of my life. Looking back. One day reflecting. The second day stuck in neutral.

Today I woke up at 5:30 a.m., knowing that I had to get on with life. I had work to do!

My day was spent working, talking with friends, making supper, spending time with my family and then working some more.

I can't believe that I wasted an entire weekend. I had so much to do ...

I've looked back. I've looked ahead. But most importantly, it's time to put my nose to the grindstone and look at the present day. It's time to get my head out of the clouds and do what has to be done.

I did this to myself. I've become a master procrastinator. But it was fun while it lasted ...

My Journey Back to Dancing

More reflections from my three year old 'journey' back into living my best life:

June 3/07 - The first 3 years of dancing were complete and absolute heaven. I was able to take a step away from my family and home responsibilities. I could remove my 'mother hat' and simply become an adult dancing with and conversing with other adults about adult things (mostly dancing). I have never been happier. My Instructor was/is the best instructor for me. He could make me laugh when I felt like crying ... I could lose myself in the dance the moment I put on my dancing shoes. It was the best of times!

June 21/07 - There is/was a dance at the studio tonight. At one point I thought I would go. But by the time tonight rolled around I knew I had no desire. I have the cloud over my head again and I have promised myself that when I walked through the dance studio's door, I would leave the doom and gloom behind. Last months dance was the best ... and I'd rather leave it at a positive memory.

Aug 16/07 - I'm exhausted tonight ... last week all I could think of, was going to the dance at the studio tonight - to get me out of the house, around people and moving. As the day neared, my desire to go waned.

Aug 19/07 - I want to dance!! And I want to be a person in my own right in the studio. I long to be part of the group ...

Oct 21/07 - Thoughts of the dance showcase drifted in and out of my consciousness and they were all so very good. Memories and feelings of the good times I had at those showcases .... where they would be in their day, as the day unfolded .... my desire to return and rekindle even a small part of that ... ... ... It was all so very positive. Everything remained in perspective.

Nov 2/07 - A nice quiet evening at home .... it dawned on me that there was a dance tonight ... but even if I had really wanted to go, I really wouldn't want to spend the money. It would be fun to dance again though .....

Nov 15/07 -There was a dance at the studio tonight and I would have really liked to have gone. Talking to My Instructor last week and having some birthday money to splurge with has piqued my interest about dancing once again ... Money is my biggest worry at the moment. And it's not a huge worry ... just feels like a bigger deal, because I am ready to dance again.

Dec 12/07 - Dancing continually pops into my mind. That is a constant. I'd like to go back ...

Jan 11/08 - I'm back. Loving it, loving it, loving it!!!! It felt great to walk back through the doors to the dance studio. I felt welcomed, happy and simply glad to be back. It was like riding a bike ... we just started dancing and danced the 1/2 hour away. Fun! Fun! Fun!! I was stretched and stressed to my max when I quit my lessons last February. Now ... I feel relaxed and enthusiastic. A much better recipe for success.

And the rest ... is history!

My journey back into dancing brought the bounce back into my step, a twinkle in my eyes and a heart that beats to the tempo of the music.