Early to Rise Challenge: Day 25

It's been a bit since I posted.  Thursday I woke up at 6:33 am, which I considered to be not bad.  I even got my hospital bag mostly packed before lunch, and finished by the end of the day.

Then the modem died.  We replaced it Friday, but couldn't get it to work with the wireless router until Sunday.  Technically, I could have posted Friday or over the weekend since I post from my desktop, but we spent Friday evening in the Labor & Delivery ward over a false alarm¹ and were pretty much exhausted the rest of the weekend from that.

After my OB told me Thursday that she wasn't sure I'd make it a full seven more days, I decided to take some advice from the pregnancy handbook she gave me (about how rest is important during the third trimester) and shut off the alarm.  We let the cats wake us up instead (we haven't found their snooze button yet).

Saturday morning was similar, but by Sunday we started getting back in the early-rising groove.  (No pictures because I'd thrown my camera in the hospital bag Friday night and didn't get it out until late yesterday.)

This morning was the best I've done in a while.

This is what happens when you take a picture under the influence of a Benadryl hangover.

Today's theme is "Share Your Success."  At first, thinking about it, I didn't feel very successful.  I've been finding it harder, not easier to get up in the morning.  But then I thought that just the fact I'm still in the early-rising game at all is a pretty big success.  Especially given my condition.  Every week I seem to add a new middle-of-the-night waking for a bathroom trip or just to find a more comfortable position, and every day it gets a little more exhausting to move around.  But I'm not yet willing to even consider giving up my few minutes before the children wake, even for a much-needed catnap.

One of my favorite parts of this challenge is that it's fallen at the same time as my Lenten TV fast.  So I actually use the extra morning time to do real things instead of just watching the "infotainment" local and national morning shows.  Even if it's just sipping some coffee and pondering.  Today I knew I wouldn't feel well enough to climb back up the stairs later, so I sorted out the laundry after getting dressed.  Not terribly relaxing, but it set a nice tone for the day.  I made pea soup, baked beer bread, washed yet another load of laundry, and prepped these for my MOPS group tomorrow:

 

These are banana-Nutella muffins.²   We tested them already.  Yum!    

---

1. And why they don't have a limit on fingernail length for OB nurses, I really don't know. Ouch!
2. Followed the recipe except for omitting the pecans, using mini-muffin tins (and about 1/2 t Nutella per muffin), and cutting the time to 10 minutes.