You’re driving when suddenly you realize it’s Saturday, and instead of going in the direction of the new restaurant to meet your friend, you’re headed along the route you take to work Monday through Friday.

We are creatures of habit. That’s why I took Tuesday off.

Crazy, I know. What will she do next?

It totally threw me off. I slept until 7. I forgot to put out the garbage. I heard the first Tuesday of the month tornado test siren and panicked.

And I took my daughters to the beach. For once we got the perfect spot at the foot of the small dune, the spot that’s always nabbed before we get there on Saturday.

It’s not like I don’t mix it up on a regular basis. I try a different hole in the wall restaurant, visit the quaint town along the interstate, and pursue new ventures. Although there is a comfort, even necessity, in schedules, those daily planner time slots can become the bars of a cage.

Last week I received an email from one of the professors at the college where I work thanking me for my “good, patient, and beautiful work.” I replied that I took such words to heart.

“You should,” he responded. “Good work should come with everyday-type deserved accolades to counter the dulling insipidity that sometimes seeps around the edges.”

Dulling insipidity. Wow, dulling dullness. It happens.

I told him that quote was cubicle wall worthy. Ah, displaying a quote about dullness in a cubicle. Not that “good work” doesn’t happen there. It happens. But cubicles–and schedules and habits–don’t always lend themselves to inspiration.

Sand does. And dark blue water meeting light blue sky. And not living for the weekends, but living for Tuesdays instead.

Have you done something new this week? Big or small, it all counts.