I love getting up early in the morning on the weekends.
Let me rephrase that. I hate getting up in the morning, but I love being up in the morning once I’ve managed to drag my sleepy ass out of bed.
There’s something so inviting to me about an early Saturday morning when my husband and son are still in bed, the dog’s still asleep and the cat is still lazing on top of my sleeping husband (remember they’re having a very intense love affair).
The house is quiet and chilly now that fall has arrived, and the day is full of so much promise.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to sleep and have had my challenges sleeping since my breast cancer experiences. The Tamoxifen induced night sweats always seem to wake and then keep me up, the numbness in my hands from sleeping on my sides from the Taxol and the strange tugging and pulling of my implants all gang up on me to keep me tossing and turning all night. But once I finally do fall asleep, that last stretch of deep and uninterrupted bliss between 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. is just heaven.
When the alarm goes off at 7:00 or 7:30, I hold on tightly to the blankets and keep my eyes firmly shut, hitting that snooze button at least 5 times before I finally get up and woozily stagger around with all my morning to do’s.
There’s a long list of chores before I can even get downstairs to eat breakfast starting with cleaning the cat litter (her box is in our bathroom so the dog can’t get to it; yeah, he eats cat litter, I know, gross), groggily washing up, throwing on some under eye concealer and putting on my eyebrows (they never really ever came back after the chemo so I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to recreate them every day, a weird thing I’m obsessed with mostly because having no eyebrows made me look sicker than losing my hair so I’m crazy about adding them back to my face every day in the fear that I’ll scare my kids without them…..but I digress), throwing on some jeans, doing a quick sweep of the kids room and bathroom to gather all the clothes that are now on the floor so that I can get them downstairs to the laundry to be washed……and then after all these little morning tasks, I’m ready to stumble down the stairs for my breakfast ritual.
Breakfast is my happiest meal of the day. I love the promise of a new morning. I love the simplicity of steel cut oatmeal and fruit, and a really big cup of hot Barry’s Irish tea with milk in it.
My Scottish grandmother taught me at a young age how to make tea the Scottish way with milk and sugar and I’m very weirdly strict about the % ratio of milk to tea, it’s a very rigid formula I have and if someone asks to get me tea when we’re out they always get pretty intimidated by my request for an exact amount of tea to milk ratio. Have I mentioned how obsessive compulsive I am?
I love to sit quietly drinking my tea in the morning with no one around while I watch the birds, chipmunks, squirrels and rabbits running around the backyard. It’s a veritable zoo up in my backyard in the mornings.
I also like to write, first thing in the morning. If I don’t have client calls right away, it’s a stolen treat when I have 45 minutes to an hour to devote to a new post. My mind runs a little more stream of consciousness at this time of the day, and the words flow out. Not so sure that I’m saying anything very interesting or pithy, but words do pour out of me early in the morning.
I’m also a big list person. I have a theory that it’s important to accomplish at least one small but meaningful task each day and after I’ve done that, I can spend the rest of the day, if it’s the weekend, lazing around reading or catching up on Orange Is the New Black Season 2. Today’s list has about 7 things on it but one of them (cleaning the basement) could easily take 2 days, so might wind up flowing over into Sunday as well.
What about you guys? What’s on the agenda for your weekend?
I love waking up early every morning. I can’t wait to go downstairs and make my coffee. My house is so quiet and I get my best work do then.
nancy@skinnykitchen.com recently posted…10 Super Satisfying, Skinny Soups
Me too, Nancy!
I love the mornings too. Although you’d never know it by how much I bitch about getting up! But I love that first cup of coffee in the morning, in a mug I’ve brought back from our travels. I reminisce in my head about the place it came from and it’s a lovely ritual. It makes it worth getting up!
I thought you would be a night person, because you like to go out 🙂 It’s also really nice to come back home to your own house, after traveling. I’ll bet that first cup of coffee at home after the long travels was wonderful.
I’m a very early riser to. Through the week I get up 4 a.m. with the hubby before he leaves for work. Straighten up the house then I get about 3 good hours of writing in before mom gets up and I fix her breakfast. On the weekend it’s sometimes a little loser it mostly is decided whether he works overtime which is alot. If not Saturdays are for running and Sundays are for cleaning then football (more writing for me). Then it starts all over again.
Rena McDaniel recently posted…WHY I AM AFRAID OF A LITTLE OLD MOUSE!
Hi Rena, Wow, 4:00 a.m., holy smokes, that’s early. Don’t think I could do that w/regularity. But, I can see how it would be wonderful to have 3 whole hours to yourself before the day starts. Hope you got to sleep in a little bit more this weekend!
Okay, I don’t like getting up in the morning…but I DO love breakfast..I agree with that..
Michelle recently posted…Every Mom Versus Pee Cow
Just read your post and cracked up. I didn’t actually say I liked getting up, though. I said I liked BEING up once I dragged my sleep ass out of bed ….. 🙂
I love being the first up in the house and relaxing with my coffee and some reading. My weekend was filled with cleaning, reorganizing and relaxing. We had two outings with friends, overall, life treated us well.
Bodynsoil recently posted…Older Appreciated Person at Work,
Sounds like a great weekend, thanks for taking the time to read MLB!
On the list this past weekend – checking in on the blogs I love to follow. Being that I’m commenting on a Monday, you can see how well I did tackling my list this past weekend :-).
Kimba recently posted…Mystery Solved: Why Women are Late
Hope you enjoyed the weekend if you didn’t get to any lists….and thanks for stopping by to read My Left Breast in the middle of your busy schedule!
I love mornings and steel cut oatmeal too.
Dorothy Salvatori recently posted…Happiness
Thanks, Dorothy!
You can’t believe how impressed I am that you put on ANY kind of makeup after just getting up. I can barely manage to brush my teeth!
Carol Cassara recently posted…In search of my Sicilian roots
Well…..it’s only under eye concealer and eye brows 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, Carol.
I definitely second the reluctance to get out of bed as well as the enjoyment of the alone time in the mornings!!
Thanks, Roshni!
I love mornings too – once I’m out of bed. Mornings are probably my most productive times for writing too, although, I would like to stay up late sometimes and write, but I can’t let myself get into that habit. And don’t get me started on post cancer sleep issues… Back to the morning thing – there’s something extra special this time of year and all through the coming winter months when I get to watch the darkness turn into daylight every morning while sipping coffee that dear hubby makes every morning. (Always turns out better when he makes it for some reason). And one more thing, our dogs are interested in the litter box too. Thanks for the lovely post.
Sounds wonderful, and how lucky you are that hubby makes you coffee each morning.