Monday Night Dinner

I brainstormed for a good 20 minutes about what this post should be titled.  I had all these fancy-shmancy titles that would make you either be really impressed with my use of the English language or make you want to vomit.  Ergo.  I threw in the towel and called it what it's really about:  Monday Night Dinner.

Back-story.

Five years ago I graduated from Tabor College, Daniel and I got married, and we moved to Topeka.  We intended to be here only two years as I fulfilled a scholarship requirement.  Well, three years after those two years were up, we're still here.  And we're not planning on moving anywhere else anytime soon.

More back-story.

When I started applying for jobs as a baby teacher, I was really only looking in the Kansas City and Wichita areas.  The year I was looking, it was so hard for teachers to find jobs because many districts were in hiring freezes.  Topeka was NOT where I wanted to be, but it was the only place that called me back in a timely manner.  When the offer was given to me in March of 2010, I quickly said yes and Daniel began looking for jobs in the area.  He found a job commuting to Lawrence we began the process of finding an apartment and moving our things to Topeka.

Even more back-story.

One of Daniel's sisters and her family lived in San Diego at this time.  We had been out to visit them several times and always had a jolly-good time with them.  They had lived in Topeka for several years before Brett's company transferred him to San Diego.  Desiring to return to Kansas to be closer to family, his company finally moved them back to Topeka.

We all literally moved to Topeka within one week of each other.  I can't make this stuff up.

Quick recap:
I didn't want to live in Topeka.  We moved to Topeka in June of 2010.
Brett and Tammy had wanted to move back for years.  They returned in June of 2010.

So it's June 2010.  We all live in Topeka now.  Daniel and I don't have cable at our apartment but Brett and Tammy do.  It's Monday night.  The Bachelor is on.  I bet you see where this is going.  We decide that we should probably gather at B&T's apartment to watch.  Well, I use "we" loosely.  I can't remember what the guys did, but I'm pretty positive their desire to watch did not match ours.

That's how it all began.  The Bachelor started at 7, so we decided it would only make sense to eat dinner together before the watching commenced.

Fast forward five years, we have our Monday Night Dinners down to a science.

We take turns hosting.  We gather around 6.  When it's your turn to host, you do everything.  Plan the meal, prepare the meal, host the meal, and clean up the meal.  Occasionally one of us has something extra to bring (Tammy is hosting this week's MND but I happen to have some dessert to contribute), but it's never expected.

So all that's good and fun.  But my real point of this post is to encourage you to be intentional with those you love.  In the five years since we started the ritual of MND, we can count on one hand the number of times we've cancelled.  That's how precious it is to us.  Don't get me wrong, we don't do fancy.  We have eaten leftovers.  We've eaten freezer meals.  And we've ordered pizza.  The point isn't the food (even though we all LOVE us some food).  The point is the community.

Sometimes we have lots to say and joke about needing a list of things to talk about to ensure that we don't miss anything.  Other times we don't have much to say.  Basically, we do life together.  Between the two families, there are four adults (duh) and 5 rambunctious little boys.  Sometimes the boys are the definition of hilarious.  Other times they've had a case of the Mondays.  But guys, it just doesn't matter.  We're spending time together.  And Daniel and I are learning oodles about what it means to be a parent.  You can't put a price on that.

We eat a lot of Mexican.  It just works for our crew.  Most of the time I don't prepare a dessert.  But the boys know where I keep the marshmallows, so that's their treat.  And they're happy even when their treat, which should be soft as a pillow, is hard as a rock.  Memories, people.  We're creating memories.

We laugh together.  A lot.  And we've shed our fair share of tears.  Brett and Tammy walked with us as we fumbled through our early twenties trying to figure out what life after college should look like.  We've walked with them as they've brought three baby boys home from the hospital (including one set of twins!).

Only one of the five boys is old enough to know that we eat together on Mondays, but since this trend will continue as long as we're all in Topeka, I know all of our children will have the fondest of memories from many Monday nights spent in community. 

Take-away:  if there's someone in your geographic area that, when you run into them, you're bound to say something like, "We live so close and we never see each other!" DO something about it.  Mondays are great.  No one likes Mondays, so we've found that having something to look forward to on a Monday makes them not so bad.  Fearful of what your pursuant might say?  Don't worry about it.  Live intentionally.  I promise you'll thank yourself weeks, months, and years from now.