Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Get up, Stand up,

That being the easy part.

I have a problem. I am addicted to my snooze button.

Things were so much simpler when I was a singleton. My stereo was always in my room, so I'd programme it to wake me up gently with a nice CD or the morning radio show. After about 20 minutes of music, my alarm clock (strategically placed at the far side of the room) would go off, and I'd promptly get up, switch it off, and start my day.

Mr E Man ruined this perfect arrangement. He usually starts work at 7 am, and has this weird habit of getting there early so he can read the paper in the car before he starts. So he gets up at 5:30 (on the dot, no need for an alarm clock) and leaves the house at 6.

When we first started dating I'd try to stay in bed when he got up, but I quickly realised that I never got any decent quality sleep after he got out of bed. A boyfriend who fell asleep a good hour or two before me in the evening was another incentive to change. So I started getting up at 5:30 too.

(During this acclimatisation period I was always extremely dopey when saying goodbye in the morning, and Mr E Man later confessed that he used to play a little game with himself of messing up my hair to see how big he could get it to go. What I thought was affection was actually known as The Bushmen of the Kalahari Challenge).

Now that we have our own place, the sound proofing is better and I can stay asleep while Mr E Man gets ready, waking up only when he comes in at 6 to say goodbye. He usually makes me get out of bed at this point - I've come to love my "me time" before leaving for work in the morning, but I need a bit of help getting it started. A quick snuggle on the sofa is a good way to achieve this - I'm more or less compus mentus by the time he actually walks out the door.

But the last few weeks have been completely messed up. Mr E Man currently starts work at 6 am, which means he gets up at 4:30 and leaves at 5. No way in hell am I getting up at that time. But without a stereo in the bedroom I'm left to depend on my cell phone's alarm, and I'm having a really hard time getting out of bed.

Take yesterday morning for example. I heard the phone go off at 6 am on the other side of the room, groggily staggered over to it, hit snooze, and took it back to bed. I proceeded to have a dream about hiding my ringing phone in a bag within a bag within a bag, and then I woke up to find that I'd hit snooze again in my sleep.

While waiting for the alarm to sound again, I wondered about the people in the cars I could hear swooshing past outside. Were they glad to be awake during this lovely early morning light, or were they cursing the husbands, wives, kids or jobs that were responsible for this unnatural state of affairs?

I fell asleep again just as the alarm went off.

I eventually got out of bed just after 7. By the time I'd made breakfast and lunch, had a cup of tea, dealt with the cats, packed my work clothes into my panniers, stretched, and brushed my teeth, there was no time left for the blog reading or writing I usually do in the morning, let alone my many ongoing Scrabulous games.

How strange that I've come to crave the very thing I used to hate. And how annoying that I just can't seem to achieve it without Mr E Man there to wake me up and make sure it damn well sticks.

This morning I put the phone outside the bedroom (which is a kitty-free zone), and found that the immediate attention of two cute furballs when I went out to switch it off was a good incentive to stay out of bed and away from the snooze button. I'm not sure if this is a permanent solution, but hopefully it'll work until Mr E Man goes back to his 7 am starts.

16 comments:

  1. Today I have a 10 am doctor's appt which means I am not going into work until after the appt. Which means I could wake up at a leisurely pace and read blogs! Which means that I am happy. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.S. We should play scrabulous together!! I love scrabulous but all my friends are tired of it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice! Just like my undergrad days of 10 am lectures.

    Oh, and I'm definitely up for more Scrabulous. I usually only make one or two moves a day though, so don't expect a rapid game... you know my real name from my Nature blog, right? I should be easy enough to find.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What kind of job forces people to be there in the middle of the night?

    I am not a morning person, but I do get up at 6:45 each morning without snoozing - this is simply because I've learned that I have to get up straight away after waking. Otherwise it will take a while... In theory I could get up later, but I have to be at work at 9 at the latest, and for me it doesn't make a difference if I get up at 6:45 or 7:30, or even 8:00 - I am tired no matter what.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have the same problem. I love getting to work early, but I hate getting out of bed. I don't even consciously hear the alarm the first two times it beeps. Pretty much the only thing that gets me up is knowing my carpool buddy will be waiting on the porch. On days he doesn't go with me, I usually get to work much later.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kristjan, he's in the movie industry so his shift moves around depending on shooting schedules. It could be worse though, a couple of years ago he was on 14 hour night shifts, 6 or 7 days a week, for a whole month. Outside, in the winter, to boot. He left around the same time I got home from work, and came back just as I was leaving the next morning. I barely saw him at all.

