When you start to do the things that you truly love, it wouldn’t matter whether it’s Monday or Friday; you would be so excited to wake up each morning to work on your passions.
~ Edmond Mbiaka
Tag: Monday
Another Monday
I try and start Monday out with a positive post — something I can mull over and turn around and digest quickly, absorbing all there is of it, then spit it out and move on with the week.
I am sitting on my sofa facing the front window, looking out at a squirrel trying to get to my round bird feeder that’s stuck out three feet at the end of an aluminum pole on the deck railing.
Obviously the feeder is perched in this fashion to keep the squirrels out.
Obviously this squirrel thinks this intent is for everyone else but him.
Slinking out on a thin aluminum pole, holding onto the top and hanging chain for dear life, stretching downwards around the saucer-like lid to the saucer below is a death-defying act of courage. Or hunger.
Nevermind that I also dump a scoop of seed out on the ground right below the feeder every day for the ground creatures …
Sometimes his determination (and dexterity) pay off — other times not.
Which made me wonder: Which quote would better suit him (and the world) on a day like today?
Never Give Up…Never Surrender (Galaxy Quest movie)
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em (The Gambler, Kenny Rogers)
Alas, his quote of choice will have to wait for another day.
He opted for the seeds on the round table top instead.
Another Monday Blog — Riding in the CCE
This morning I found that I have written 15 Monday morning blogs through the years (not counting Sunday Evening Art Gallery on Mondays). That’s not a bad count, considering I’ve written 3,533 blogs.
Most of them are about recovering from the weekend (whatever that may haven been), starting a new creative path, or buckling down on the one you’re already on.
Why does that seem such a big deal to me?
Sometimes I feel like a life coach.
Why does it matter what someone does with their free time? Not everyone wants to pull out fabric or clay or a calligraphy pen when they’ve got a free hour. Some just want to close their eyes and breathe. Or read a book.
As Michael Crichton from Jurassic Park says, “Life will find a way.”
Rather, Creativity will find a way.
I never had a lot of time between projects to do things that were out of my daily box. Raising kids and working and keeping up on housework took all of my time. Every day. Every month. I’m not sorry I spent that time doing what I needed to do, either.
But I also found time to escape with Creativity. I was a online role player for a while (when that was a big thing), playing mostly a half fae living in a world of castles and pirates and who-knows-what-other kinds of beings. No one knew my personal life. No one knew my personal name. I was just one of dozens of people in a chat room playing out one drama or another.
There was a painting stint back then too. I remember creating some Avatar-looking land masses floating in the air and a stencil in a diamond shape that said “Space the Final Frontier.”
I also found time to do some writing.
I was also a big journaller. Lots of schmaltzy stuff after I turned 40. When that got boring (or once I ran out of self pity) I started writing stories. Poems. Novels. I found a style and a genre I felt comfortable with and ran with it. Later in life I made/forced/encouraged my way into writing for my company blog. Found I enjoyed doing that, too.
Perhaps that’s what brought me to blogging.
I’ve always wanted to tap into that Creative side of my life, my thoughts, my dreams. I didn’t care if I got famous or got published or showed my creations to the neighbors. I just wanted to push myself a little further into the CCE — the Creative Cosmic Ether.
I just wanted to have fun.
Which leads back to a bunch of Monday Morning Encouragement Blogs.
Don’t be bored. Be bold. Practice on something old. Try something new. Glide between crafts. Don’t listen to the negatives — Just Do It.
Now I sound like a life coach that works for Nike …
Monday Monday — Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery Blog
Looking back on my Monday posts, I noticed a lot of Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery Blogs —
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery — Ercole Barovier
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2017/02/20/sundaymonday-evening-art-gallery-ercole-barovier/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery – Alain Delorme
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2017/05/29/sundaymonday-evening-art-gallery-blog-alain-delorme/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery – David Martin Stone
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2017/08/21/sundaymonday-evening-art-gallery-blog-david-martin-stone/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery – Latchezar Boyadjiev
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2017/09/04/sundaymonday-evening-art-gallery-blog-latchezar-boyadjiev/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery – Randall Henry Riemer
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2018/01/01/sunday-evening-art-gallery-on-monday-randall-henry-riemer/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Chris Maynard
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2018/03/19/sunday-evening-art-gallery-on-monday-evening-chris-maynard/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery — Jamie Moreno
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2020/11/09/sunday-evening-art-gallery-on-monday-jamie-moreno/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery — Mosaic Art Buildings
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2019/05/13/sunday-evening-art-gallery-on-monday-mosaic-art-buildings/
Sunday/Monday Evening Art Gallery Blog – Tina Lane
https://humoringthegoddess.com/2018/04/09/sunday-evening-art-gallery-on-monday-tina-lane/
And I started to wonder — why was I late in posting Sunday’s blog??
