It’s Monday, and there are a few things that I’ve assigned to myself every time that rolls around. One is to stay home and serve a home cooked meal after eating out some, if not most (I ashamedly admit) weekend meals. Oh face it girl, we eat out way too often, even during the week. So, Monday, cook. I’ve been through several ways of making meatloaf, trying for years to like what I thought was the way Mama made hers. I threw away the left overs, and didn’t really enjoy it the first time around. But my husband, bless his heart, has always claimed meatloaf is one of his favorites. So, I make a Monday meatloaf. Since I dropped the chopped stuff, I like it much better. The simpler the better, in fact; it’s more dense and tastier with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, dried basil, egg, bread and Worcestershire sauce. But until I was willing to throw out the old way with  chopped onions and green peppers, oats and suchlike, I couldn’t get it right – for us anyway.

Another Monday routine is changing the sheets and hanging them out on the line. If it rains on Monday, I’ll wait to wash them as soon as the sun shines. Rick Bragg hit a homer when he wrote, “…cooler than the other side of your pillow” in All Over But the Shoutin. When I read that phrase, it was instant recognition! If you’ve ever slept without air-conditioning, or even with it for that matter, then you know first hand how marvelous it feels to turn that pillow over to the cool side – two breaths later you’re sleeping. The only other requirement I have for a good night’s sleep is that the pillowcase is wearing fragrance that comes only from hanging out with Mother Nature. Simple things.

I try to get a few cards out on Mondays, but that is not consistent since you never know who may need a note of encouragement from one week to the next. It’s always a good Monday if there are no new heartaches nor illnesses among our friends. Actually, if I’m to be honest, there are always a host of lonely folks who would appreciate a card. I’d say the only thing holding me back from routine here, is me.  Dedication. And a supply of cards and stamps. So, it’s hard sometimes to get a routine going, and I am striving for more consistency there. This is not a ‘toss out’.

So what else am I thinking of throwing out with old meatloaf recipes? I may haul off the recycling more often so I can find the garage wall and bags of cans aren’t clanging every time I shut the dining room door. And I’m definitely tossing out this Monday Musings weekly post idea. Yes, I tried it, and I feel it is not achieving my goal. It’s not that the ideas didn’t flow; I have a list of Monday M’s that I haven’t used yet, and I rarely go a week without inspiration from nature or scripture. But the idea of setting a goal to post weekly, (a blogging group’s idea) with a theme (my idea), took the spontaneity, the fun out, in a way. So forgive me ‘Blessed By Blogging’, as I’m sure your suggestions are much better for most folks than my method, but this is not working for me. I guess I write from the heart, and need more time to make it reader friendly. Anyway, speaking strictly for my own writing, I feel weekly makes it too common;  almost tedious for my readers. Although I have had a big jump in followers lately, so comments on this routine are appreciated.

I began my blog for, well, for me. That is contrary to what all the other Christian bloggers say; they aim at writing for the audience of one – God. Don’t get me wrong, please, I truly want to do everything “as unto the Lord”. It’s just that I am always writing in my head and heart, so starting a blog gave me that vehicle to sport around in so to speak. A vehicle to race, or Sunday drive, or park – whatever my pen and paper wanted to do. Mama wanted me to write, believed in me, so the blog is dedicated to her. I also write for someone else, and that’s my sister Kathy. She has been the wind beneath my wings since we were too young to know Bette Midler, or even to know we’d eventually stop fighting and be friends. My goal is to encourage women to see scripture in living color, one blessing after another.

As I said, I get inspiration from nuggets of nature and snippets of life where I see God has tucked in a tidbit of Himself for us to know Him better.  You know, my meatloaf is best when I can’t taste the individual ingredients, but just a great little loaf of compact flavor. Life’s just better blended with God’s gems of scripture to bring out the full flavor. That’s pretty much what my blog has been from the start. I’ve never been too structured. Hey, what farmer’s wife can be? You have to be flexible in our house. In my core, I much prefer schedule, structure, and security. But if I depended on those, I’d be in a wad most of the time. So, I have to be able to throw those out too, from time to frequent time.

So goodbye, Monday Musings. It may be a while, or it may be the next week. I just ain’t- a -gonna wrap myself all up in it. I get a lot of pleasure in my simple meatloaf Mondays with laundry and cards, and no, I don’t think I need a counselor about that….it just feels good to throw out the popular, overworked ideas of what is expected – at least one day a week.

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” Colossians 3:23