Routines and Excuses

As I start to write this blog the wife is driving the mother-in-law and sister-in-law to the airport.  They were guests in our home for the past week and we were glad to have them.  But with house guests comes interruptions to our routines.

I suppose we could have been mean and forced our guests to follow our routines but that would mean (or as they would probably describe it, cruel).  We could have continued our routines and allowed them to continue in their chaos (note, chaos would here be narrowly defined as anything not in our routine).  Any way we (those with the routine) looked at it and there was not a great solution that would make all happy (and by all, I mean our chaotic house guests).

Let me talk a bit about what our routines are here.  A simple list would include the following…

• 5:30 AM - Wake up (adults and dogs) and begin the process of making coffee
• 6:15 AM - Walk, run dogs
• 7:00 AM - Breakfast and 2nd cup of coffee
• 7:30 AM - Get on with the day (I drive into the office to be able to be there by 8)

We have an evening routine as well and it revolves around the time we attempt to have dinner completed and the kids settling down for the night / getting into bed.  All this was thrown out the window (for the most part the past week) though the wife and I (and the dogs) kept to our morning routine (the dogs are quite insistent about their routines).  Other routines would be the amount of time we eat at home versus eating out and the quality of food that we eat.  Here is where the “Excuses” part of the blog title comes in to play.

The wife and I (and the kids of course) were given a built in excuse not to follow our routines.  To the kids it was a no brainer choice and the moved to chaos with no issues.  To the wife and I, we used this week as an excuse to eat poorly (and too much).  Now that our guests are gone, it is time to get back into our routines.

Historically this has been hard.  I can look back at times like this when it all went to pot and progress I had made toward any goals (weight, exercise, etc) came to a screeching halt (and reversed).  It is so hard for me to keep on the straight and narrow if there is a curve in the road.  I have to go cold turkey on things like desert and soda or else weeks like this really lull me back into the old routine.  Fortunately I have my wife (whip in hand) to get me back on the path.

Looking forward to getting back into our old routines now that our guests are gone (until of course my mother comes to visit in a month and we start over again).

Jon