I’m certain it was because I was out walking on Seven Mile Beach, Cayman Islands 
or having a cup of Caffè Totò at the Grand Café Gambrinus in Naples
or sniffing L’Or de J’adore by Jean-Michel Othoniel at the DIOR Boutique in Paris.
Maybe it was just because I was busy doing something else. How droll.
Enjoy the flip back!
Monday Monday (repost)
Over the weekend I went back into the black hole depths of this Humoring the Goddess blog looking for posts that had Monday in the title.
There have been quite a few attempts to comprehend and write about the first day of the work week. I smiled as I read all of them. So many different directions on the same topic.
That’s the beauty of Creativity. Looking behind is just as much fun as looking ahead.
So for all of you reading this this fine Monday morning — DO IT. And don’t stop.
MONDAY MONDAY 
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
(do you know the song yet?)
Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
So good to me (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be ..
All the oldies out there knew the song by the first six syllables. Funny how engrained music is into us. Even when we don’t think about it.
Was trying to come up with a topic, a theme, for this cloudy, cold Monday. But if there’s nothing there there’s nothing there.
Then a slip of lyrics passed through my head.
Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
I was a freshman in high school when the Mamas and Papas sang this song. I was escaping the horrors of middle school at that time. Those were rough times, especially for a geeky, smelly kid like me.
Not really stepping back, but I do know that even back then music made a difference in my life. The Beatles were my saviors, the Dave Clark Five my happiness. No one could break the bond between me and Paul or me and Dave. My writing started way back then, too. I used to have a notebook with my first love story written in it, but it is long gone. Perhaps it disappeared when it served its purpose.
Music was an escape when I was young. An emotional booster, an answer for self-consciousness and self-doubt. I didn’t think about doing drugs or getting drunk or having sex back then. (Shows you how backwards my freshman year was.)
But Last Train to Clarksville by the the Monkees and Summer In The City by the Lovin’ Spoonful and Five O’Clock World by the Vogues were songs that wrapped around those hard times and cushioned decisions in my life like why I never had a date Saturday nights or if my girlfriends wanted to have a pajama party or should I try out for the school play when I couldn’t sing.
I wonder if kids today have an inkling of that innocence. If they ever have a chance to be kids. If they ever have a choice to not be a part of the violence and discrimination and hatred that swirls around all of us.
I suppose songs like WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (I wouldn’t look up the words if I were you) reflects the current needs and desires within a high-school education, the need to be free and understood and in control. Maybe innocence in its banal form is not needed anymore. Better to be smart than be exploited.
These days I find myself wandering back to that innocence I probably never really had. I have had enough of death and prejudice and politics to last a lifetime of discovery. Time for a bit of innocence to return to the world.
Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her whenever it starts?
And it’s magic if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie………..
Pumped Up Mondays
If Saturdays are the beginning of your playday, Mondays are usually the beginning of your work week.
For me they are also the beginning of my creative week. I always start off wanting to write, craft, paint, and research. Quite a busy start to a retiree’s week.
Yesterday I took the (not so big) step of signing up for Peacock, the NBC version of Hulu or Netflix. A majority of shows are free, but it’s not because I was in need of something to watch. I came across what I was looking for:
Face Off.
Five season’s worth.
I happen to LOVE that TV series. Every week a group of artists create masks and faces and outfits based on the weekly challenge theme.
The things these “ameteurs” come up with are amazing.
I realize they are experts in their field. I’m sure you know someone — yourself, even — that could come up with a short story, a quilting pattern, knit a scarf, or paint a painting or a calligraphy sign in competition time. That’s how good you are.
But it’s just the process — the intuitive, inventive way their mind thinks that gets me going.
I get the same feeling watching cooking competition shows. How could these average “Joes” and “JoAnns” cook something like that in less than an hour?
The first and most important reason is because they love doing what they do. They all may be auto mechanics or beauticians or grade school teachers in their “other” life but they are artists in this one. They may even be full-time creators.
I come back from these shows with a new sense of energy and purpose. And I try and share it.
