new habits

"You have to take Mondays offsite,

so you can get your Sunday message written."

Strong advice given to me before I even arrived here, and reiterated last week. I didn't follow that advice the first couple of weeks, mostly because I didn't have an "offsite" place to go, and I wanted to see "onsite" before going "offsite". But realizing that habits form quickly, and a day dedicated to study and prep is invaluable by all accounts, I determined to start following the pattern this week.

I spent the first half of the day in a food court, typing away while my coffee got cold. When I started, the place was mostly empty, but a few hours later people were taking the extra chairs from my table, as the mall filled up with holiday shoppers. I eventually caved in to the guilt I felt for taking up a table for several hours with a single coffee, plus I needed a change of venue, so I packed my stuff up and moved on, munching a sandwich as I went.

Walked several blocks to a nearby library that Spike and I had discovered on the weekend. It was the exact opposite of the food court – silence reigned supreme.

Until someone picked up their phone too quickly, triggering Siri,

who said loudly, "I'm sorry. I didn't quite hear what you said,"

while her owner scrambled to turn it off. 

The crowd there was made up of a whole lot of senior citizens ... and me. 

Until the nearby high school let out

and two teenage girls came in.

I'm sure they believed they were silent

as they whispered and giggled nonstop across the table from me.

I worked until my laptop died. Went home to where Spike had supper waiting, and then worked a little bit more in the evening. Kept track of my hours on my phone's timer, just so I would know.

Tuesday was straight through meetings, as it is every week. In between, little conversations and unforeseen tasks, and at the end a whispered prayer of thanks for the advice that had me offsite the day before. 

I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep it that way.