Thursday

 

Grins and Grapes on Greystone Road

Somehow it’s appropriate that there has come to be #TBT on the day of the week I have loved over the past several years to call my “play day.”  Who doesn’t want to be a kid again, with a play date to look forward to?

My relaxed Thursdays started back when I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. While some of the book wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I connected with the idea of a weekly artist’s date.

I used to try to pick a weekend day to fill the well. No school to teach and Dad was here to keep the boys occupied.  Still proved to be an unworkable idea. Too many out-of-the-ordinary things find their way to the weekend. There are more people around; it’s next to impossible to focus on quiet time or give full attention to creative endeavors when people are clamoring for you to help them find clean socks or get the hamburgers ready for the grill.

So there was Thursday, sitting there by itself after the busiest part of my week was over and right before the weekend came knocking.  Perfect!

Of course Play Day doesn’t always go according to plan.  They are almost never what I set out for them to be.  It is impossible to turn off the people in your life (though if they invented the switch I might give it a try!) and while I find it difficult to be “unavailable” for my family, who mean the world to me, I find that they always survive it when I say I can’t or simply no.  Afterward I can be there for them with a measure of inner strength that wouldn’t have been present without the down time.

I am also discovering that some of the things I reserve for Thursday, shouldn’t be reserved at all but deserve to be part of my everyday life because they are part of who I am and what I like, and no one should put their lives on hold for an entire week to get to be who they really are for one day.  That’s not balanced.

One constant I have achieved however, (and I do realize how very fortunate I am that I can do this!) is I don’t set an alarm for Thursday morning.  I wake up when the old body says it’s time and not before.  And then I start the day slowly with a picture out my window, a little meditation, a little prayer, water, writing. Even with hubby here most mornings I can generally pull this one off.  It’s a great way to start the day.

Need some ammunition and/or ideas for establishing your own “me” time? Here are some books I found helpful:

A Gift From the Sea
The Woman’s Comfort Book
The Artist’s Way
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People