Making Over My Mornings: Day 2

Well, here we are. Making over my morning for the second day in a row.

I won’t lie. I almost didn’t do today’s lesson. Partly because I didn’t clean up from dinner last night and I knew I needed to get busy on my chores for today. And partly because I was super excited to get busy working on my blog today.

You see, last night I took a big step in blogger world. (At least it was a big step for me.) After discussion with my awesome hubby I made the decision to invest in my own domain name for this particular corner of the internet.

So now, when you come to hang out with me and see what I am up to in the world of seminary life you won’t have to add that little “.blogspot.com” at the end of the webaddress.

We are now just http://www.lifeofaseminarywife.net.

So naturally I wanted to play around with my investment. 

However, I made myself stop and watch the video and read through today’s lesson. And I am really glad I did.

You see, this is how I felt when I sat down at the computer this morning.

I honestly felt like I deserved some type of award. And then I got started on Day 2 and Crystal talked about how to NOT feel that way. She talked about how the best way to have a smooth morning is to set yourself up for success the evening before. 

Crystal laid out two strategies that she uses in her home to make sure her mornings go smoothly.

The first strategy she uses is setting an evening routine. She took the top 3-5 things that cause her the most stress in the morning and she prepares those things the evening before. For example: If getting everyone up and dressed in the morning causes stress, the recommendation is to have everyone lay their clothes out for the next day before they go to bed. This way there is no guess work in the morning. Everyone knows what they will be wearing the next day before they even fall asleep.

The second  strategy is to get enough sleep. Now, I will admit that I rolled my eyes when she got to that one. Everyone knows that sleep is an important part of healthy living. Everyone also knows that it isn’t always realistic to expect to get a solid 8 hours of sleep every single day. But as I listened and read more I realized that all it takes is re-examining my priorities and I could be getting more rest during the night.

The project for today was to first identify 3 areas that cause stress in the mornings and develop a plan to get those things prepared the evening  before going to bed each night. Then determine what time I need to get up in the morning, count back 8 hours and determine what time I need to aim for bed time.

For me, the areas that I struggle with the most each morning is waking up to a dirty kitchen, having coffee made and Dusty’s lunch ready, and getting him out the door on time. 

So here is the evening routine I have created for myself and our family:

As part of our evening routine we have added in a family devotion time as well as a time for individual devotion. Dusty take Collin in one part of the house and they go through a devotion designed for boys his age group and I take RaeLynn to do a devotion for little girls. 

Here are the ones we are using.