Morning Sky

I'm trying again to stick to a morning schedule so I can get myself to work by 8 and leave at 4 when it's still light out.

Waking up in the dark is the worst, but the sunrise in my little part of West Philly is pretty spectacular :)

Morning :: Osage. Avenue

Morning :: Osage Ave.

Morning :: blinds

Morning :: trolley stop

Morning :: Center City

Morning :: Cedar Ave.

Morning :: breakfast reading

Morning :: lunch cart

15th St. Philly

Morning :: Love Park fountain, Philadelphia

Morning :: Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Looking northwest from the tenth floor of my office building.

Morning :: plastic bags

Morning :: Organ

Morning :: Love Park

Morning :: 47th Street

Morning :: City Hall

Morning :: South Street bridge

From my bike commute today.

Morning :: lamp

Morning :: bedroom window

Resolutions

I'm making some common ones - exercise and time management. I was out at a work holiday party last month and I started talking to the wife of one of my coworkers. We were chatting about our morning routines and I laughingly admitted that I set my alarm for 6 am every morning and hit the snooze for an hour and a half. Her joking response was "so you start out every morning disappointing yourself."

Wow. It was a joke, but it hit me hard. I set my alarm every morning with a good intention that I never follow through on. It's a small thing, but it sets the tone of my day and it's a simple thing to change. So with that floating in my head this holiday season, here are the concrete things I plan to do differently in 2012:

• Get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 6am. Duh. I've been doing it for two days now and I actually arrived at work this morning at 7:50 AM (see the evidence in the picture above, taken in the front room as I was leaving the house). This means that I can leave at 4pm and get an extra hour to an hour and a half of stuff done in the evening. It's a new year's miracle.

• Do something good for my body every day. Even if it's just a brisk mile and a half walk on my lunch hour or twenty minutes of sit-ups in the evening.

And that's it. Just two little, manageable resolutions. With just two, I think I can manage not to disappoint myself.

P.S. I was greeted upon leaving the house this morning with a little dusting of snow, which promises to melt by mid-day. Mother Nature, let's have much more of this please.