“Better late than never, but never late is better”

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about that old list thing.  Not so!  I've just taken on various other projects (the playground, some yard work, my 30-days o' exercise).   I've also been trying to capitalize on the small window of springtime we get here in the south.  It's nice to be outside without sweating just from standing there, and the opportunity to do that is brief to say the least.

Despite all of that, since the list plays over and over in the back of my mind, I was able to accomplish one of the items as a result of getting up earlier in the mornings.  I had intended to start my quest to fulfill #1 ~ Get up when Sam gets up for one month, but I failed at that by Day 3.  As it turns out, I'm going to have to work up to that one.  You see, his alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning, a time when many people our age are just winding down for the night.  I was successful at getting up in the 5 o'clock hour for a solid week, but 4:30, notsomuch.

Perhaps I should explain that the reason I want to get up is threefold:

1. So that I can appreciate Sam's sleep sacrifice to get to work early so that he can leave early and pick our precious kids up from school in the afternoons at least three times a week,
2. So that I can get my exercise out of the way first thing to energize me for the day,
3. So that I can do some chores without taking time away from my family time at night.

I have to admit that it's been a successful venture so far.  And an unanticipated benefit is that by the time night rolls around, I'm so tired that I can actually fall asleep when I get into bed instead of lying there with nothing but my thoughts to keep me awake.

The best (albeit anticipated) byproduct of getting up more than an hour earlier is that I was able to be on time to work and all extracurricular activities for an entire week.  This, friends, is a list item that I had almost deemed impossible.  I had fallen into a terrible habit of getting to work between ten and fifteen minutes late, every single day.  I justified it by claiming that I couldn't possibly get here any sooner being that Ben's school doesn't open its doors until 7:45am.  That was just to make myself feel better.  It wasn't a legitimate excuse.  If I drop the girls off first and drop Ben off second, it means we have to leave a lot earlier than the 10-15 minutes I was late, but at least I get to work on time.  So that what we did.  And that's what worked.

Lateness really bothers me, and yet now that I have kids it seems to be my modus operandi.  My family has always been serious about punctuality.  My grandparents use to get to doctor's appointments before the staff had even arrived to unlock the office in the mornings.  My parents used to get us to Sunday School before 9am, with plenty of time to spare before it actually started at 9:45am (granted my dad was a teacher, but still!  That's early.).  And now, I'm habitually late.  Go figure.

The work part of the task was the hardest, but we also have Mission Friends on Wednesday night, T-ball on Thursday night (which technically we were 4 minutes late for, but a terrible accident and the fact that practice hadn't yet started by the time we arrived means we get to count it), and church on Sunday.  We didn't go to church this Sunday because Sam left for Oklahoma and we were delivering him to the shuttle service, but we got him to the shuttle in time.  So we weren't late for anything.  For seven whole days.

This means I get to say ~

10. Be on time for one whole week; to work, church, Mission Friends, and childrens choir.

Check!

(To be thorough though, we still need to get to church and Sunday School on time next week.  I'm optimistic!)