Waking up before sunrise feels manly.
In September, I started an "early to work" regimen during my thesis writing. At the time, this allowed me to work for 12 hours a day and still be home for dinner before the kids went to sleep. I can’t say many positive things about the 3 months that followed other than, I got a tremendous amount of work done in a short period of time. In December, I began my new job. I have continued the "early to work" program though it is slightly later now. And I only work for 8 hours now. Even after adding another hour or so for travel time to and from work, I am back home before 5pm. This is great!
Being the only one awake in the morning while everyone else still sleeps feels like I am doing some important–being the bread winner. Maybe it goes back to the agrarian roots of our society when hard work started before sunrise with egg-collecting, cow-milking, and pig-feeding. I’m not quite sure. But I feel like I am making a deeper commitment to protecting and providing for my family just by waking first. If you are familiar with my sleeping schedule during most of grad school, you would probably agree that this is indeed a committed act.
There are some benefits to rising early. I’ve already mentioned my early return time which allows me time to exercise after work (more on this in future posts) and play with the boys before bed. Plus, I get to see the sunrise every morning. What a blessing it can be to see God make a new day. Traffic is lighter, the day seems faster, and coffee somehow tastes better.
Now, if I could manage to get to sleep before midnight, that early morning wake up time will be much more welcome.
I’m right there with ya. I don’t wake up before sunrise but I am the first one up every morning. I have been for about 3 years now. One of my favorite things is to kiss everyone in my family while they are sleeping in the morning.
I subscribe to mostly video podcasts but the beauty of ITunes is that you can watch them through the program on your PC. The ones I recommend are Ask a Ninja (really funny), X-Play’s Video Podcasts G4 (Get the Splinter Cell Co-Op movies), OXM Video Podcast( Xbox), SCI-FI Wire (Audio Podcast), SCI-FI BattleStar Galactica (Creator gives commentary for episodes), The Onion Radio News (Sometimes funny), Happy Tree Friends( Video Cartoons kinda like Itchy and Scratchy type humor). Anyway, thats what I usually look for. I will check out that Firefly one.
I’m also up early and am at work around 7. I get to leave by 4:00. I couldn’t sleep in anymore if I wanted to.
I love when I wake up that early, because my day just turns out better. Peace of mind and coffee in hand make for a hopeful start of the day.
Been doing the early riser routine for years and now find it impossible to sleep late. Even on Saturdays, sleeping to 6:30 is about all I can do. I really love my quiet time in the mornings by myself. I have so much more energy in the morning and can get things done that I would just ignore at night because I’m tired then. (Maybe if I slept later I wouldn’t be so tired, but I still don’t think I’d have the motivation). By 7:00 I’m ready for your dad to get up and keep me company – he doesn’t do that everyday though because he doesn’t leave for work until 10:30.
You’ll remember that as a small child you liked to get up early. I’ll never forget that you asked for an alarm clock when you were in 1st grade. Then you set it, got up and got dressed, ate breakfast, and started watching cartoons before I stumbled out of bed (I was not in an early rising mode during that stage of life).
Enjoy the sunrises!
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I, for one, am truly enjoying the role reversal we have experienced. Ahhh…my bed…I love sleeping in until 8:00. Who would have thought that 8:00 would equal sleeping in?