Routine things

Note to the reader:  it's almost midnight, I really, really need to be in bed as I have many things that must be accomplished tomorrow, and yet, here I am, lying on the floor of our bedroom in the dark, trying to be quiet (Matt has been asleep for several hours and he would certainly grumble at me if I wake him up with typing noises), struck by the need to update the blog to let everyone know that I really don't like routines.  I just thought about it while I was in the shower, so instead of going to bed, sensibly, here I am, wide awake.  But that's just the thing:  I hate to have a bedtime.  I hate to feel like I "need" to go to bed because I "have" to get up at a certain time every day.  Instead, I suspend the knowledge that my children will wake up, as they do every day, at 7 am, wanting me to do things (get breakfast, change a diaper, mediate arguments, be readily available) right away.  Maybe, I tell myself so convincingly, they'll all sleep in tomorrow and we'll wake up at a more reasonable hour, like 8:30, and Matt will have started the coffee before he left for work, so I won't even have to get through that terrible half hour before the coffee can be made when I am doing the aforementioned odious tasks (odious because they are being done pre-coffee, not because I hate doing things for my children, mostly).  But that won't really happen, and that gets me down, the routine-ness of that part of the day.

There are only a very few routines that I really enjoy, like my weekly routine of getting a mani/pedi every Friday.  What?  Did I really say that?  No, that's not on my schedule, but I guess I meant that I would like that kind of a routine.  I would probably like a routine where we always spend Spring Break in Hawaii, too, but unfortunately that, also, is not yet on the annual rotation.  And I really can't make myself stick to routines, even if I would like to for the betterment of myself or my family.  I can't tell you how many times I have wished and then actually decided that I am going to absolutely begin a strict regimen of getting up at 6 am every day and going jogging in order to ensure that I will get to exercise every day.  And I might even do it for one or two days, but then I fall back to my slack ways, snooze the alarm, and just admit that I am not cut out for early morning activity.  Or I wish that I had a laundry "day" like they used to whenever Laura Ingalls Wilder was a girl.  They were so disciplined then; they had to be for survival.  Pa couldn't just be bringing up water from the river any old time, since he had a routine of hunting and smoking meat for the winter that he had to stick to.  I would not have survived in those grisly times.  Unlike the cheerful and efficient Ma Ingalls, who washed, hung, pressed (with an iron heated over an open fire), and put away all of the laundry every Monday, I just let laundry pile up at some point in the process, until (as has happened tonight) I am forced to wear uncomfortable underwear because none of the good ones are in the drawer.

Okay, Matt did just wake up, grunt at me and then fall back to sleep, so I think that should serve as a warning.  I must go to bed, or maybe read for just a few minutes ...

goodnight!