Spring forward when you fall back

 Habits for a Happy Mom  4 Responses »
Nov 062010
 

I am excited about turning back the clocks tonight…and not because I get an extra hour of sleep.   I am going to go about my business as usual. Going to bed at my normal time, and on Monday morning, I’ll be able to get up an hour earlier without feeling like it’s an hour earlier.  What the gift of an extra hour will bring!  A longer quiet time, time to do a few little chores, a shower :)

I started the school year off getting up and at it and slowly slid until I had lost about an hour. Being 7 months pregnant might have something to do with that.  I have missed having that extra time in the morning before the day slams into me. I used the time change last year to get back in the groove and it was wonderful.

So how about you? Could you use an extra hour in the morning?  What would you do with it?

PS ~ the kids will also be up earlier, so they might get to stay up a little later Saturday and Sunday to balance that out ;)

A Morning Routine part three

 Habits for a Happy Husband  4 Responses »
Nov 092009
 

Hubby has been sent off to work with a warm breakfast, the dishwasher is unloaded, the coffee is brewed. The next step in my morning is personal quiet time. I’ve already discussed that in detail in an earlier post, so I’ll move on to the final step. This one, honestly, is the most difficult for me. I’m much more likely to skip right over this one than any of the others.

For those of you that know me personally, this may be hard to guess, but I am a bit of a tomboy. I don’t really like to shop, I don’t get goo-goo eyes at a new pair of shoes, and I am not usually current on the latest fashion. This is probably one of the reasons God blessed me with all boys. We’re a good match. I have a hard time seeing the point of spending half my morning standing in front of the mirror primping. If I’m going to be cleaning toilets and wiping bottoms all day, does it really matter what I look like?

But the truth is, it really does. When I send hubby out into the world, he is spending the whole day with women who are dressed in nice clothes, their hair is styled, make up is on, and I’m willing to bet they don’t smell like the Diaper Genie.  Now I am in no way excusing workplace affairs, or affairs of any kind for that matter. All I’m saying is, I don’t need to make it so tempting for him!

Again, to be honest, I don’t fit this into my morning routine every day. Probably 3 days out of the work week I am in the bathroom with the make up and hair supplies toward the end of the little one’s afternoon nap. But I am working on it. My incentive for this one, like the coffee reward at the end of unloading the dishwasher, is to put off any time on the computer until after I’ve made myself presentable. I haven’t taken that step yet, but I know that as soon as I commit to that I won’t ever miss that step again :)

A Morning Routine, part two

 Housekeeping Habits  7 Responses »
Oct 262009
 

I’m finding it a little ironic that I’m sitting here writing about my morning routine on a day when everything has gone awry. There was some mishap with the alarm clock and we woke up an hour and a half late. So this morning, hubby’s breakfast consisted of a couple extra snacks thrown into his lunch bag and a cup of tea to go. It was a good reminder to me that before I go on any further with these posts, I need to clarify that this is by no means a perfect system. This is the ideal for me. This is the way it works when everything goes as it should. But there are plenty of days when we are late, plenty of days when life happens and things don’t work out the way I want. Also, I don’t expect that the things I do will work for everyone. I established this routine based on several years of trial and error. Most of the things that have worked their way into my morning routine have gotten there because of some recurring struggle. Today’s habit is no exception. Continue reading »

A Morning Routine, part one

 Habits for a Happy Husband  8 Responses »
Oct 192009
 

I have been inspired by Kerri’s multi-part, What’s For Dinner?, so for the next few weeks I’ll be writing about the morning routine. Today, I’ll start with a story…

My husband and I were married fairly young – I was nineteen and he was twenty-two. Back in those early days when it was just the two of us, I would get up every morning and make breakfast and the two of us would sit and eat together before he left for work. It was wonderful.

milkAbout two and a half years into our marriage, four months or so after our first child was born, that beautiful sweet baby boy who had been sleeping through the night since we brought him home from the hospital decided it was time to give mom a reality check and start waking up every hour and a half at night. There was one morning in particular when I crawled back into bed for the 5th time at around 5:30. Not long after I was happily sleeping, my husband’s alarm went off and he got up for work. I didn’t budge. I heard him shaving and getting dressed. Still didn’t budge. A short while later, dear hubby walks to my side of the bed and says “are you going to make breakfast?” Continue reading »