I wish I wish I wish

I wish I could get up early and work before the kids get up.  I try, almost every day.  But I hit that snooze alarm at least 10 times.  I used to outsmart myself, by putting my alarm clock in the drawer across the room, with the idea being that if I made it that far, I could just keep going on into the shower.  Of course, I also discovered that I could go from the shower, right back to bed.  It wasn't a perfect system.

So last night, I went to be early.  EARLY.  Like... 10 pm.  Which for me, is practically the afternoon.  I am a total night owl.  I do my best work at 1 am.  But I''m trying something new - instead of going to bed at 3 and dragging myself out of bed at 8, I thought I'd go to bed at 10 and drag myself out of bed at 4.  Or 5.  or 6.   6 worked.  But it wasn't easy.  It was 7:30 before I felt awake (and I'm still feeling a little fuzzy, thank you very much, at 8:15).  I've gotten no work done. So in essence, I basically lost a night of productive work instead of gaining it.  

How do you morning people do it?  Do you mainline coffee first thing?  Do you hit the ground running and go for a jog or something equally painful?   Is anyone creative at 7 am (STARTING at 7 am, not coming around from the night before).  I just don't get how that works.  You people are a strange and exotic species to me.  

So... I *was* going to talk about photography and this really cool new client who came in.  And had I been writing this at 1 am, I would have been witty and brilliant and talked all about how much fun she was (and how nice she was when I kept renaming her husband, who STILL reminds me of a guy named Chip).  But it's early.  And I'm not really functioning yet.  And it's all the fault of you morning people who make this getting-up-early thing look easy.   So instead, you just get to see how pretty she is.  (I think that's a fair trade-off, don't you?)