I have one friend thinking of starting to write a book on her and her father’s experiences. So exciting! Another friend went to a quilting seminar this week for a few days. How great! One of my good friends went on a scrapbooking weekend not long ago. Nothing but talking and scrapbooking. How can you lose? Another of my friends is coming to my state (not far from me, it seems) to do some sort of crafting seminar/conference/get together. How great is that?
I’ve done an art gallery on Face Off, and could probably do a dozen more. So it is with you that do ceramics or computer design or photography. My good friend from my old work is a photographer AND graphic designer — what great things he comes up with!
Find something that fuels your passion and go for it. Let someone else’s work inspire you — not to be them, not to do what they do, but let their work encourage you do try new things and go new directions.
Make practice fun. Make mistakes fun. Make success even MORE fun.
Let me know what you are working on so I can continue to get pumped up in the Art World.
Feels Good! You ought to try it!
What’s Important to YOU Today?
Happy Monday! Or is it?
We all try and start the “week” off on a positive note. As the jokes/memes say, it’s only downhill from here.
I tend to disagree.
Sometimes it can go uphill from here.
I suppose, barring unexpected occurrences, most of us can expect a normal UP and DOWN kind of week. It depends on what we’ve planned for ourselves.
I hope you have planned some positive experiences.
I know I know — you can’t plan gifts from God or sparkling experiences from Gaia. They just come when they come.
But you can plan activities that bring you extra pleasure.
Of course, you know I’m referring to Art. Crafts. Writing. Piano lessons. Painting a mural on your garage door. Anything that makes you happy.
There is something about starting fresh on a project/projects you love that plants that sparkle in your heart that eventually flows all through your body. Even if you aren’t over-the-top in getting back to your Art, once you get there, the world changes.
Your flops aren’t really flops. They’re lessons. Your completions aren’t really the end, but just the beginning.
If you can stop listening to that little demon who whispers that you’ll never be any good, you will be amazed at how finishing the book you are reading or sewing that last piece together can make you feel.
Give yourself a chance.
I have lots of demons dancing in and out throughout the day. I’ve learned to either ignore them or, if need be, let them scream their garbage and then kick them out the door. I am who I am, and all that hoo hah. But I’m always working on improving “who I am.”
For me, that’s perfecting my crafts. Always writing something, always fooling around with Angel Tears. I have a boatload of projects just waiting for me to open the door, but I promised myself I’d stick to just a couple for the time being.
Give Monday a chance. Let it be the beginning of new chances, new worlds, new universes. Well, universes is quite a big quest …. maybe start with something smaller …. like solar systems.
Go for it!
Tell me what your creative plans are for the week!
Monday Again?
Here it is — it’s Monday again.
The typical drag-your-derriere out of bed, increase your coffee intake, turn-the-sound-down-on-the-news kinda morning.
Now you would think that, since being retired for a year, I’d be over that kind of gut-kick reaction to just another day of the week.
I’m not.
Maybe my first reaction is a form of habit. After all, I worked for fifty years, all on the day shift, always having to get up at 6 a.m. five days a week. I don’t think you can just “turn off” that kind of Pavlov’s dog reaction.
Maybe it’s because there’s always something that needs to be done. No matter your country, state, town, marital status, or pant’s size, there’s always something you need to do on a Monday morning. Laundry. Call the plumber. Send your kids off to school. Go to a doctor’s appointment.
There’s always something waiting for you Monday Morning.
I do admit that days here tend to blur into one another. I find myself asking myself (or others) what day it is. Isn’t today Tuesday? Don’t we have to drop something off at the post office today? Did we talk to the kids about Saturday yesterday? Or three days ago?
I think with being home every day with the fear of Covid 19 striking you or those you love tends to blur your thoughts and memories after a while. I never thought I was going to be a jet setter once I retired, but there were things I was going to finally be able to do.
UhHuh. Not yet. No way. Sit down.
I think we all take a major sigh Monday mornings because it gives us a sense of routine. Of beginning again. Even if we don’t do the things we used to do, it gets us in the mind set that there are daily responsibilities we need to take care of every day.
Acknowledging Monday makes retirees blend in better with those who still have to work five days a week. Gets us into a fixed rhythm like doing homework five days a week. Gives us a sense of routine. Of setting goals and finishing them all within a specific time frame.
