My Life Has Gone to the Dogs (or How to Start a Morning Routine)
Aug 16th, 2009 by kathy
My husband has officially moved to another state to start his new job and now I have to establish some new routines. Things like making time to mow the grass, trim the hedges and do the edging around the driveway. Not a big deal – I’ve done all that before. The thing that’s really going to change for me is taking care of all our furry friends every day.
My geriatric Australian Shepherd is fairly easy – he sleeps most of the day, but I need to get him up and moving as much as possible. It takes him 10 minutes just to walk the length of the yard (and we have a tiny, tiny yard). Our Golden at 8 years still has all the energy and sass of a pup. Well, maybe not in this picture as he shares Merlin’s bed for a siesta.
The first order of business is to get Quake to listen to me. I’ve been watching “It’s me or the Dog” on Animal Planet for some tips from the super nanny for dogs. She makes a lot of sense with her very calm and consistent approach. Now if I can just keep my own head in this new game…
And so my challenge is to develop a new morning routine. By working my way backward from the time I need to leave for work and assigning real numbers to the time it takes me to do each task every morning, I arrived at a new wake-up time. Wait. That cannot be real. There’s no way I can wake up that early every day consistently. Five freaking o’clock every morning!!!
So if you’re game, tune in every week as the drama unfolds about what it really takes to establish a new routine. I’ve read a lot of people who say it takes 21 days. I don’t know – every other new habit or routine I’ve undertaken has taken anywhere from 3 months to I’m still working on it after 5 years, thank you very much.
Any of you out there have any advice for me?
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It looks like I may be in the same situation. It looks like DH will be getting a job offer (contingent on the reference checks, etc) and will be out of town several weeks for training.
Our cats are used to being fed somewhere north of 5:00 in the morning; I don’t know the exact time because I never have to deal with it! I wonder if I’ll be able to train them to suit MY schedule?
I just started today with same purpose-a morning routine that allows me to leave home with enough time to take three children to three different schools and arrive at work at a reasonable hour. 5:00, according to my calc, to allow sufficient time for everything that needs to be done. Sigh. Wish me luck!!!
Hi Kathy G. Congrats on the the new job in your family. So far the animals seem to be adapting to the new schedule and routine, but it’s still early in the game. It’s been more difficult to train me!
Hi Rima
Welcome. Thanks for stopping by. Good luck to you on your new routine. Let me know how you’re doing over the next few weeks. I’ve done the 3 daughters in three schools morning symphony too – it can be a lot of fun. What helped me the most was making sure each girl had their lunch and papers ready the night before and had picked out their outfit – too bad we didn’t have uniforms.