Morning started a little early for me today.
Today is already a weird day. And it’s only 4:45am. Where does that leave me for the next 16+ hours?
First of all – I woke up around 3:30am. WIDE AWAKE. Sometimes this happens when I have loads of stuff to do, I’ll wake up thinking about deadlines at the office or dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Today – however – isn’t one of those days. There’s not a lot looming ahead of me today that requires my urgent attention. So, what was on my mind keeping me wide awake first thing this morning?
Picture frames in my house. There are a few I’ve been meaning to trade pictures out of for a few weeks now. I woke up thinking Man. You’re a dumbass. You sent pictures to be printed at Target yesterday and forgot to include some for those empty frames around the house. Those damn things are never going to be filled.
Yes. Because that is an urgent issue that should definitely be thought about at three thirty in the freakin’ morning. My mind is a scary place.
So – after trying to get myself back to sleep unsuccessfully for 30 minutes – I got up and showered. That – me showering – is another weird thing about today. Since I don’t wash my hair, I don’t shower in the mornings that often. Therefore, me showered and up by 4am? VERY WEIRD.
And the final weird thing about this morning? I’m not too sore. I had my first day with Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred yesterday. I finally jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone else is trying it, why shouldn’t I? I finally did it yesterday and am pleasantly surprised to find myself not-to-sore today. Although, I’m kinda disappointed because I didn’t want to do it again today and was hoping I’d be too sore to try. Looks like I’ll have to either (a) find a different excuse or (b) do it again. Me? Excercising two days in a row? Goes against all of the unhealthy habits I’ve been working on the last few months. I’m not sure if I can break that much indoctrination.
Of course – if anyone can make me, it’s Jillian Michaels.
In honor of my strange morning – I’d like to hear about your morning rituals. What is the one thing that you do EVERY morning. Do you have to shower first thing to feel awake? (That’s my husband.) Do you eat breakfast every morning? Do chores? Excercise? (If you answered “yes” to that last one, you are no friend of mine.) (Okay. We can still be friends, but will you show me your ways?) Maybe you’re just happy if you make it out of your pajamas sometime before lunch. (If that’s you? We can be total BFFs.) I’m just curious what things go into your morning ritual. I’d like to see where I fall on the scale of “normal” – although I don’t think it’s safe to assume that anyone reading my blog would fall into the category of “normal” – right?
Since I get up with the baby while my husband showers, our routine is something like breakfast, bottle, then my shower, get ready then leave. but once I get to the office, my real much needed ritual begins. I always open my email first and check work related things. Then I go through my: hotmail, facebook, flickr, digg, and then all my bookmarked blogs.
My morning routine? That’s a joke… the only day it stays the same is when I’m going to work. Up at 6:45-7:00, straight to the shower, dress, dry my hair, out the door hopefully by 7:20 at the latest. Make-up goes on at work… Now weekends?? Totally different story! There’s no telling when I’ll get up! And you’re lucky to get me showered before my husband starts home from work!
Lately it’s shower, then a multitask of nursing while drinking coffee and going through my Google reader and returning email. I drink decaf and have for many months, but the coffee taste and smell still helps wake me up. I set the coffee up the night before. I don’t want to commit to setting the timer to make the coffee at a certain time, so I just set it up to where all I have to do in the morning is push the on button. I don’t usually eat breakfast unless it’s a weekend or I don’t have to be anywhere early in the morning. When I do eat breakfast, it’s All-Bran flakes with vanilla soy milk or steel-cut oats with raisins, craisins, and flax seeds.
I am the morning routine queen. The goal is for everyone out of the house at 7:20, and it looks like this:
6:20 alarm – I jump in the shower and then get dressed. I run downstairs and turn the kettle on and open the blinds. Back upstairs to wake up the kid and change diaper, get him dressed. Wake up husband, who stumbles to the shower. The kid and I eat breakfast (oatmeal with pecans and blueberries) and I unload the dishwasher and put clothes in the dryer and pack lunches and often take meat out to thaw or otherwise prep dinner. At 7:18 my husband stumbles downstairs, grabs a yogurt, and we all walk out the door.
