Daily 5 - Day 256

Today's Daily 5:

1. reading Sara Miles' "Jesus Freak".  Much like when I read "Take This Bread" a few years back, her words are speaking deeply to my journey right now.
2. talked for a few minutes on the phone today with a long-time good friend.  It was so good to hear his voice and hear hope in it again, and I'm excited to hang out with him tomorrow and catch up properly.
3. cooked my own dinner tonight, and froze six meals for the future.
4. green grapes
5. The team of cowboys on "The Amazing Race" - totally love them!
6. Watched an interview with Bill Johnson on ibethel.tv tonight.  I was really impressed with his comments on setting boundaries around his family to protect them from the pastor's family fish bowl.
7. found some photos of T & L's first date that they had lost in a computer crash.  I had a copy of them on my hard-drive.
8. Wore my favorite ballet flats to work today
9. Did payroll at work - I like the challenge, and I love that because I do some work, our staff will have paycheques waiting in their bank accounts later this week.
10. Got my internet bill, and it was $0.  I wrote a letter complaining about poor service when I moved a couple months ago, and to thank me for my loyalty and keep my business, they're giving me two free months of service, which I thought was really cool, since I simply wrote the letter to let them know about some service issues they might want to correct, and I wasn't really looking for compensation, other than a credit they'd already given me for the few days of service I didn't receive.

Smile List (The Mid-Day Version)

I need to make a smile list.  It's just one of those days.  I'll be by later with the regular "daily 5" (which might have duplicates today).  But for now, I need to list some reasons to smile.

• Because it's been one of those days, and because of the "Sunday" hangover that I mentioned this morning, I decided on a whim to text one of my long-time friends (the only one really left in Calgary) and see if we could have coffee sometime soon.  I got a phone-call back almost immediately, and we have a coffee date scheduled for tomorrow night.  This is bringing a huge smile to my face.  I could badly use an evening with the kind of long-time friend who knows all the stories and all the crap, and wants to hang out anyway.
• I had left-over Vietnamese food for lunch.
• I spent the lunch hour playing a computer game I enjoy.
• It's payroll day!  I actually mostly enjoy the challenge of doing payroll, and that's what's on my agenda for the afternoon.
• I got an encouraging email from a dear friend today.
• There's not much on the agenda for tonight.  Some cooking, maybe some yoga.  That in itself is a relief.
• I've decided to scrounge in my budget to make massages a monthly event, and not a bi-monthly event.  That means half the year will be covered by my insurance, and the other half by me.  But it also means that I get a great massage once a month!

Sunday Hangover

Sunday's are hard days for me right now.

As much as I'm trying to embrace and really be okay with this whole "new normal" and routine that has come the last month or two since I moved into Grandma's basement, I'm just not there all the time yet.

I miss what I had.

I miss having a roommate to laugh and debrief the day with - one who I knew wouldn't share everything about my life with everyone she knew.

I miss the freedom of not feeling on edge all the time, waiting and watching.

I miss living in a peaceful apartment, without the crazy spiritual realities.

And I miss the routine.

And Sunday's underscore all of that.

Sunday used to be a day I guarded jealously.  That was my day for rest.  I didn't book social stuff on that day.  It was a day for me, or for me and God.

I went to the zoo early in the morning, just as it was opening, while it was still quiet.

I cooked a fancy breakfast at a leisurely pace.

Sometimes I shopped.

But I rarely did "work" or had a schedule.

In the new normal, Sunday is not a day of rest anymore. 

The zoo is out, at least in the early morning hours there that I loved, because I need Sunday mornings to accomplish all of the tasks that are just so much easier to do when Grandma is at church.  Laundry, cleaning, garbage.  All of the little things that she is nosy about, or has an opinion on, or handles differently that I do.

And I usually manage to start out with a brave face, but by the end of the day the things I miss, the things that feel like such huge losses, hit me.

Yesterday they hit particularly hard.

I went to bed with the sort of bad headache that comes from the combination of tears spilled and tears suppressed.

It's Monday.  A new start as a guy from the second floor reminded me as we boarded the elevator together this morning.

It's Monday, but I have a little bit of a Sunday hangover to fight off first.