My Morning Routine

Its a new year and that means that I am working on shaping up my goals, focus and productivity every day! One of the most talked about ways of putting yourself on the right track towards accomplishment and progressiveness is the secret of routine....especially, your morning routine. I'm all over that. I'm a big believer in starting the day on the right foot and aiming at a steady rhythm in life. My husband A and I are really different people in some ways, one of the ways we differ is in our relationship to routine. I didn't grow up in a very regimented family culture and have a lot more connection to following my own inner yens and also to passionate spontaneity. Your spouse can be one of you best teachers in life if you let them into your inner world. I have taught A about the power of spontaneous moments and open spots in your life, he has taught me the warmth and steadying power of routine. I will never be a person who schedules my whole life or slavishly follows the routines I do use but I have learned to really, really love having a Morning Routine to lean on in my life.

This is how I stay steady, how I get the day kicked off and how I maximize my productivity.

My Morning Routine

• 6-6:30am Get up early before the family: For me, this part is key. I like the quiet, early part of the day because I have to it to myself, I am more productive if I have a headstart on the crazy, noisy, insanity. Also, its so peaceful to be up in the calm hours. I feel happier when I get up early.
• 6:30-7:00amPersonal time (Set my MIT for the day [my 3 Most Important Tasks for the day], read, do art, sip tea, write....etc.)
• 7:00am Boys Up: A few of them need to be shaken awake usually.
• 7:15am Breakfast Prep: I have a breakfast schedule and I check the list and put out what I need to get out and pull together. I have optimized for a fifteen minute cook/prep time. Simple, fast, nutritious....that's the goal. Dee sets the table.
• 7:30am Breakfast Together: We try to maximize our time together as a family and even though A works more than 40 hours and that makes it harder, one of the ways we've pushed our edge is by prioritizing eating together as a family at breakfast, not just dinner. 
• 8:30am A, Leaves For Work: A walks to the train a few blocks away which means he is able to leave our single vehicle family with wheels and the boys and I can focus on staying in our groove while he takes off.
• 9:00am-10:00am Chore Hour: We continue to wrestle with how we're executing chore time but at the moment each boy has a set of chores that are his duties and I have one big household job I'm working on every day (Monday is bathrooms) and during this time we all work on getting things squared away. The early finishers have free time until school starts!
• 10:00-12:00 School Time: I am working on one subject a day with the boys and during this time I work on projects with them, do read-alouds, research things we wonder about and also help out A with the math that he is teaching by working with one of the boys a day to take some of the load off of him.
• 12:30 Lunch: Morning is over! Time to eat. Lunch is leftovers. No cooking! Nib sets the table.

How do you plan your morning to set you up for success? This schedule is only what I'm doing right now...things change and I print up a new schedule at least quarterly to put on our fridge. What do you do to 

A Crisp New January

We are back home. We survived the stomach flu, a manic whirl of trip prep and holiday madness, and the long drive to Michigan and visits with both sides of the family. And here we are, stepping crisply into the new year. Ah! Feels so very, very good.

There's something very cathartic to me about traveling far away for Christmas and then driving back across the country together, bundled up in winter gear, munching leftover cookies, jotting down resolutions and humming on towards a whole new, fresh year together as a family. I love that drive. We talk and think over what our families are like and how we admire them and how we want to out-do them and we talk about our previous year and what went well and what we're primed to tackle next. And I always love it when we get to the part where we plan our travel schedule and make mouth-watering schedules for where and when we'll be adventuring in the coming year. This year we're hoping to see Hawaii, D.C. and New Hampshire as well as maple sugaring in the far north and a family reunion in the ancestral vineyard where we were married. Very apropos for the celebration of our 10th year of marriage together. We have genuine history!

Am feeling full of inspiration, and energy and hope today. My list is long and my spirits are high. I feel like there are good days ahead...I think 2012 is a good one.

