My Early Morning Routine {Summer}

My summer morning routine is really just a more polished version of my spring morning routine.

This year, my focus has been to simply become more intentional with my time. With the children growing up and the dreaded menopause looming closer with every day, I wanted to take back my life and be excited by it rather than sad.

Motherhood has been my everything (and it still is), but the ‘children’ need me less and less the older they get.

Actually, that last sentence isn’t true. They actually seem to need me more but in a very different way.

I do, however, have more time on my hands…

And anyone who has been reading angelicscalliwags will know that time-on-hands and Claire don’t do well together.

So, in the spirit of ‘prevention is better than cure’, I have been attempting to curate a daily schedule that is healthy, sustainable and productive, starting with my early morning routine.

So here it is. To a greater or lesser extend this is what I do every day, Monday to Friday. My weekends are less scheduled.

5am Alarm goes off on my phone, which is placed far away from me so I have to get out of bed and turn it off! I don’t use my Lumie Light in summer because it is already light! I head to the kitchen where I fill the bread machine with flour, salt, sugar, butter, yeast and water and set it to bake a loaf by lunchtime. I do my new skin care routine (!), brush my teeth and weigh myself for Noom. I then make myself a coffee from freshly ground beans. I take my coffee back to bed and read from Sally Clarkson’s Mom Heart Moments. I spend the rest of the hour praying for my family and their partners.

6am I get dressed and take the dog for a 40-50 minute walk. On this walk, I listen to an Elizabeth Elliot podcast (which are between 45-55 minutes long), stopping to pray for ten families I feel God has put on my heart as I walk past their homes. I make sure to greet every person I meet with a smile and will also pick any wild flowers I find for my wild flower vase which sits on our window sill. I’d really like to get myself a basket into which I can place the flowers I pick but at £36 it’s a bit steep for me right now…maybe next month 😊

7am Back home, I feed the cats and the dog, if Becca hasn’t beaten me to it. I make some oat milk for the non-dairies of the house and hang up the load of laundry I put on the night before outside on the line to dry. I do the bathroom chores, which consist of a quick spray down of bath, sink and loo and I sweep and mop the floor. If I have any flowers, I add them to my wild flower vase. I make myself a coffee and head into my bedroom to read Noom and fill in my weight, blood pressure, add my morning walk to my exercise log and read the articles of the day.

8am I journal my thoughts of the day (which you get to read here) and add anything from the morning podcast which struck me as important to my common place book. Depending on how much time I have left before 9am (when I start school), I might watch a YouTube video or read an article. I try to make these learning opportunities but if I feel like I need some motivation for the day, I will watch one of the channels I follow. I try to leave enough time to tidy my bedroom and make my bed. I get myself a glass of cold water from the huge flask I keep in the fridge, to have whilst I read to the girls during morning meeting at 9am.

Am I happy with this routine? In the main, I am. I will be starting back at my master’s degree in September and will probably try to use the hour before school as studying time. That means I need to fit everything I do at that time before eight. Fortunately, the more I do the routine, the quicker I get, so I think it will be fine come September.

I have moved my writing to the afternoon. But that’s a post for another day. How do you curate your perfect morning?