I like Monday.
I love the routine and schedule of a Monday. I love weekends, too; don’t get me wrong. I love the unstructured morning schedule of sleeping in, the fun we have, and the laidback-ness of it all, but I’m so schedule-oriented. I like Mondays because I love what I do, and I like how refreshed and energized I am, and how excited I am to take that creativity into my office and create.
I also like that the kids go back to school. Can’t lie about that one.
The only time I don’t love a Monday is when my Sunday isn’t sweet and slow and laid back. Last weekend, for example, we took the kids to Disney on Sunday. We were home late, we didn’t get any weekday prep work done around the house, and we were just off. It was also a holiday and the kids were home, so that lent itself to the general funk I felt all day Monday.
Sundays are super important days for me. I need them slow and relaxed, I need them unstructured and slow. I like to sleep late (which is anything past 5 am for me, to be quite honest). I like to go to church. I like to spend time in the kitchen making a big breakfast with my husband.
I like an extra cup of coffee. I like to cuddle with any of the kids willing to stop moving for one second to sit down and cuddle with me. I like to grocery shop, I like to play outside with the kids. I like to get our baseball gloves out and throw the ball with my husband, play football with the kids, push them on the swing, jump on the trampoline with them.
I like to pile our family of six on our golf cart and spend the afternoon taking a long ride around our neighborhood. The kids like to drive by certain houses. The “Loud House” house that looks like a house they see on a television show they like. The fish mailbox house, the rooster mailbox house, the house with the Olaf Christmas decoration (imagine how sad it is to drive by that house and see there is no Olaf Christmas decoration 11 months of every year….always a letdown until it’s not).
I like a slow, sweet Sunday. No scheduled plans on the regular – though there are some things that I don’t mind breaking my no-plans Sundays for. That’s what I love about Monday. On occasion, someone will ask me why I like my Sundays so simple, and I thought I might share all the benefits of a slow Sunday.
We All Relax
We are a family of six, and our schedule is hectic with everyone’s social lives and their extracurriculars. That means we need a break. This weekend we had so much fun have friends over for dinner on Friday night and going to the retirement party for a man I’ve known since I was a child because his daughter is one of my very favorite people in the world (it was 70s themed, we dressed up, it was fun, and there was a lot of dancing, a lot of sentimental moments, and a lot of kids up late!).
We were all exhausted on Sunday, but the day we spent relaxing was amazing. We all felt so much better by the end of the day. Rested and content. Taking a day off of real life is nice once a week. Rest is so necessary, and sometimes the best way to rest is to spend the day being really, really lazy.
We Have More Energy
Slow Sundays mean we wake up Monday morning with ample energy. A slow day is nice, but it’s not something we can handle for more than a day. By Monday, we are ready to get back to real life being productive and useful and creative. I wake up on Monday mornings with so much energy, and it shows in my work and how much I get done.
It’s Quality Time
Sundays are meant for quality time, and that’s what’s best. It’s time we spend with the kids rather than running around the kids asking them to please get ready, where’s your jacket, did you grab your whatever you can’t live without at the moment, let’s get in the car and go kind of time. It’s time with them rather than time around them. We all need that.
It Makes Monday Easier
I find myself in my office every Sunday during the twins’ naptime. I update my calendar for the week. I write down my daily goals for the week. I clear out my inbox of everything, I make a list of people to email, and I make notes for things to do and remember. I update my content calendar, I organize my photos. All in all, I spend a half hour in my office preparing myself for Monday, and I wake up ready to go knowing the little things are done.
We also organize lunchbox stuff, school stuff, and clothes for the week on Sundays. When we get up on Monday, we aren’t rushed and crazed. It’s more relaxed and easy, and it makes the start of the week that much simpler.
We Enjoy the Rest of Our Life So Much More
When I’m old enough to have seen my sweet babies have their own sweet babies and those sweet babies grow up and start their own families, I want to look at the life I lived and remember just how much I enjoyed it. I don’t want to look back and wished I’d spent more time enjoying life than being busy and getting things done.
That’s the best reason for rest days on Sundays for us. Taking that one day to relax, rest, and recharge allows us to really enjoy the rest of our life so much more. We aren’t dreading plans or wishing we could stay home from something or going through the week in a fog because we’re tired. We are rested and energized, and we are ready to tackle the next week of our lives.
Our quality of life has improved tremendously since we began our slow Sundays. That one simple day brings so much additional joy and contentment to our lives. We’re able to focus more on one another, on our relationships, and on the little things in life. Sunday Funday, as we like to call it, is slow and sweet and simple. And I’m down with that.
Do you plan a day of rest in your life? Do you think you don’t have the time for it? We didn’t think we had time for it. If you’d asked us just over a year ago if we had time for a day to rest every week, and the answer would have been a stressed out, hysterical laugh. We had to learn to make time by prioritizing what was most important to us, what was most important to our wellbeing, and what was most important to our health. You, too, can find the time if you prioritize yourself in your own life. I know…it sounds hard, but it’s so worth it.
Tiffany Raiford 