I saw your lights on at 530 when I arrived at school this morning, couldn’t sleep? She asked.
No, I said I get up at early most mornings I said
She snorted. What could you possibly do that means you have to get up that early.
Sigh, let the recital begin.
I don’t have anyone to give me a hand. My husband is at work. My parents don’t live here, and I don’t want to wear out my friendships with my friends and I’m also the only child of farming parents so I wake early; its part of my DNA.
I wake early sometimes a little later depending on whether I have slept with an epileptic starfish of a child. Sometimes it’s 5 am give or take a few minutes; either way it’s dark. I shuffle my way to the kitchen where I turn on my connection to the outside world the TV and my internet. I boil the jug for my coffee to have some toast with far too much butter and even more peanut butter. I don’t believe in moderation when it comes to butter. I will sit and wait for the caffeine to hit me before I start comprehending what has happened in the world overnight from the Qantas edition news and my ever faithful Facebook.
530am I will see my neighbours lights flicker on and know it’s safe for me to head out to walk my dogs. My neighbours will sit on their veranda that overlooks my home and watch my children sleep so I can walk the dogs instead of them chewing everything in site. I have four dogs so not to walk them would be costly. The dogs and I walk for 40 minutes before getting back and hanging the washing I had put on the night before.
I will write my blog until the boy’s wake that is usually 7 am before we start the breakfast and getting ready for school routine. How smoothly this runs depends on how tired I am and on a good day the boys will ask for a hot breakfast and on a good day the boys will get one. As they get older there are more hot breakfast. It’s also when husband calls and we get seven minutes to spill the happenings of the previous day.
School runs are done by 915, and I head to the gym until 1030, unless it’s swimming laps with B1 or I have school. Keeping healthy is important to me if I’m not healthy then none of this gets done. I treat it as a must keep an appointment. Usually when I am at the gym, my brain is consumed by what I need to do. I will then sit in the car before leaving and write my list in my iPhone.
The next four and half hours see’s me being Martha Stewart or working at the highschool 9-3. Highschool days are different things are more screamy like. I run my home like a business. Usually this is done with enthusiasm and but sometimes it’s accompanied by random thoughts of how different my life is to what I thought it I would be. These thoughts usually occur as I am cleaning pee off the toilet floor because apparently that hole in the toilet is not big enough. It’s also at this point I wonder if I have brushed my teeth put deodorant on or done my hair and I usually say two out of three ain’t bad.
However, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I love my life as much as its dripping with sarcasm I do. I like being a ‘Martha’ and CEO of my company called home. The pee, however, is whole other post. It’s also somewhere along here I start and finish dinner, so all I have to do is reheat especially if we have appointment or activities following.
3 pm is school pickup, and it’s a flurry of afternoon tea, making of lunch boxes, homework and activities. If we head out, we are home by 515, and we eat by 545pm. We head out most days be it to the park or an activity it fills in the in-between times. I dread the day we get home later because I like early dinners. It’s a control issue I like to think of it as a quirk my husband says it’s OCD.
The boys will do their dishes and start bedtime routine while I feed the zoo that we own and put the chickens to bed- yes I do- it’s currently saving my rooster from being dinner. The boys are in bed by 7.30 pm; usually. I read with them then lie individually with them, and we chat about their day. Most is done in a screaming manner to say anything else would be a lie.
At this point, I start my whole shuffling routine its almost 8.30 pm I shower, curse or smile at what I see in the mirror; then put the laundry on for the next day. I then make a de- cafe coffee that I only make because it’s routine. I never drink it as I sit on the couch and channel surf or write.
For me, bedtime is 9.30 pm before the whole shuffle routine starts again.
I have tried getting up later 6 am but I end up in a war zone more so in my head. My house is a mess; I’m a mess as I try and balance what is important to me, and for me it includes a 430am start. You do what you got to do and some days none of this gets done..none. My world implodes and I have learnt the hard way just to go back to bed after the kids have gone and start again.
ps 430 is my time and never compare yourselves to others..some get up early some stay up late ..I am not a night owl I am a mother hen short fat and kind of feathery picking away just as the sun rises..
xxDeb
{Image with thanks to here content is original by Deb Russo}