For most of us, weekends are still the time we set aside to do things we don’t normally do during the “work” week. Vacation. Visit family. Mow the lawn. Change the oil in the car. Stay up late. Go to the Farmer’s Market.
We need to keep our special time special. We can’t allow one day to melt into the next into the next. It gets too easy to let go and have life become one melted puddle day after day, week after week. No differentiation to remind us that we are always growing, always learning, and always making order out of chaos every single day.
Today is Monday. I’ve already had a slice of cheesecake for breakfast, thrown in a load of laundry, brushed the cat, and made a to-do list for the week. I may not be punching a time clock like days of old, but I feel that I still fit in the rhythm of the day and of the week. That I fit in with the buzzing world around me. At least for four more days.
Can’t wait till Saturday!
A Warm Monday
It is a wonderfully warm-to-hot Monday here in the Midwest. The butterflies, although fewer in number this year, still come and check out the flowers on my deck, and at night the faerie fireflies tantalize me with hints of their world just beyond my sight.
My sinuses have been rearing their nasty heads lately — I don’t know if it is allergies or sinusitis or just plain old lady sinuses. But they do make concentrating for any serious amount of time laborious.
It’s the kind of day to sneak in visits to the shaded part of the porch just to enjoy the breeze that tickles your hair and tinkles the windchimes.
If I were a sketcher it might be a perfect time to sketch the black and white butterfly who likes to alight on the white plastic rocker, or the indigo bunting who finds breakfast in the bird feeder.
If I were a painter I would highlight the multi colors of a potted zinnia or the bright pink geraniums that punctuate the lines of the deck, or the different hues of the variety of trees that line the yard.
If I were a potter I would mimic the textures of the leaves and the stones in the driveway and the webbing of the chairs and the beading of the macrame plant hanger in my next creation. My work would reflect the color of the sandy soil, the clay pots, or the weather-worn wood that surrounds my house.
If I were a song writer I would use the staccatos of the birds singing and the notes that accompany their song to create a new and fresh summer melody. I would include the tones of children’s laughter in the distance and the pitch of the dogs’ howls and the sound of the wind blowing through the pine trees.
If I were wood carver I would create wonderful pieces made from fallen trees in the woods. And if I were a creative artist I would combine the rocks from the driveway and the sand from the grandkids’ sandbox and make the most lovely rock gardens and if I were a gardener I would create amazing flower and vegetable gardens that would make the specialty grower jealous.
But I am none of these.
I am merely an average writer who is suffering from sinus pressure and a momentary lapse of inspiration.
Aren’t we all that at one time or another?
Monday….Yes, It Is
Monday, for most of us, is Monday. I suppose that’s a good thing — heaven forbid we wake up after a wild weekend and find it’s Thursday.
But seriously — it seems that if we have a great weekend we pay for it somehow on Monday. Not hangover-wise, but, I dunno — karma-wise.
This morning at work my bff almost wiped out the database. No biggie. Driving to work I waited my turn to turn and almost smacked the car that crossed the intersection because they were just movin’ too slow. Spilled lunch on my pants and burned my tongue on my coffee.
And that’s all before noon.
Now I know that stuff happens all week and weekend long. Life isn’t smooth. Just ask it. So I try not to complain and make my way through the madness the best way I can.
Someone once asked me why I don’t blog about the terrible things in the world. I believe writing about these tragedies should be done by those who have more facts than I. We are all horrified by the crazy Vegas shooter and the terrorists that drive down people on the boulevard in France or the nutcases that walk into schools and shoot up the place.
I have no idea what’s in the head of nutcases like that. So what insight could I give a reader? Gnashing over the same feelings everyone else has is often not very satisfying for a reader or a writer. Few of us understand the dark that dwells in the human mind. There’s a lot of the world I don’t understand, so I don’t try to explain it.
This weekend I went to a birthday party for a grandfather who turned 90. Say it. 90. Born in 1917. There was no TV back then; no computers, no cell phones, no social media. No tollways, no Big Macs, no penicillin. He made it through two world wars, the depression, landing on the moon, 9/11, plus raised three children. He lost his wife some years ago, yet is still the stronghold of the family.
That’s the kind of person I like to sit and write about.
So write your blogs, play your music, talk about your friends and family. Bring sunshine into your readers’ lives. Laugh, teach, share. Feel the grief then move on. Bring a good feeling with you everywhere you go.
And don’t worry about the tomato spot on your pants. A spot in the vastness of the galaxy is not a spot at all…
Humoring the Goddess 