I have resolved to become a morning person. Nothing drastic, I don't want to be getting up at 4:30 am…. I just don't want to be going to bed at 4:30 am. I'm sure that there are many other people who have spent large parts of their adolescence and young adulthood being night people, often drastically so. I, however, have been getting sick of it. Don't get me wrong, I still love being up late at night, but there are a lot of advantages to being a morning person. So in order to motivate myself, I'm going to list the top ten reasons to get up at a decent hour, in no particular order. (I'll save the disadvantages for later.)

1. I won't be bugged by my husband's alarm going off for an hour in the morning, because I'll already be awake. This is a big source of friction that will almost completely disappear.

2. Since we only have one car at the moment and I want to get work over when I get up, I'll be greatly encouraged to walk or ride my bike to work. Times during which exercise has been forced for mobility's sake have been the times during which I have had the most control over my weight.

3. I'll be more likely to get enough sleep at night. Since I'm scheduling a time to go to bed and a time to get up, I'll usually get the sleep I need rather than being tired all day. Of course I'll probably still be tired until I adjust a bit, but it should be much better in the long run.

4. There won't be any big periods of adjustment during times when outside circumstances force me to be up at a certain hour.

5. The few friends I have that are morning people will stop accusing me of making up all this night person stuff. (I'm not making it up, I swear. I actually feel most alert in the evening, but I'm hoping that will change somewhat.)

6. During the summer I can get outside chores done while it is still cool outside.

7. I might actually get to see a sunset at the beginning of a day, rather than the end. (And no, I am not exaggerating.)

8. When I go to visit my family, I can actually do things with them rather than sleeping through half the time that they are awake.

9. I won't have trouble going to sleep because of the light coming in through the window.

10. No more late night television.

So last night I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 8:30. I'm sure that seems ridiculously late to any morning people and ridiculously early to night people, so I think it's perfect. I may change it later, but this is a doable adjustment for now. Now I just have to do it for six weeks. They say you have to do something for at least six weeks to make it a habit, and I believe them. I started weightlifting last September and kept it up nonstop for three or four months. Since then, even when things such as the death of my father-in-law, school, and my pregnancy and miscarriage have interrupted my routine, I've always gotten started again. So here's to day 1 of 42!

I'm planting a garden for the first time this summer. There are some vegetables that I really like, but they are often expensive at the store and often go bad before I get a chance to eat them. I'm sort of limited in what I can plant, since I started late in the season, but I've got broccoli, cantaloupe, corn, carrots, yellow squash, and zucchini planted. Unfortunately the back yard doesn't have enough sunny spots for a garden, so I've had to plant it in the front. My family thinks it's pretty funny that I have corn in the front yard, but oh well. Speaking of corn, here's a picture of the corn, the first seedlings to come up.

Go corn!!!