If one single thing changes, it’s all a disaster.
I have terrible insomina. From the age of nine until the end of 2007, I average 4 hours a night if I was lucky. Since the beginning of 2008, I’ve gone several consecutive days with no sleep and I’m lucky if I sleep one hour.
Morning ritual:
Awake by 1:00 a.m. or earlier and watch TV
Get up at 1:30 a.m.
Drink something
Shower & dress
Catch the 2:20 a.m. bus
Catch the 2:32 a.m. subway
Enter office between 3:30 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.
Get coffee and ice water, sometimes eat something
Start working and reading blogs
Are you still awake?
Okay, only five comments in and I’m feeling very inspired by some of your morning rituals/schedules. Maybe I should reshape my own.
P.S. After reading Elizabeth’s comment, I feel compeled to admit that I MUST shower and dress left to right and bottom to top every day or it throws me off.
My morning routine is relatively easy. Get up, shower, hair first, then make-up. Out to the kitchen to feed the cats, and grab a yogurt. Plop down in front of the computer, and go through emails, weather, news, and blogs, in that order.
Then it’s off to work with a quick stop at 7-11 on the way to grab coffee. I know, I know, I could make it cheaper at home, but I’ve been going to the same store since I was an undergrad and they know me there. Plus their coffee is better then anything I could ever make.
I wear makeup EVERY SINGLE DAY. I can’t think of the last time I haven’t put on makeup.
I definitely have to shower first, or I don’t feel awake. I also tend to stomp around a bitch in the morning. This usually subsides by like 9am, but it’s hell on my bf while we get ready.
I also have to pause once out of the shower and sit on the floor *in my robe with a towel around my head* and love on our cat burt. He’s the one of the three that’s the most cuddly (and all three are RIDICULOUS with the cuddles), and needs lots of love in the morning.
You and I can totally be BFFs – I am very lucky if I make it entirely through my admittedly easy morning routine:
Wake up. Good morning breastpump! Pump, clean pump, pack pump bag for office. Get in shower, makeup, dress, hair (bonus points if I actually dry my hair! The flatiron lies lonely in the drawer, wishing).
Get the baby up, change diaper and dress her, warm bottle, feed baby, play a bit, pack milk into dayhome bag, play a bit.
Load car, drive to dayhome, drop baby girl off. Drive to office, log onto network, check work email. Make hot chocolate, read zoot!
And that’s a wrap.
Morning ritual for the work week…
Get up, shower, dress, catch the bus to work.
Once at work, turn on PC, make myself a latte, start up apps, check e-mail; read blogs, do crossword puzzle on net while I drink my coffee, then start the real work.
Morning ritual for weekend…
Get up at some point during the day. (everything else is optional)
I’m a coffee first kind of gal. I turn on the TV for Fuller, get him breakfast, and then sit at the computer for a few hours. Somewhere in there I get a shower/ bath and get dressed.
Somedays we stay home all day and others we take D to the office around 10. After that it is less routine and more of an up in the air thing.
I have to shower in the morning. On the mornings that I don’t? I don’t feel quite awake. Since I changed jobs my ritual has changed a bit. I have 3 alarms set because I am afraid I won’t wake up in time. Now? When I wake up…I watch a few minutes of Mad About You on TV Land….then jump in the shower. As I am getting dressed and putting on makeup (something I didn’t bother with until the new job) I watch Designing Women. I then rush out of the house hopefully remembering to grab food for breakfast/lunch. I then usually curse out the streetcar that is passing my stop as I am still a block away. I am kinda glad to have the streetcar ride again in the morning. I have a book with me and get a lot of reading done in the 50 min ride and it sorta gets me ready for the day!
