MONDAY

Some Mondays are great. I love Mondays that involve updating calendars, balancing check books, updating blogs, doing laundry, and making grocery lists. Today is one of those Mondays. It's a hopeful day. I really believe I will make salmon and venison on appointed days. I really believe I will exercise four times a week. I don't doubt that I'll pray several times a day and read scriptures every day. My mind is joyfully creating lists, bulletin boards, calendars, and charts. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Some Mondays are bad. I go upstairs. I witness the carnage left behind by four children with wrecking balls. I lose all hope that my life will ever be organized. I will forever be shooting from the hip. I imagine the swelling tide of bacteria churning towards me. Surely this will be the week we finally succumb to cholera. On these Mondays I wish someone would invent a house with layers. Every five years the homemaker could peel away a layer. Like a magic, an entirely new home with fresh paint and carpet would be revealed. There would be no urine stalactites growing from the toilet seats. All of the 3000 tiny screws strewn across my son's floor would vanish. The marks on the playroom wall left by a shoe being repeatedly thrown would be swept away. All the tiny Barbie jewelry and Barbie hose with runs would disappear. The nail polish on the counters and dried boogers on the wall would melt away. The dried toilet paper plastered to the tub would flake away. The house would feel new and tingly.

Today I will stay downstairs. Today I read scriptures, consult cook books, workout with Gilad, sort my laundry by fabric type and color. Today I plan the exact time I'll leave for the grocery store each week this month. Today I'll get the entire editorial page of the Wall Street Journal read. This is the day when I take all my vitamins and eat some fresh fruit. This is a glorious day. Would that all Mondays were like today.

It snowed here. Rare and wonderful. The snow is so wet here that you really can taste a snowflake on your tongue. The kids pulled out every piece of winter clothing and hobbled together passable outfits. Girl-2-kid-4 had to wear newspaper bags under a pair of my size eight sneakers. Girl-1-kid-3 wore her oldest brother's (or father's) big hunting boots. It used to freak me out when the snow fell knowing that kids might get their feet too wet. They have survived every winter storm since 1994. Now I just let them rummage around and wear what they find.

Our second son was happy to go out in the woods with his BB gun. In the summer he won't go out there because of ticks. He and his brother wondered around pretending to be in real wilderness. I bet b2k2 wished his coon skin cap still fit him. I used to love roaming the fields and orchards around my house. I feel rewarded every time my kids take a "hike" outside.

Actually, the way the boys have been getting along, I am surprised they both returned home from their deep winter adventure. I am sure boy-2-kid-2 has a secret booby trap out among the bamboo hidden in the leaves...a deep hole with spikes pointing up to impale an obnoxious 17-year-old. He probably wishes a tick would eat its way to his older brother's brain.