Oh man, it's early.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers yesterday. The surgery went amazingly well, and both Aunt Sue and Uncle Mark are recovering well. It will be a few days before we know more, but so far, so good! Thank you for all of your prayers... I know they played a part!

After a wonderful break from work over the holidays, I had to get back in the swing of things this week. I had to adjust my schedule last fall to fit my entire work week into 4 days, leaving Fridays free for my internship. That means getting to work each morning at 7 AM. Yeah, 7 AM. Some of you probably rise that early on your own accord, but not me.

                              

This is probably what I looked like when my alarm went off this morning. Picture courtesy of Google.

Here's what I've experienced since starting my early rising:

• The first day, you'll probably pop out of bed feeling great. Enjoy that - it won't happen again.
• It takes about two weeks before it feels routine and you don't want to cry when the alarm goes off.
• You'll need to adjust your bedtime. And not be embarrassed when you sometimes climb into bed at 9:30 PM.
• Pets will look at you confused when your alarm goes off so early. Spouses will just look half angry, half still asleep.
• Asking your husband to get up early with you to make you coffee will not go over well. Just trust me.

When I first switched to this schedule, I felt like I was missing out of hours in my day by going to bed so early. In reality, I have the same amount of time, it is just distributed differently. I don't need that extra hour and a half spent with my butt parked on the couch relaxing. Now I actually use that hour and a half for productive work.

And man... can you be productive. The hour between 7 AM and 8 AM seems like the longest one of the day. By the time anyone else arrives at work, I'm settled in, email is taken care of, and I'm already rolling on something else. And it's AWESOME.  So is leaving at 5 PM everyday because you've already put in work awesomeness.

                        

I know this is a joke -- but seriously. It's true and it's awesome.

One other perk? No one responds to the emails you send them at this time. So you can send lots of them without worrying about responses distracting you. Score.

I'm not saying it ever gets easy. Or that there aren't days that it's terribly painful to crawl out of my cozy bed where a sweet puppy face is snuggled into me and a cute husband is breathing peacefully. It's really hard. But it's worth it. And I should point out that Derby only sometimes gets to sleep with us. Don't judge. He's super warm and snuggly, which is what I look for in a sleeping partner, and Zac often isn't either!

Are you an early riser? Do you try to work during your peak productivity time? Am I the only one nerdy enough to care about these things?!?