Closed Sundays

When I was a kid, my brother and I would go to Sunday school every Sunday morning.

Then we’d come home, and every single week, without fail, my brother, my dad, and I would watch whatever Tarzan movie was on channel 5 on TV. Like the old black and white Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies.

After that we’d watch either Laurel and Hardy or an Abbott and Costello movie.

Every. Single. Sunday.

I can remember where my dad would sit and where my brother would sit and the spot on the floor where I’d lie down in front of the wood burning stove.

I used to love Sundays.

It was always a day to totally chill out. They were lazy and relaxed and awesome.

Sundays at my house now are so far from a day of rest.

They are out of control.

Today we had a basketball game at 9 a.m. an hour away, a swim practice at 11 a.m.,  another basketball game at 3 p.m., and a different kid had basketball practice at 5 p.m.

In between and during those practices and games I rushed to go grocery shopping and spent the rest of my time stressing about how much work I needed to get done that I couldn’t get to.

I think I wrote a post a few months ago about how my Sundays were ridiculous and how I vowed to give myself at least an hour of down time from then on.

Well that didn’t happen.

But it’s happening starting today. As I sit at the computer at 10:24 p.m. on a Sunday night typing a blog post.

Okay. So it’s starting next Sunday.

When I started writing this blog I decided I’d wrote a post every day. EVERY DAY. Until it became successful enough that I could take the weekends off.

I don’t really know where I came up with these numbers and guidelines.

In a little over three and a half years, I’ve written 1,508 posts.

That’s actually more than a post every day.

Last year I decided once I got to 20,000 Facebook followers I’d allow myself to take Sundays off from writing a post.

I’m just over 17,000. I’m close.

But it’s still not the 20,000 I’ve had stuck in my head.

But you know what?

Yesterday I was on the elliptical at the gym, and there was a woman on a bike about ten feet away from me. She was looking at her iPad.

I happened to glance over and you know what she was reading?

My blog.

I have no idea who that woman was.

To be honest, I kind of felt like a singer who hears their own song on the radio for the first time.

You know, on a much smaller scale. But still, a complete stranger was reading my blog while she was working out, and well, it felt pretty good.

I don’t think I need to reach that arbitrary 20,000 number to take a day off.

This blog has become successful.

And I need a break.

This morning I sat on the couch for about 5 minutes with the kids while they were watching Worst Cooks in America, their new favorite show, and Number 3 looked at me and said, “Mom, doesn’t it feel good to just sit down and relax?”

It did.

But I was so stressed out about everything I’d put on my to do list that I couldn’t even enjoy those five minutes.

That’s not good.

On a tangent, I have a friend who moved to Germany from the United States a few months ago.

You know what one of the hardest adjustments for her was when she moved?

Nothing is open on Sundays in Germany. The stores are closed.

She had to get her shit done by Saturday because on Sunday those Germans are watching Tarzan and Laurel and Hardy.

Just kidding. I don’t know what people in Germany actually do on Sunday, but I know they aren’t risking their lives in the Costco parking lot.

In Germany they value a day off.

So I’m writing this post at a really stupid hour on a Sunday night to tell you that I’m no longer writing any posts on Sundays.

Because I need rediscover the value of a day off, too.