Making New Habits--Sometimes Success and Failure Go Hand in Hand!

• Who can find a virtuous woman?  her price is far above rubies
• She looketh well to the ways of her household
• She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple
• She rises while it is yet night

Okay ladies, I'm about to be real up in here.  This week's edition of Making New Habits is a mixed bag of success and failure. 

First the good news--I made the bed every single day this week except one, and that day I had a really good reason--my sweet husband, who worked a 60-hour week this past week, was taking advantage of his one day off and sleeping in.  I left for church while he was still asleep, then we spent the afternoon at my parent's house, and by the time I went into the bedroom that night--my husband was already in bed asleep again.  But other than that--success!  I'm still tracking with daily pictures over on my Virtuous Woman facebook page, but I'm not going to bore you by reposting them here. 

Instead, I'm going to show you pictures of my massive Making New Habits FAIL for this week. 

Just to refresh your memory, my task this week was to get myself groomed and fully dressed, every day, in a timely manner, whether I had some place to go outside the house or not. I was trying to come up with what I could do to track this, without taking a full-length picture of myself each day.  (Some of you have seen mixed results of my efforts at self-portrait before!) So I thought I'd take a page from the FlyLady playbook and let my shoe-shod feet be representative of getting groomed and fully dressed each day.

I didn't take a picture the first day, but this was Day 2--dressed to shoes

Day 3--I eventually got dressed, but at the time I should have been dressed and ready to meet my day--I wasn't!

Day 4--ready to go!

Day 5--already gone!

Day 6-dressed but not to shoes--it was cold and wet outside, and I didn't put shoes on except briefly to run an errand.

Day 7--dressed, yes, sort of, but stayed in slippers and never did a thing with hair or make-up ALL DAY

Day 8--today--my husband had an extra early day today, so I got up with him at 3:10, then went to back to bed after he left, couldn't get to sleep, and then finally slept in.  And even after I got out of bed, just couldn't seem to get up and at it like I needed to do. So this picture was taken way later than it should have been. Way.  

And finally--now! Yes, I did get eventually get showered, dressed, groomed, made-up, and gone about my day. Just way late.  Way.

So my clothing was not much like the virtuous woman's silk or tapestry this week.  On days I know I need to get up and dressed and out of the house, I seem to do better.  And we have had an abundance of cold, wet, dreary days that make me want to stay in my robe-and-slippers cocoon as long as possible, but I was really disappointed in myself some days.  I hate slouchiness and grubbiness, in myself as well as in others.  I love comfort, and as you can see, my "uniform" consists of jeans and tennis shoes more often than not; it's not like I have to put on pantyhose and heels with my shirtwaist and pearls.  But I could at least wear a cute shirt, and make sure my hair is done and at least minimal make-up. 

In trying to to analyze my failure this week, I've come up with a couple of different ideas. 

First of all--I've blogged before about my night-owl tendencies, which come and go at times according to my schedule, but I'm nearly always a bit on the late side to bed at night. I try to get up with my husband around 5:00 a.m., but then if I'm tired (which I usually am) I go back to bed after he leaves.  I've never been a hit-the-floor-running kind of person, I like a slower, more leisurely pace to my mornings.  But if I sleep later and take my time to get going, guess what? It's really late by the time I'm ready to do anything.

The Virtuous Woman "rises while it is yet night...", doesn't she? Ugh. Sounds like an early riser to me.

And what about some of the rest of scripture?

• Psalm 63 states it this way "O God, thou art my God, early will I see thee..."
• And Psalm 78, "they returned and enquired early after God"
• And Psalm 57, "Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early"
• And Psalm 108 "Awake psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early"

Double Ugh.

On the one hand, does it really matter if my day is from 8:00 a.m.-to-midnight (or later) or if it's 6:00 a.m.-to-10:00 p.m.?  Maybe not. But if my family are all early-to-bed-early-to-rise, wouldn't that be included in "looking well to the ways of my household?" 

I have some other thoughts in the matter, but I think I'll save them for another day.  I got started late today, and I have some other things I need to do. 

But my combined list for Making New Habits is this:

1. Continue to make the bed every day
2. Continue to try to get groomed and dressed in a timely manner every day
3. Rethink my morning and evening schedule--including getting to bed earlier.  I'll make this specific--to bed by 11:00 p.m. (or earlier) every night. 

Are you and early bird or night owl?  And how do you adjust your schedule to fit your family's?

You can read the other parts of this series here:

Establishing New Habits For the New Year

Make New Friends (Habits), But Keep the Old

Making New Habits and Tweaking the Old

Making New Habits--Sometimes You Just Gotta Go With the Flow

This post is linked to:

Make Your Home Sing Monday at Mom's the Word

Titus Tuesday at the TimeWarp Wife

Tackle it Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom

Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family

Until next time...