Maximize your Mornings Challenge

Over at Inspired to Action the blog author Kat and her co-leader are encouraging women, especially busy moms, to get back in touch with the quiet early hours of the day, starting with time spent knowing and praying to God as well as taking care of ourselves first (exercise, breakfast, getting dressed and ready for the day) before we serve and take care of the rest of our troop and their daily needs. I know that I have in the past been a very good morning routine keeper. I would even have everyone's breakfast and hubby's lunch ready by the time they woke up. I have been on again and off again, but since my bout with morning sickness, and even before that I have NOT been waking up early enough in the mornings. And it shows. It really does. When I was waking up early for prayer and reading the Bible it did make a difference. I am not trying to be cheesy, just stating an actual fact. I usually start too big so I need to readjust a bit. I want to start with my quiet time, waking up 30 minutes earlier to do so and have my cup of tea before Jman, my first riser and followed closely by Liv wake up. First thing is to get my alarm set. I don't like alarms for I have a great biological clock. However, even though I do tend to wake up around 6 am (mostly b/c hubby has just gotten back from delivering papers!) I let myself go back to sleep! Not very disciplined uh? So I must make friends with the alarm clock.
 But my end goal will be to be also exercising, doing some stretching/yoga as well as hopefully walking. Finally I want to have had breakfast and hub's take-to-work lunch done as well as breakfast for all ready so that we will NOT have morning cartoons!! I might need to use tv (PBS/Qubo channel) from time to time, but I really want to reduce the time kids watch T.V. There are plenty of other times I need it so I hope to eliminate mornings. It will be hard for them because this is our routine now (mom turns on tv for Jman and Liv while she prepares their breakfast and hubby's lunch. Finally, with lots of interruptions she sits down an HOUR later to her breakfast, starving, and keeps the kids watching TV so she can have some time to herself online, writing emails, reading the news, planning her day, etc.)

 I think it will work best if I do the things I need to for myself FIRST. I will be a less grumpy person in the morning, giving a great boost to my busy day.

 You can join the challenge too. They actually have accountability partners (called captains) through twitter. I don't tweet (enough distractions with email, blogs and facebook for me right now, maybe when I am finally in a good routine and better with my time!). They also have a link on facebook so you can follow it there. Of course just go to the website, start following Inspired to Action so you can download for FREE her Maximize Your Mornings E-book (if you are like me and are wondering : how long is this e-book? Not long. It printed a total of 32 pages.)

Happy Mornings to me and to you then!