Monday, August 22, 2005

Turning Over a New Leaf

I'm writing this at 6:20 a.m. to prep myself to work on my novel. I am not a morning person but I need to become one. I am definitely a night owl. I don't go to bed until 12 a.m. on average because I do so much. On the days I'm exhausted I'll fall asleep early but then I'm awake again at 12 a.m. Then I usually don't wake up until 7 or 7:30 and then I'm running to get ready for work because I go in at 9. I know you morning people are saying, "WHAT?!"

Today I'm turning over a new leaf. I woke up 5 til 6 and I started on my daily routine early. My new goal is to try and get to bed somewhere before 12 and to wake up at 6 a.m. I can live on 6-7 hours of sleep a night easily.

Rey, my husband, has been telling me forever to wake up early and write. He's actually talking about 5 a.m. early and I tried that a few times but it killed me. I was so tired by the end of the day I didn't have the energy to exercise or do much. The more I thought about it I decided that if I want to finish this book I am going to need one solid hour of writing a day. What is one hour less of sleep??

Mornings are really great because the kids are still asleep and I have complete quiet, except for any soft music I may want to play. I've tried writing for one hour during lunch a few times but to tell you the truth carrying my heavy laptop to work is a hassle. I'll do it If I have to. And even though I'm writing in my blog right now it's still part of my daily writing, even if I do this for 20 min and work on my novel the rest of the time.

I set the alarm for 5:55 with the plan to snooze 5 min but when the alarm went of this morning I told myself, "You need to finish this book to do what you want in life." That will be my daily mantra. I need to remind myself daily that this is the job that makes me truly happy.

So here I am. It's 6:27. I'm set to write for the day. I decided I can write until 7:15 because I'll already have all the morning rituals and breakfast done so I can afford the extra 15 min of writing. Then I don't have to rush to get ready each morning and I'll be at work on time each day and then I gain two things.

I tell myself that I should be able to do this. I used to wake up at 6:30 every morning to be at work at 7:30 when I used to teach Pre-K. But then I remind myself that I was 25, single, and I didn't have 2 small children under 5. Big difference.

Side note: Tomorrow is my EIGHT year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it! Where have the years gone?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loida, I love your picture of you and your babies. They are so grown up now! WOW!

ShoeGirl Corner said...

Thanks! This picture was taken in April when Seth was 12 months and Miranda had just turned 4. Rey just helped me figure out how to post pictures so I'll be posting more photos on my site.