Probably the Only Time My New Bed Will Be Made But...Looks Good by BrentDPayne, on Flickr

I don’t make my bed. There, I’ve said it. I did for years. I like the way the bedroom looks when the bed is made and all the fancy little pillows are placed neatly on top of the comforter. But something changed: my husband started working at home. He suffers from insomnia and can be up, working, into the wee hours of the morning. If I’m not tucked in by 11PM, I’m generally asleep in the living room chair by 11:15. I get up early and he most often sleeps in a little later than I do. He has (God bless him) gotten into the habit of making the bed as he gets out of it every morning. Poof! That sure was an easy habit to break!

Not so easy to break was the habit of eating while I watched TV at night with hubby. It started innocently enough a dozen years ago. The kids would eat an early dinner when they were little to allow their tummies time to digest before their 8PM bedtime. I’d usually eat with them and hubby would eat later in the evening when he was home from work and decompressed from the day. But, by 10PM I’d be ravenous again. A small bowl of chips or a handful of M&Ms would tide me over. Even when I started eating better, I’d have a spoonful of peanut butter mixed with some créme fraiche and honey or a couple crackers with inexpensive caviar. Cold butter and cheese slices were closer to an addiction than a snack.

But now that the kids are mostly teens and dinnertime is a very regular 6PM, I don’t need that nighttime snack anymore. It took some serious decision-making to turn down that little night-bite, but my new habit of drinking a small glass of water kefir works fine for me now.

Getting up and making breakfast before the family was awake was easy when I had a baby waking me at dawn to nurse. I’d be awake and baby would usually drop back off to sleep. I could cook at my leisure and still have time for a cup of coffee before the crew hit the ground running. But now that I’m up later at night, it’s hard to wake up before my earliest riser and have some quiet time with a hot mug before the “what’s for breakfast” chorus begins. Waking early these days means I’m going without sleep, something my body does not like one bit. But, my early riser is a teen now, and is fully capable of making breakfast. Pancakes are her specialty, but she’s been branching out and trying other dishes as well. So, as she forms a habit to check the menus posted on the refrigerator and try her hand at creating the suggested meal, I am forming a lovely habit of getting enough sleep!

What habits are you challenging and changing these days?

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