Last Sunday, was the first Sunday of the year. At that point, I was still in surgery recovery mode, and I didn’t get to enjoy my usual Sunday routine. Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I spend the morning making the menu for the upcoming week and grocery shopping. I like to get to the store before the church goers. I am a Christian, and I myself am a church goer; however, in recent years, I haven’t attended church as much on Sundays. That is a whole other story.
Back to my Sunday routine.
I like to make breakfast and then the menu for the upcoming week. The menu consists of what the boys and I will make for dinner and for their breakfast and lunch each day. Every other Sunday, the boys are at their dad’s house. Of course, I enjoy the day so much more when they are cooking the breakfast and planning the meals for the week with me, but there is something peaceful about Sundays on my own. Today is one of those Sundays. I like to plan nice things for people, and I enjoy looking through the cookbooks and deciding what we have for dinner. I know that tomorrow night Little Chirp will be super excited about whatever I have planned, and Brainy Bird will be skeptical but interested in trying something new. I look forward to getting to the grocery store to find a special snack to surprise them with in their lunch boxes.
Sunday is also my day for a long run. Today, our Lord blessed us with really beautiful weather for this long run. My house overlooks a small lake, which is almost exactly a mile in circumference. I will head out the back gate for a warm up run around the lake, and then I will make my way back to my old neighborhood before heading back to my house. Today, I will try to run five miles. I need to be doing around fifteen at this point, but I am way behind on training. I need to break the news to BostonGirl that we need to scale back to the half marathon in New Orleans in February. The surgery really set me back. I don’t exactly have doctor’s clearance for running right now, but I plan to give it a try anyway today.
After my run, on days when I have the birds here, we will spend the afternoon playing dominoes or cards, and we will do some additional exercising. We sometimes watch a sci-fi series or movie on Netflix. I found over the Christmas holidays that Little Chirp likes to bake. I am thinking about adding cookie baking to the Sunday activities when the birds are here, so they have a special treat all week in their lunch boxes.
When I don’t have the boys on a Sunday, I will go and enjoy a nice late lunch/early dinner. If football is on, I will head to our local pub where everyone goes to watch the games. When it isn’t on, I will go sit at the bar at a Tex-Mex place or a steakhouse. I have bar friends at most of the places that I go. I love the feeling of confidence and self-assurance in going places on my own. I didn’t have that five years ago when I was first single.
I wrap up my Sunday with a couple of hours of work in the evening. I know that doesn’t sound great, but I love my job. I first plan my activities for each day of the upcoming week, and I lay out all of the tasks that I need to get done, my scheduled meetings and daily activities like commuting and cooking dinner on to a time schedule. Then I spend an hour or so getting a few tasks on the scheduled knocked off ahead of time, so that my week is less hectic. My job entails a great deal of tasks and responsibilities to keep up with and having a daily schedule of tasks helps me stay on top of everything. It also feeds my OCD.
I then finish my Sunday with my phone turned off, and an episode or two of a favorite television series. I always sleep like a baby on Sunday nights.
With this Sunday being a day that the Birds are with their dad, I started the day with two perfectly cooked fried eggs and a cup of green tea. I will finish up this post and make the menu on my own. I am thinking about having a shrimp creole recipe on the menu this week. Little Chirp keeps asking me to make it again, and he would be able to take the leftovers in his lunch his day – “Snap! Double win!”. Is what Little Chirp would say to this. We do not do processed bread and sandwich meat filled with nitrates in our lunches. We pack a hot lunch in their thermos everyday. If Brainy Bird had his way his Thermos would be filled with chicken noodle soup everyday. Little Chirp’s way would be something different everyday that is homemade.
After finishing the menu, I will head to the grocery store, and then I will be off for my run. This afternoon, I might break tradition and meet a date. It is someone new that I met online. I am sure that this will lead to some kind of complaint in a future blog post, but I feel like I need to invest a little more time in dating and relationships. I am worried that I am going to wake up alone in my forties and regret all of the time that I devoted to work instead of love.
Have a great week all!