What is this Jillian Michaels thing and how can I be a follower as well???
I feel very share-y today, so I might as well tell you about my supremely interesting morning routine. Wake up at 5:50, snooze til 6:15 or 6:20. Frantically dart out of bed, cussing myself for sleeping those extra minutes AGAIN. Put on clothes (but not shoes) and go to the bathroom. Brush teeth. (Try to remember to wash face, take calcium, floss, but those things rarely happen.) Walk to kitchen and open door for the dog’s leash. The dog pads in and stretches while I put on my shoes. I take her for a short walk and come back in and fill her food and water dishes. Depending on time, this is where I either grab and eat or pack my breakfast, and check my bag to make sure I have my car keys, wallet, ID, sunglasses, chapstick, and cell phone. Stand in the middle of the kitchen running through a mental checklist to see if I forgot anything. If it’s a sports day, I run back to the bedroom and grab all my gym gear and cleats and whatnot and throw that in my bag, too. I look at the dog and say, “Be good, I’ll be back.” Then I walk out and lock the door. It’s almost a science by now, and if something messes up my routine I am GRUMPY. I generally cut it so close I end up eating breakfast at my desk while I read your website, Amalah, and Ree at ThePioneerWoman to start off my morning at work.
I don’t have much of a morning routine now, because I don’t have to rush out the door for work. Of paramount importance: coffee, immediately, as soon as I wake up. (Well, as soon as I roll out of bed, which is usually no later than 7 or 7:15. This morning we all pretty much woke up at 5, but we went to bed early last night so it’s okay…) I drink coffee and read the entire Internet whilst kiddo wanders around playing.
My only morning ritual is to brush my teeth and wash my face. I can’t feel awake without those two things, but showers – pshaw. They’re overrated. I also must sleep as late as possible every morning so I can feel properly rushed.
I’m such a boring person that I’ve had the same boring routine for years. Up, Coffee, Make & eat breakfast, read the newspaper online, Chores that include sweeping & spot mopping linoleum, cleaning toilets, vacuuming all the carpets, dusting. Then I get dressed, and walk 6 miles every week day morning at a local cemetery (I know, kind of creepy, but its paved, safe, and a peaceful beautiful place). While I am out I run errands, and such.
Since I became a mom, the one constant of my morning routine seems to be RUSHING OUT THE DOOR. Our schedule varies everyday and I always seem to be running late! I try to get up extra early 3 days a week and run, which stinks while I am doing it, but on those days, I feel good all day and my day goes a lot smoother. I WISH I could make myself do it everday.
@Maria: That insomnia sounds absolutely awful! There is no way to fix it? I am totally intrigued.
Also: I am up at 6AM (weekdays) shower, coffee, (bad person here) smoke, dry hair, makeup, iron hair.
Ugh. I am SO not a morning person, so this whole up and at ‘em at 3:30? Floors me. First things first, I have to take the dog out to pee. We don’t have a yard, so this means I have to find pants (don’t like to sleep with pants on), find the leash, and get the dog to calm the freak down. Then I have my coffee. Then I surf the net for a few minutes before shower/prep for work time.
No matter HOW early I get going, I never seem to make it out the door before 8:45. Even if I cut out web time.
I don’t comment often, but since I’m so tired this morning it felt appropriate!
I set my alarm for at least one hour before I have to be up and hit snooze over and over. I get up at the one hour snooze mark. Luckily my husband sleeps right through–he only wakes to his own alarm.
I immediately shower to feel awake. Then, I crawl back into my PJ’s and go back to bed and watch whatever sitcom is on (right now it’s Bernie Mac or Spin City). This lets my hair air dry for a while, cuts WAY down on my blow drying. I read blogs and e-mail on my phone, then I fix my hair, make-up, and get dressed last. I rarely eat breakfast though I always wish I did.
I don’t know why this works for me, but it has since high school. Once we have kids, I know it will change…but for now I enjoy having a lot of downtime in the morning and if I don’t get it (like this morning) I’m off for the whole day.
