Welcome to the new morning routine. It’s just hit 8AM and I’ve already been up since about 6:15. So far I’ve finished laundry, gotten my kids to school (new commute is about 25 minutes), and hit the gym.

That’s where I am at now on my favorite elliptical machine. If I hit a descent pace, I can get 10k steps in about an hour and be good with that for the day. I was doing a little time accounting in the car and thinking about how I can arrange my schedule to get the most out of my day.

The new bookends to my “productive” alone time each day are now the tribe to and from the high-school. That’s 8 to about 3. So if I can get my cardio in from 8 to 9, I can be home by 9:30 and working by 10. That will give me 4 to 5 hours to get some work-work done. Then, I can break and drive back for the kids and then spend some QT with them after school before Jim gets home from work.

Of course when the kids are at their dads I’ll have much more flexibility because that cuts out 2 hours of driving each day. Dare I say I may even be able to sleep in once and a while?? Perhaps. Though I’m a very routine oriented type person so I doubt I’ll be able to do that. We’ll see.

In any case, I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my life and we figure out how well a household can be run with two engaged adults at the helm. That’s something neither one of us is used to. Yes, we have four teenagers to manage, but they are mostly independent and need their own “alone” time so I’m hoping we can strike a good balance.

I figure by the end of February I’ll have all the details figured out. That needs to include dedicated time for reading and writing and Jazzercise. That also needs to include making sure I get enough sleep. I’ll be waking up half an hour earlier and I doubt I can manage going to sleep half an hour earlier. This past weekend things were still not back to normal but I was so, so tired both days.

On Saturday I was so wiped out that I fell asleep at 2 and slept for an hour and a half. I felt the same on Sunday but pushed through it. I haven’t been reporting my stats but they are still being collected. Checking on sleep last week, I was right at 7 hours average and then that nap pushed me over the top. Anyway, that’s just going to be another challenge in this new routine.

It’s kind of like an interesting Tetris puzzle where I’m just wanting all the pieces to fit snug. I’m probably being too rigid where flexibility will end up being the ultimate key to success. I’m just overthinking things as usual. Again, we’ll see. 🤷‍♀️

On that note 🎵.. my hour is almost up so I I’ll quit hashing over this routine topic.

Later gaters 🐊,

~Miss SugarCookie