Wednesday, 10 January 2007 - A very early start

Dear God:

Today, I am thankful for a very early start.

I went to bed just after 11 PM last night (early for me) in hopes of getting an early start in the morning. My wish came true. At 3 AM I was wide awake.

I rarely suffer from insomnia, so I stayed in bed an extra half hour trying to sleep. Finally, I arose, turned on the computer and began working. Why waste precious awake time?

Here's list of the things I did to occupy my time:

1. I wrote. Distractions are minimal at this time of night - the house and neighborhood are quiet; it's dark; the phone never rings.
2. I cleaned up various email accounts (I got bored, however, and stopped with 100 unread messages to go in my main account).
3. I created a dodecahedral calendar using the pattern provided at www.ii.uib.no/~arntzen/kalender.
4. I watched the sunrise while sipping hot tea.
5. I ate breakfast, a generous bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal sprinkled liberally with dried cranberries and slivered almonds.
6. I studied the latest High Country Gardens catalogue while eating breakfast.
7. I updated sundry lists: groceries, things to do, plants to buy for this year's garden, books to read, books to give to charity, 2006 tax-deductible donations
8. I watered the plants.
9. I groomed the plants.
10. I sorted the growing stack of junk mail.
11. I took care of the "to be shredded" pile of credit card offers and related junk mail.
12. I updated my address book.

It's now 8:15 AM, my usual wake up time. I am still wide awake.

The winds are gusting wildly again, making the prospect of a walk around the park rather unpleasant. T is still sleeping so I'll leave him alone for right now. If the weather calms down, we'll go for a hike in Red Rock Canyon in an hour or so.

For this blessing, I am grateful.

Amen.

Photo: I prefer to take candid shots of T but he likes to pose whenever he sees me with the camera.