I work from home so I’m lucky if I ever get out of my PJs. Just kidding. since my son has HOME therapy twice a week, things happen either 1 of 2 ways:
get up about 5ish and get LilB to either go back to sleep, sleep with us, or if he really seems up, put him down to play. then I got back to sleep until 6:40 or just lay in bed until then. I get up for my first work call and am done at 7:15. then I feed LilB and hopefully make coffee or tea for myself. let the dog out, take out the trash. then I usually get on another call at 7:45. if it’s a therapy day I’ll clean, clean, clean, otherwise I do therapy with LilB or if I’m feeling lazy I just lay down on the floor with him in front of the tv and play with him.
that’s the thing that sucks about working from home. I don’t really have a set routine. I kind of miss that because sometimes I forget to do everyday things like brush my teeth. I hate that.
I am a college student so the morning ritual is VERY important in order for me to roll out of bed.
I set the alarm for 7:40 knowing I can thus hit snooze at LEAST two times at ten minutes a piece. Which I usually do. Then, at 8:03 (because it takes 3 minutes to convince myself, “Yes, your job and your classes require your attendance”) I roll out of bed and immediately go to the restroom. Crank up the music, shower, and maybe a piece of toast gets aimed my way because now I’m running late and the rest of the morning is a hurried activity.
I think I ussally stagger out of bed, splash some water on my face, change bubs diaper and get him milk. Then I get dressed and out the door, after personal hygene needs. I am reading everybody comments and thinking i need a much better routiune in the mornings! Yikes!
The baby usually wakes between 5-6 am to eat. So I nurse her, then get up and do hair and minimal makeup. Check the baby if she hasn’t woken yet, and feed her. Then get oldest DD up and going. DH wakes up and starts his shower/shave routine. Baby hangs out or is sleeping while I get the morning bags packed: my pump & accessories, lunch for me that day, and the diaper bag w/ bottles for baby. I do pack as much up as I can the night before so I just add the “needs to be refrigerated” stuff the next morning. Oh, I also shower the night before.
After feeding the baby I get dressed, get her dressed, and check on the oldest to make sure she’s up and attempting to look decent.
Throw everything in the car, double check it, and hit the road. Drop them both off at daycare and head to work. DD1 has b’fast at school and I eat once I get to the office…usually a cereal bar or something. Then I log on, check my work email, then login to my gmail & check it plus all my feed reader stuff. By this time it’s usually 8am so I’m good to go.
1. Roll over and go back to sleep after DD kisses me bye and she and DH head out to wait for the bus.
That’s the only thing is ever the same. I’m pathetic …
6:45 – 7:15 hit snooze
7:15 – 7:30 wake up, shower, wash hair, shave
7:30 – 7:45 put on makeup, brush teeth, get dressed
7:45 – 8:00 dry & straighten hair
8:00 – 8:15 make coffee, pack lunch, feed dogs
8:15 out the door
If I didn’t have a strict schedule to follow, I’d never make it out the door!
I don’t think there is any one thing I do every morning except make coffee and get the kids ready for school on school days. When I worked fulltime, I did take a shower every morning but now I just take the kids to school unshowered and scruffy.
Rituals? In the morning? Really depends on how many times I have pressed the snooze button.
Ideally, I get up first (after only one snooze press) and get the coffee started. I then go for a walk or rebound, get some water and coffee, and take a shower. I listen to NPR, eat breakfast, get dressed, and then check on the baby. If she’s awake we change diaper, play, start breakfast for her, and wake up daddy. Then, I head to work.
But, today? Jump out of bed, do not shower (though it is way past time) throw on some clothes, do not even get coffee, run out the door and forget deodorant. Arrive to work late.
How’s that for a routine?
And who is Jillian Michaels? She should whip me into shape.
