A great morning...scrubbing toilets

Many mornings in my house go like this:

The kids get up. I get up (or I come home from running.) I turn on an educational cartoon for them. I sit at the computer and check email, blogs, etc. We grab breakfast while I continue to spend time on the computer. At some point I take a few minutes to read my Bible and pray, and then it's back to the computer. Finally, I realize it's late morning and I've done very little that's productive. My energy is low from so much time sitting and staring at a screen. And I need a shower.

Now, that's not a description of every morning, but lately it's been way too many mornings. It's really a depressing way to start the day! I end up feeling lazy and unproductive and anxious. I feel guilty for all the screen time the kids and I have had.

Yesterday morning, the kids got up and both wanted to hang out in my bed. We all stayed there, while I kept my eyes closed and spent some time praying. It was nice...a peaceful way to start the day.

I'd had a particularly lazy week, and I knew the kids were in bad need of a bath, so we got out of bed and immediately headed into the bathroom. We all took a bath.

Then I got dressed, got Zoodle set up with some granola bars, and began cleaning the bathrooms. I made a point not to turn on the computer. At some point I fed Chickie too, and kept cleaning. I folded a load of laundry. I finished the bathrooms.

I started brewing some coffee, and meditated on some Scripture, praying a bit more. Then I sat down with coffee, breakfast, and my computer.



It was a wonderful way to start the day...doing the things that needed to be done first, instead of the things I just wanted to do. I felt productive. I felt good. When I'd been on the computer for quite a while, I knew I wanted to do something productive again.

And I realized, I need to make this a habit...starting my day productively. It's important to me to have "down time" throughout the day. My day ends late, with dinner and dishes, so I need free time in the middle of the day. But when I start my day with "down time," it tends to start on a "down note!"

I don't want to make this some sort of rule that I can't ever break. That's not the idea. I just want to make a habit of doing things that help me to live more happily. So hopefully when this post is automatically published at 5 a.m. today, I'll be enjoying my last hour and a half or two of sleep...and then I'll get up and get moving!