I won’t lie, my Mondays are seldom pretty, often long and hectic but, so far, I’ve survived each and every one of them and lived to see another day.

To break it down a bit, no make that a lot… here’s what my typical Mondays look like.

The day begins at an ungodly hour, a few too many before the sun rises these days.  With family yoga practice if it’s raining and a certain Preschooler is up early.

If the weather is good then I’ll be out pounding the bitumen doing sprint drills ahead of the real race of the day begins.  To finish getting myself dressed before Preschooler SSG wakes up and needs to be fed, tooth brushed and dressed for preschool.

I kill time I don’t have over breakfast with a cup of tea and scrolling the socials and feedly on my phone before racing to the shower.  It’s all about the fancy shower gel for me in the morning and super hot water.  You know those ads for shower gels promoting the sense of escape and sanctuary under the shower if only you’d use their product?  That’s how I approach my shower each morning.  In my head at least.

Monday make up is all about the tried and tested for me.  Too Faced Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar is my  Monday go to. It doesn’t matter how heavy a hand I might find myself with, ye old Too Faced Semi-Sweet always delivers and it always forgives.

And trust me, I don’t forget the sunscreen.

That was a nod to Baz in case you’re old enough to remember this clip.  I just relistened to the full clip as I wrote this post and twenty years (!!), the words resonate with me in a way they never could have to my younger, idealistic self.

Somewhere in the middle of my morning toilette, Preschooler SSG may or may not wake up on his own.  I try not to get too overwhelmed about the clock ticking mercilessly onward as we bumble our way through teeth, faces, the toilet, breakfast, and clothes.

Then I sprint back to my bedroom and pick up where I left off on myself.  In my alternate reality, I’d be facing Monday in a pair of statement heels and a power suit…

The reality is that it’s comfort shoes and equally un fashion moment clothes to go with.

With Preschooler SSG safely deposited at preschool, it’s onwards and upwards to the coal face.  Film crew strictly optional.

Mondays at work are generally filled with surprises.  I suppose I shouldn’t be calling them surprises if I can expect and predict them each week but the ‘s’ word is a good generic descriptor of the organized chaos that greets us all on Monday.  It’s the first day back on the wards with the full complement of staff and in addition to catching up with everyone’s progress (we actually aim for stable and boring for everyone over the weekend) from the week before there are all the new admissions from the weekend.  If you actually did the weekend then you’re facing it all just that little bit more tired than everyone else.  But at least you know about everything that went down over the weekend.  Forewarned and forarmed, as they say.

So the day often ends up running away from you as you’re pulled in different directions pretty much until mid afternoon.  We have a late afternoon meeting to end the day which also serves as a debrief / pep talk as we inhale coffees before hitting the road for home.  I’m very fortunate to be a Sydneysider whose peak hour commute runs in the minutes rather than the hours of many of my compatriots.  I’m also pretty lucky to be able to do the whole commute in the comfort of my own car.  

The drive in to work tends to have a soundtrack of work related podcasts.  There was this one time where I actually ran out of podcasts to listen to.  Didn’t take long for a backlog to build up again though.  I’m often a little less bright eyed and bushy tailed on the drive home so commercial, easy listening FM radio it is.

One of the many bonuses of this is that I get to do preschool pick up with plenty of some time to spare.

Preschool is conveniently co-located with our local Woolies which suits my day to day approach to grocery shopping down to a tee.  I make shopping lists that I tend to forget as I go out the door so I always miss something on my list.