Rise 'N' Shine!

Remember that verse in Proverbs 31 that talks about the woman "rising also while it's yet night"?

Yes.....I remember it too.

I had a terrible time dragging myself out of bed this morning. The clock said 6:00. I knew I had planned to go walking this morning at 6:30. It's my morning routine.

But the light filtering through my window curtains hinted at cloudy skies and dripping leaves. I desperately hoped that it was raining. Then I wouldn't feel bad about rolling over and going back to sleep.

But, of course, to see the weather, I had to get up and go to the window.

Do your eyelids ever feel like they weigh about 30lbs?

Well, I hit the snooze on my alarm.

Once.

Twice.

Okay. Clock says 6:20am.

I rolled over on my back to stare at the ceiling, crossed my arms, and determined not to fall asleep. I turned the alarm off. No more snooze.

For the next ten minutes, I shook my head violently every two minutes, in order to keep myself awake. When the clock said 6:29, I knew I had to get up. So I did. And, by the way, it wasn't raining.

The point of this long-story-on-a-short-subject is to introduce the topic of 'rising in the morning.' I believe early rising is good for a person. I know that I personally get more done if I rise early and...ahem...get busy.

My personal goal is to wake at 5:30 every morning...without my alarm. That may seem like nothing to some people, and ridiculously early to others. I realize that time is relative. To me:
~ anything before 5:00am is early,
~ 5:00-6:30 is rise-n'-shine,
~ 6:30-7:30 is I-needed-some-extra-sleep,
~ 7:30-8:00 is I-can't believe-I-over-slept,
~ 8:00-9:00 is this-only-happens-once-every-two-years,
~ and after 9:00am is I-am-in-the-hospital-dying.


You know what the only problem with my 5:30 goal is? The problem is that I originally was a night owl..."way back" when I was little. I was the only one of my family members to be born at night! Mom says that began it all.

But now my father, who can't seem to sleep past 3:30am, has converted me to loving to be up early.

The problem is, I still have my stay-up-late instinct. And I often can't fall asleep until 11:00 or so. (Okay, so "late" is also relative. In our house, 11:00 is late.)

Do you know what you get when you mix Amber+stay up late+get up early? Well, you get grumpy, sleepy, tired, absent-minded Amber.

So I'm now working on getting to bed somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00. I wish I were one of those people who could survive on 5 hours of sleep, but I'm not. I function best on 8 hours.

I wonder what I'll do someday when I (Lord willing) have children? Getting up in the middle of the night every night will certainly take some getting used to. Good thing I can fall back to sleep quickly! :)


Anyway, this sleepy Amber is off to clean the kitchen. Happy Monday!