    I agree that it's best to get up as soon as I wake up - I'm (slightly) more alert that way.

    Eco, that sounds like a good incentive. At my last job I'd have been in big trouble for showing up after 9, but now I can get away with as late as 9:15 (possibly later, but I haven't tried). It is harder to get out the door in the morning now that the hard dealine has gone!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hubby and I go to work together, and therefore get up together. He snoozes the alarm in his sleep and then (still in his sleep) puts his arm over me to keep me from getting away. As if getting up in the morning needed to be made any more difficult!

    ReplyDelete
  8. March Hare also gets up and leaves for work ridiculously early in the morning, so I have exactly the same problem!

    Our previous solution was to have an alarm clock with an unbelievably obnoxious alarm. Let's just say it yells something at me in a language I can't understand (I do know the first phrase is "Good morning!")...over and over again. And there is no snooze button, so I know if I turn it off and don't get up, I'm screwed. March Hare would make me reset it for whenever I needed to wake up before he left the house.

    Recently we got a new alarm clock that has two alarms that can be set for different times--one for him, one for me. This has actually worked really well! Want me to send you my old obnoxious alarm? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. SG, that sounds like bliss... I love it when Mr E Man gets a day off work and we can get up together.

    MH, I like the dual alarm time. But I think I'll pass on the obnoxious alarm - thanks anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have that same problem. Dr. Man can wake up right away. I, however, am told that I resemble Godzilla upon waking. Including the unpleasant destruction. The only thing that I've found to work is the automatic coffee maker in the kitchen. By the time I smell coffee I'm a bit more pleased with the waking up business.

    ReplyDelete
  11. ahh... the snooze button, the saving grace in the mornings.

    I have been bad at getting up on time lately - something to do with summer maybe? Otherwise I use my cell phone with snoozing for a few mins (ok, maybe 20 mins) and then after that my alarm clokc rings and then I know it is "GET UP" and "WAKE UP"... then i might be awake a few hours after that...

    did I mention I am not a morning person? :) it is easier when someone nudges you and tells you "there is tea in the kitchen"

    ReplyDelete
  12. Amanda, we had a coffee maker with timer setting on our wedding registry, but didn't get it! It's a shame, even though I'm not a big coffee drinker the smell would have been great. Our former tenant in the basement suite used to get up early and make coffee (and sometimes bacon), which was a big help.

    Chall, maybe I need to train Mr E Man to wake me up with a cup of tea in hand when he goes back to his 7 am starts (September, apparently). It seems unlikely though, especially now that he's discovered Scrabulous and Facebook chess and likes to make his moves before he leaves for work!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm the first to get up, but am undecided as to wether I prefer to be on my own most of that time or if I'd rather have company, say, for breakfast. See, I've been described as a porcupine in the morning... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I like company because it's such a rarity. If I had it all the time I'd probably be itching for some alone time! The last time I regularly saw other people before work was in my undergrad shared house in 1998 - all subsequent flatmates have got up either much earlier or much later than me.

    ReplyDelete
  15. haha, the funny thing with me was that the tea didn't have to be in a hand, nor even ready... it was enough for _someone_ to walk in and say "there is water on the stove".. I'm so nervous about burning a pot so I would walk up and fix tea and then read the newspaper (boy, do I miss that!?!) and the editorials usually got me wide awake (note; if you subscribe to a paper where the editorials are opposite you in politics - your eyes will open faster :) )

    ReplyDelete
  16. I can see how not wanting to burn the house down would be a good incentive! Our kettle has an automatic off switch so it wouldn't work for me though.

    ReplyDelete

I promise to respond to all respectful non-spam comments! Don't be shy! Oh, and please don't type my surname in your comments; I know you all know what it is, but I'd prefer Google to rank other pages before this blog.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.