Amendment to #3

I haven't given up on the getting up early thingy. Summer officially starts today and I'd like to see some mornings. The 6:30 rising didn't work for me though. Getting up early is no good if the day passes and I never completely exit the hazy fog of sleep. The fact of the matter is I am a night person, I've always been a night person, I will likely always be a night person. Fighting against my nature doesn't help me get anywhere but more exhausted. And more exhaustion, I don't need. Unless I have to be somewhere, I don't set an alarm. I wake up when I wake up. I go to bed when I'm sleepy. When I leave it to nature I go to bed somewhere between 1 and 3, the earlier I go the more I read once I get there, and I wake between 10 and 11, usually about 10 minutes either side of the half hour, 10:20-10:40. Okay, so really, there's nothing wrong with this, I'm getting sleep, I feel rested, I'm getting as many hours of worktime into the day as anyone else, etc. Here's the thing--I actually kinda like mornings too. I like getting stuff done by noon. I like to have evenings to myself to do whatever I want, rather than work. So, I've amended the task from "at 6:30" to "by 7:30." Perhaps I'll have better luck, get closer to where I aspire to be. Maybe I'll start tomorrow . . . maybe I'll wait until Monday. You'll be the first to know.

Task Aborted

Given my workload this week, I felt it necessary to abort the getting up early thing. I don't know if it's the weather or what but I just haven't been able to get my brain cells moving as far as writing or any kind of work goes. I tried switching things up. I tried taking a nap. And it just wasn't happening. Both days my body woke up, but my brain never did. I was getting lots of physical stuff done, but my mind went to mush. So today I decided to go back to letting my body wake me naturally and slept in until the usual 10:30. I feel sharper than I have in days. It's weird. It must be weather related. But I've too much not getting done to mess around with this, this week. I'll try again as soon as I've got some stuff off my plate.

Waking Day #2

So yesterday I did the get up early, go for a walk, eat breakfast thing and quite honestly it didn't work wonders for me. I accomplished very little workwise throughout the day because I was wiped out, fuzzy brain tired, all day. So today I'm going at it a bit differently. I got up early (even earlier than yesterday!) at 6:05. I didn't go for a walk and won't until later in the day. The plan is to go later this afternoon when I feel myself lagging and need a little pick me up. I haven't had breakfast yet because I do find I need an hour or two before I'm hungry. The plan is to check email and do the blogging then taking a break to eat. Hopefully this will work better for me. Because yesterday was truly frustrating, not being able to get my head around the simplest concepts because I was so fogged in. It may have been weather related as well, who knows. Anyway, two days down of early rising! Yay for me!

Waking Day #1

Yesterday I crawled into my bed at 10 pm! Ten! I turned off all the lights and watched The Trailer Park Boys. Then turned off the tv and went to bed. Sleep did not come easy, of course. I tossed and turned. I mulled things over in my head. But I didn't get back up. And I didn't turn on the light. And I kept my eyes closed . . . and eventually I slept. I woke at 3:30 (for me to already have been asleep by 3:30 is some sort of a miracle!) and then I woke again at 4:50. I considered getting up at 5:30. But somehow managed to keep my fat ass in bed and be dreaming when the alarm rang at 6:30. I opted for the 6:30 alarm setting with no snooze. So when my feet hit the floor I was off and running!

I did a small loop around the Waterfowl Park. A 35 minute walk first thing this morning. Ten minutes short to actually count toward my task, so tomorrow I'll try a different loop and see how I do. I returned and made breakfast, which does count toward that task.

Yay me! . . . now I'm ready for a mid-morning nap . . .

De-Cluttering & Stuff

99. Sell, donate, or throw away 101 items.

I have it in my head to do this today. I'll be throwing away, but whether I can get to the 101 items . . . we'll see. I plan to try. You'll be the first to know.

I'm also up for some rug shampooing (#81) very soon. Today or tomorrow is my thought. Perhaps it's too much . . . but I'm feeling energetic and it is the kind of blah day outside where I feel like running around and doing stuff inside.

Monday is still on my calendar as day one of the month-long challenge of early-rising. I'd also like to throw in the breakfast challenge for the same time (because I tend to enjoy and be able to eat breakfast more when I get up early, so it might be easier to do then) and the walking challenge as well. Yes, I know that's a tall, tall order and I should just focus on the one thing . . . but ideally, I mean the real goal, I want to become one of those people who gets up and goes for a walk before breakfast everyday. I want to be one of those women in the cutesy jogging suit, hustling down the sidewalk, pumping a bottle of water in one hand (an ipod would be nice, though not on the list at this time). And of course, achieving this, would be a fantastic step toward the goal of doing a marathon. So it's all connected.

Anyway, nothing's getting tossed with me sitting here in front of the puter.

#3 Plans for getting Up Early

Get up at 6:30 am for one month. Wow! Yowzer! Oy! Can this stay-up-all-night, slow to rise, not a morning person, do this?! I plan to find out very soon. I'm not sure how this is going to work out. I might need a bunch of trial runs before I get a whole month down. So I've been looking at the summer schedule so far (getting up early in summer might be more lovely than the darkness of winter) and I think I should try to squeeze in a month of early-rising starting right after Trish's visit next weekend and ending just before Mom and all come to visit me in July. Because of course my chances of failing, of falling off the plan, of sleeping until 8 or 9 anyway, increase dramatically when I've got guests, especially if we're staying up late. So the countdown begins to my first attempt on this one. Lifting off on June 12th and running until the 12th of July (is that Jason's birthday?) Should I set the alarm for 6:30 exactly and count on getting right up? Or should I set it for 6:15'ish so I can do the snooze thing and ease into getting up? Keep in mind that I do have to get out of the bed in order to hit snooze or turn off the alarm as the clock is on my dresser at the foot of my bed. Strategies anyone?