Daily Prompt Dog and Caffeine

Two Right Feet

What are the things you need to do within 30 minutes of waking up to ensure your day gets off on the right foot? What happened the last time you didn’t do one of these things?

(This prompt was inspired by a suggestion from kimscaravelli. Thanks!)

Coffee is first on my list even though it’s not first in the timeline.  It’s the first thing that enters my sleepy mind.  Even though I’m more than likely cooing “good morning baby” to Pup and nuzzling my nose into his fur, relishing in that familiar leathery scent that says “Me. Dog.”, I’m thinking “I NEED COFFEE!!”.

Of course both are a necessary part of my morning ritual.  If I’m very lucky, Hubby brings my coffee in for me.  If he’s out, I have to trundle downstairs and get it started and then crawl back into bed again, looking for Pup to cuddle with.  Then I turn on my cell phone which spends its night next to my pillow.

I check my SMS’s and email for any crises or to-do’s and then begin reading what-all has happened in the blog world while I was sleeping, and peruse the news.

When my coffee is finally done and I’ve made it into the steaming, sweet, creamy drink I shouldn’t be having but do, I turn on the lights to my office and settle in front of my computer to write my daily post.

I pop my aspirin and citalopram with a sip of coffee.  When I’m sufficiently shaking from the caffeine, I go downstairs and make myself 2-3 cups of warm water and pop my prilosec.

Once hydrated and sufficiently caffeinated, I settle in to finishing my blog entry and spend some time reading other blogs.

If I were a good girl spiritually, I’d say that the first thing I do in the morning is meditate, but such is not the case.  Dog, blogging, doing bills, and getting caffeinated and hydrated are my immediate morning concerns.  But after they are done, I can’t do anything further with my day without doing my first formal sitting meditation of the day.  That puts my mind in the right place for the rest of the day.

After my meditation, the rest of the day is fun with the understanding that certain things are not optional (exercising, yoga, and meditating).  Anything important that comes up I can do if I have to, but I will try to delay working on serious issues until the next morning if I can.

FYI, I cheated.  I went way over 30 minutes of my day.  If I only talked about the first 30 minutes, though, I would still be under my covers snuggling with the dog and trying to get motivated to run into the cold kitchen to make my coffee.

When I spent the summer in Colorado taking care of my mother, I didn’t have my dog.  Coffee and breakfast were grabbed as I was rushing to the hospital.  I did drink a quart of warm water every morning to keep myself hydrated.  I’ve been keeping myself hydrated long enough I can’t stand the feeling of being dehydrated now, I can feel the toxins running around inside.  I’m very sensitive to it.

In the evenings in Colorado I had a short yoga session and did some slow jogging around the block a couple of times daily, but those things weren’t enough to deal with the intense stress.  Meditation went out the window with the chaos of my mother being in crisis and the family going crazy.  Meditating might have helped with my sanity, don’t know.  I felt intense pressure from all sides, way past anything I’ve ever experienced.  As it turns out, I was crying to come home in the end.  I missed my dog and home and husband and my routine so terribly.