Here are the things I'm dreaming of accomplishing in the coming year:

Resolutions 2012

1. Call my parents weekly
2. Help my boys write letters monthly
3. Dream journal
4. Work on the boy's baby books monthly
5. Go on a private "couple's retreat" together
6. Take an interior designs class
7. Take a trip to visit a friend
8. Read three books on genetics
9. Join an art society and hang a piece in an art show
10. Call grandma monthly
11. Plant shrubs on our property
12. Hang pictures in our house (extended family, kids and wedding especially)
13. Find three interior design books that I love and learn from
14. Switch to a local pediatrician and find a family doctor for A and I
15. Put together and follow a car maintenance schedule
16. Organize our basement storage
17. Paint more rooms!
18. Register to vote
19. Join our Neighborhood Association
20. Start an easy food night (pizza, take out, frozen dinner, leftovers etc.)
21. Hire a cleaning service for the first month after Baby Four arrives.
22. Read two great books on blogging
23. Teach the boys to: brush their teeth in the morning, comb their hair consistently and wash their hands before meals
24. Teach Ru to read and Dee to write his own name
25. Potty train Nib
26. Read three new plays
27. Carve out two consistent work times in the day for me-time (one for work and one for personal)
28. Sell three or more paintings
29. Make a new friend
30. Start taking the boys out for special Mommy and Me outings
31. Start an interior design notebook with a section for each room of our house

I might have time later to read through the resolutions from last year and compare and contrast a bit but for now, I'm forging ahead...sometimes blissfully unaware is okay. I'm

Better Is Good

I sing the chorus to this song all the time when Nib needs a new diaper. Good old Sheryl Crow.

But, really....who doesn't like a good positive change now and then. I know we like to talk a lot about being change adverse, but I'm the queen of self improvement and isn't that what that whole topic is all about? Change. Also know as: growth, the new, surprise, advancement, learning, skill acquisition and improvement.

Today an encouraging list. Not how to improvement myself or things I'd like to learn or ways to more deeply experience life...today, successes.

Self improvement is good and growth is fabulous stuff, but sometimes in the striving to get better we spend a little too much energy on what there is to fix and forget to remember the road we've come down. Here's to celebrating strengths, remembering the power of purposeful shaping and enjoying growing up! Heavens its good stuff!

Do join in, I wanna see your own list in the comments!

Ten Ways I've Changed For The Better In The Last 5 Years


1. My hair is the longest its ever been....I made it my goal to grow it to my hips and I made it this past year! Hooray!


2. I have learned how to point out to A in arguments, I feel threatened by the way you just said that last thing, instead of always emotionally escaping and refusing to talk anymore. So much more progressive!


3. I have learned to appreciate my body. I used to have a little list of the things I didn't like about my physical form and I can honestly say that now I have learned to either like or cleverly deal with all the little things I used to pick at. Its good to feel visually acceptable. 


4. I am a much calmer mommy to Dee and Nib than I was when Ru first came along...good thing Ru's still here to benefit too! *wink* I love feeling more in control emtionally.


5. I know how to make a good beef roast. Boy was that hard! Took me years!


6. I am a painter! I've spent my entire adult life as an artist explaining to people that I sure would love to paint, but I have a fear of working in color and am not sure how to go beyond form and shadow. Yeah. And then a friend told me to come to her art fellowship and my life has not been the same since.

7. I am far more organized. My terror of schedules and systems has melted away and I have begun to imagine and orchestrate creative organization that nurtures flexibility and allows for fun. Life is far more sane and my husband likes me more.

8. I eat better than I ever have in my adult life. I have three square meals a day, most of it from scratch, I source locally, eat seasonally and have way more produce, whole grains, legumes and grass fed beef in my diet than I would ever have imagined. And eating is very, very fun! I'm not on a drudgery laden brown rice and tofu schedule at all. I own tons of cookbooks, we eat out, I make wonderful meals and I like food more than ever. Boy does it feel good.

9. I have a great community. I have friends, I have kind neighbors, I know people I can call for references, help hauling a sofa, childcare or a good cry. I am chums with my sisters, enjoying getting to know my brother, in frequent communication with my parents and have an involved connective church where I contribute regularly and am missed if I don't show up. Relationally, life is very rich for me these days.

10.  I am almost fearless about mistake or embarassment. There was a time, a few years ago when I would have died a little inside if my fly had been down or I'd fallen on my face in front of people I admired...now I have an easy laugh, understand that failure is part of the game and have no qualms about showing my hand in front of other people. We all need to feel like the other guy is human sometimes. And honestly, we all leave our fly down occasionally. Where's the shame in that?

What's on your list?