the best monday of all the mondays.

It is no secret at this point that Monday is my favorite day of the week, since I kind of can't shut up about it.  Mondays offer a fresh start, a 'back-to-reality' return to the relative calm and stability that 'normal' offers.  I am never better rested and more ready to get to the task of real life than I am on Monday mornings.  And yesterday was not only a Monday, it was also January 1.  Talk about a great Monday. 

While I've always liked the fresh start of a brand new year, and have been what could be called a Realistic Linearist, with a clear understanding that the choices I'm currently making will inevitably lead me somewhere, I've never been an Optimistic Striver Toward Things, which meant that some of the gleam of the new year was frequently lost on me.  But last year I allowed hope to spring eternal, rather than simply acknowledge that realism puddles at the bottom of the hill, and I caught the goal-setting bug.

So now I find myself to be not only a lover of Monday Present, but a lover of Monday Yet to Come.  And I'm wet-my-pants giddy at the idea that fifty-two more Mondays stretch out before me this year, just waiting to be conquered.  So I'm making plans to do just that: to allow this year's weeks and days to count for something, and to know that what I do in this upcoming year could be used to shape who I am at the end of my life, and even how well I die.  If that's not a cheery thought to you, then you need to drink the New-Years-Was-On-A-Monday Kool-Aid.

I'm wanting to get a good start on the year by diving into this month head-first.  I don't have any hard-and-fast resolutions set yet for the year, but I do have some positive goals set for the month, like:

1.  Blog each weekday in January.  (I realize the irony of posting this goal on January 2, after not having blogged yesterday, but I'm okay with my choices and would gladly roll my eyes at you and make mocking gestures if you want to pick a fight about it.)

2.  Have weekly meetings with Todd to sync our calendars, budget, lives.  More on this to come.

3.  Complete another round of Whole30.  I'm one day in and have been mostly successful so far.

4.  Keep on reading books.  I'll go into more detail later about the number and quality of books I read last year, but I can tell you now that I read more books in 2017 than I've ever before read in a single year.  And I can tell.  I feel like the wheels in my head spin a little faster, a little more often, and a little less like they're rolling through cottage cheese than they used to, which I consider a win.

I have so much to tell you (which is good, if I'm planning to log more writing days this month), but this post is already long and I'm starting to get the too-much-enthusiasm shakes and resultant spittle at the corners of my mouth.  So for now, I'll leave you with this photo, and the promise that I'll be back tomorrow to tell you more about my reading goals for January (and beyond).