I need orange juice the way other people need coffee, so the first thing I do every morning is pour myself a huge glass. After I drink that, I usually make myself breakfast (cereal or toast) and a mug of cocoa. Ideally, I’m the first one up, so I can sit outside and enjoy my cocoa in peace, or I can check my email and read blogs without my husband teasing me about being addicte
I need orange juice the way other people need coffee, so the first thing I do every morning is pour myself a huge glass. After I drink that, I usually make myself breakfast (cereal or toast) and a mug of cocoa. Ideally, I’m the first one up, so I can sit outside and enjoy my cocoa in peace, or I can check my email and read blogs without my husband teasing me about being addicted to the internet or my daughter wanting me to act like a good mom and pay attention to her.
I wake up without an alarm clock between 4:30 & 5:30 a.m. every day. Sometimes one of the dogs will wake my up earlier because it needs to go outside to pee. In the summer I have to leave for work at 6:30 … wintertime 7:30. In the downtime between when we get up and when I feed the dogs, I either get on the computer or curl back up in bed with the dogs to watch the morning news.
My routines are: put the dogs outside, give them a snackie, shower (I don’t wash my hair either but I wet it daily), brush my teeth, and untangle my hair. About 30 minutes before I have to leave for work, the dogs get fed. Twenty minutes after that they go outside again (to poop) while I get dressed. I don’t dare get dressed earlier than that because my pug that liquid farts and sheds a lot likes to sit on my lap in the morning.
The few minutes before I have to leave on the days when I take the dogs to their sitter get a little crazy. They race around the house like maniacs because they love going to their sitter and I have to chase them down to put their leashes on them. Then they pull me out the door to the car.
First thing I do? Turn off the alarm and/or cat. (Often one and the same, sadly.) Stumble out of bed and turn on the computer on my way to the bathroom where I entertain a kitten for a few minutes, brush my teeth, etc. Then I tend to quickly check my e-mail, get dressed as I do so, run around attempting to grab everything I need for the day, then maybe remember to grab breakfast and/or lunch, and leave the house.
Our morning rituals are a well corographed routine. We have two bathrooms but only one shower and four of us that need to use it and be out the door by 7:00 or 7:30.
I’m up first, at 5:30- shower, dry hair. Then husband gets up and showers. He has his coffee maker set to start going while he’s in the shower. While he is showering I am moisturizing and deciding what to wear. When he’s done Connor gets in the shower. I check my e-mail, pack my gym bag, pack my lunch. Husband fixes connors lunch and his own lunch and eats breakfast. We both feed dogs and cats. When connor gets out of the shower the bathroom is mine again to do make up and hair, put in contacts, brush teeth. Husband is getting ready in half bath. Connor eats and brushes teeth and he and I are out the door at 7:00. Older son gets up and gets ready for class. He and mike are out the door by 7:30. If someone if off on the routine or sleeps in- it all goes to hell!
I always set my alarm earlier then I want to wake up because I can’t get out of bed right away so I need time to get out of bed. I also set it earlier then I need to because I like to get ready really slow.
If my husband is home and not deployed (Air Force), I get up at 6am and get in the shower first while he takes care of our dogs and cats. By the time I’m done in the shower, he’s ready to hop in. Then by the time I’m done getting ready, my girls are up and downstairs, watching tv on our bed. Then the girls and I go eat breakfast while my hubby finishes getting ready and leaves (he’s not hungry first thing in the morning, which, WHAT? I wake up hungry.) for work. After that our routine kinda falls apart, I have to remember to get the girls upstairs to brush teeth and then we usually do school (oldest is in Kindergarten) by 8am. If my husband is gone, I still get up at 6 or 6:30, just have to take care of everyone myself. It takes a little longer but doesn’t matter. Oh, and I have to read the paper. Even if I can’t read past the front page because of time, I still have to read the paper.
My morning routine goes something like this…
go to bed at 3am. Wake up whenever.
Until I get a job…*sigh*