Monday's Matter #3

As always let's start with some of my recent favourite reads. Renee from Mulling Over My Morning Coffee wrote this short devotional about how things don't always go according to our plan. Elissa wrote about her choice to take a nap. And Callie shared her thoughts about old school blogging. 

I'm on my third Word of the Week and I love switching it up every week. My original plan was to wait until I had made it through at least four words but I'm only starting the third week and I'm already itching to share. So far I've used Abide & Flow and this week I'm working on Spark. 

Even though this is the first Valentine's Day in two years that I've been single I am the most excited about celebrating. Mostly because I get to celebrate with twenty 5-8 year olds! I found the cutest fun patches online and ordered one for each of them (and the other leaders). My plan is to make little tags to serve as Valentines and they will be adorable. Plus, mailing Valentine's Day cards because that's a fun thing to do too. Maybe it's a consumer holiday but for someone who's love language (aside from chips & dip) involves words of affirmation Valentine's is my jam. 

For as long as I can remember I've been labeled as 'shy'. And it's only in the last few years that I've kind of embraced that label. BBC published this article about Celebrating Shyness  and it completely resonated with me. I think it's worth a read regardless of whether you consider yourself shy or not. I think it's hard for people who aren't shy to understand shy doesn't mean rude or standoffish. And I also think it's important to designate the difference between being shy and having seriously severe social anxiety. 

It also seems fitting to share my favourite Obama article, Obama After Dark. I happened to read this article while I was at camp and I related to so much of it, especially the no good decisions part. There are days when selling plain white t-shirts in size medium on a beach in Hawaii sounds like a viable career choice. 

I'm still in the waiting phase of things unfolding with the job search. And realistically it will probably be the end of January before I have a solid plan, but at least the end is (hopefully) in sight. With that in mind my quote of the week is from the amazing Julia Child. I assume she was talking about food, but I think the sentiment is transferable, especially after last week's Patience Make Pancakes revelation. 

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Monday's Matter #2

My weekend looked a lot like everyone else weekend. I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping and had lunch with mom. I spent Saturday night working on a service project for church and on Sunday we put up the Christmas tree and went to bed at a reasonable time. Since none of that is particularly noteworthy I'm going to go ahead and continue with the Monday's Matter tradition.

1. Let's start off with some of my favourite blog posts lately. Rachel wrote about The Importance of Feeding People Well and had me nodding along in agreement as I read. Alyssa shared how she made A Simpler 2016 and really motivated me to start thinking about what changes I'm going to make in 2017. Louise wrote about Comparing Apples to Oranges and it was a reminder that one of my worst habits lately has been comparing what's happening with me to what's happening with everyone else.

2. I'm working on creating my 52x52 List for 2017 but for whatever reason it's not nearly as easy as it was last year. I have a grand total of 10 things on my list right now...so that's going to need some work. I think I'm struggling with it this year because everything seems so unknown. I don't know where I'll be or any other details of the upcoming year. Last year I at least had an outline. This year I've got nothing.

3. Every so often Stuff Mom Never Told You does an episode that really shifts my mind into over drive. Lately they've done two in particular that have left me with lots to think about like this one on Adoption. And this one about working in the non-profit world was one part comforting (it's not just my experience!) and one part frustrating (why is this okay?). 

4. I've been really into grilled cheese lately. I'm not entirely sure where this new found love came from because typically I am totally over grilled cheese and sick of eating them all time time. This is a true testament for the food situation at camp this past summer, it's like I have a quota of grilled cheese per year and I'm just trying to make up for lost time. 

5. I started the process of setting up my Happy Planner for 2017 and it turns out it's more of a challenge than I was anticipating. I love the idea of vertical layout, but I'm not sold yet. I'm hoping it's a learning curve and once I get adjusted I'll be planning like the best of them. That's an exaggeration, there's no way I'm going to start spending $20/week on planner sticker kits. 

6. This is the quote I'm working on keeping in my mind this week:

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It's a busy (this is going to me my non-word for 2017, I've started cringing every time I see it written)  full week with a lot of family and friends and commitments. And I'm going to work on not letting all of that over shadow the reason we're celebrating. Doing my best to be patient with others (and myself), showing love and being gentle in the days to come. 

Mondays Matter #1

I'm going to let you in on a secret...I kind of love Mondays. I like beginnings and possibility and I'm never more organized or prepared for the week ahead than I am on Monday. When I was in university a friend and I had a tradition where we emailed each other every Monday. It came about as camp for that summer was wrapping up and we started to talk about how to make the camp magic all year. We would write a little update post to each other and mention a few things we were nervous or worried about for the upcoming week and I always looked forward to having that e-mail to read when I finished class on Monday. In Blogland Mondays are for weekend recaps with lots of photos and tales of adventure...except that my weekends aren't always full of exciting experiences. 

So I'm going to try something a little different and bring back Mondays Matter for those weeks when my weekends aren't particularly noteworthy and I still want to blog. A little bit of reflection on Monday morning to start the week off on the right foot. 

1. Maybe it's just me but it feels like blogging has turned a corner and lately there have been some pretty awesome posts that are focused on real life and not shilling products. These three in particular have still given me food for thought almost two weeks later:  While You're Waiting by Alyssa, Be Thankful For Your Choices by M. and What's Changed by Erin.

2. Earlier this week I was sorting through some things and trying to be a more organized human and while I was trying to jam multiple 12x12 scrapbook albums on a shelf that I assume measures 11.99x11.99 I did some quick math in my head and realized that camp has been part of my life for 19 years. I spent 10 years as a camper, followed by 4 years as a counsellor and summer director and just finished my fifth year in an assistant director position. Those 19 years span five different camps and at least six different job titles and have given me endless tales of (mis)adventure. And even if this most recent job opportunity doesn't pan out I still am forever grateful that I have a passion and know what it is without a doubt.

3. I re-watched the final season of How I Met Your Mother this weekend for the first time since it aired and I'm still undecided about how I feel about the ending. I am decided that I'm not much of a Lily fan and that I would marry Ted Mosby in a heartbeat. 

4. I'm trying not to get myself all out of sorts for my interview on Thursday but I'm not having a lot of success. I recognize that it's not the be all and end all, but I'm also just so ready to move on and be done with the uncertainty. 

5. I have studied every news article, watched every YouTube video, viewed every photo and read every tweet produced by/about the organization I want to work with, I hope it pays off but there's really no guarantee. If nothing else I can tell you that I'm confident these are my people based on the appearance of a creepy sun logo peeking through on one of their buildings, a hilarious kijiji ad offering to trade excess furniture for program supplies and a shed repurposed for program space.  

6. I need to start work on 2017's 52x52 list, I've completed slightly less than half of 2016's list, hopefully there's time to squeeze in a few more but I'm not overly hung up on it. It was my first attempt at such a project and I was kind of making up the rules as I went along. Next year I will do a much better job at keeping track of things and making the list a little more balanced.

7. Last year I only mailed a few Christmas cards but this year I'm going to up my game. I'm not going totally overboard but I let myself buy a new package of cards as long as I promised myself to mail all 16 cards so that's a thing that needs to happen this week. 

8. Mondays Matter emails always ended with a quote for the week, so I'm going to keep with that sentiment and end with this one I came across last week:

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