I had in mind the phrase “Never have an ordinary day,” thinking that it was from some commercial. (Is it? Let me know.) But when I looked it up just to be sure I wasn’t going to get sued for using it, I saw that it’s attributed to Emilie Barnes, the author of a number of books on time and household management, including More Hours in My Day and If Teacups Could Talk. (She also has a website, www.mhimd.com–yes, the initials are for “more hours in my day.”) All this chirpiness and efficiency sounds a little dorky, doesn’t it? She’s really pretty down to earth and practical, though. She’s had to be:
Anyway, this post wasn’t going to be about Emilie Barnes at all. It was going to be about a memory I have from graduate school of a university-wide “day of rest.” These would happen periodically, announced without warning from the Chapel pulpit. Everyone would always burst into wild applause and cheers. The somewhat-crusty Chancellor of the place would say, “Why are you all so happy? We’re cheating you out of a day of classes that you’ve paid for!” But no one paid any attention to this stunning piece of common sense. Since I was a graduate assistant, I got a day off from both teaching and taking classes. For some reason I remember this one day of rest in particular. It had been announced the day before, of course, so we all knew that we had the next day off. I planned. I prepared. I wasn’t going to waste a minute. And I didn’t. The memory of that day has stuck with me. I went shopping for fabric to make something I’d been planning on, came home, and immediately got going on cutting it out. I didn’t do what I usually do with the materials for a project, which is to leave them in the bag sitting on the floor until two years have passed. No way. I wasn’t going to waste my day of rest! I remember ending the day with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
Well, you can see where I’m going with this, so I won’t belabor the point. I recently listened to an interview with Sally McKinney of Sally’s Baking Addiction and got so tickled at her, how intense and driven and organized she is because she’s doing something she loves. She says that she never goes to bed at night without having the next day all planned out. Sort of like my day of rest, hmmm? Did I treat today like that? Not quite. But I’m learning!