The One With The Routine

I would like to hear about your personal life. Not in a creepy way...just in a curious way. I wanted to just take a poll informally through a Facebook status, but I felt it needed a little more background. So a blog post it is.

The question: Do you have a morning routine of getting ready? And how strict is it?

Are you someone who accomplishes all your morning tasks within the same minute every morning, or does it not matter the order or timing, as long as everything gets done.

I never thought much about this--at all, really--until Brett and I were married and began sharing a tiny bathroom in a tiny apartment. At first, I was unemployed, so he could get ready however he wanted, and I stayed out of the way. Once I started working, we both had to leave the house and be at work by 8:00 a.m. This meant we had to work out some sort of schedule so we could both shower, brush our teeth over the tiny, pedestal sink; he needed the mirror to shave, I needed it to put on make up and fix my hair. Our mirror was about two square feet, so sharing it was basically like playing a game of Twister, while I was holding a 430* curling iron and Brett was spitting toothpaste on the back of my neck. It did not go well.

Brett is the kind of person who gets ready in the exact same order every day. He knows at what minute he needs to be putting in his contacts, brushing his teeth, packing his lunch...it's practically a science. I know that I need to shower, get dressed, put on make up, put in contacts, brush my teeth, fix my hair, pack a lunch, find shoes, and pack my purse. But the order doesn't really matter.

Growing up, Karen and I shared a bathroom. We had to be flexible (ha...okay...by flexible, I mean one of us would lock the bathroom door while the other would stand out side obnoxiously pounding on the door until the other let us in), but most days, it was fine. I would eat breakfast while she showered. If she took a long shower, I'd get dressed before putting on make up. If she overslept, I'd do everything that needed a sink and mirror first, then eat and get dressed in my room after. There was very little semblance to a routine for either of us. Then for five or so years after Karen left for college, I had my own bathroom, and I lived in chaos.

I tell Brett this, and it makes his mind explode. He can't imagine the kind of anarchy that ensues while I get ready in the morning, now that he works at seven (and leaves while I'm still sleeping) and I don't work until eight. To him, it's complete madness.

I shared this over Father's Day weekend with my family, and my cousin pointed out, "That's because you're a creative person." She too has a morning routine. She works in accounting; Brett does payroll. Both of those math jobs make my eyeballs hurt just thinking about the amount of numbers they see in a day.

So, friends (other creative friends...help me out here!), is it just me? What kind of person do you consider yourself? Are you a creative soul with no structure? Or are you an analytic thinker who likes routine and order?

Valedictorian

Brett is very much like Dooce, in that he HAS to be valedictorian of everything (well, okay, he was salutatorian in high school, but there was some corruption involved there). But unlike Dooce, he likes to do as little as possible, and still be valedictorian.

In college, Brett and I took a lot of the same classes. I worked so hard in Earth Science--read the chapters every night, memorized the class notes, agonized over my quizzes, and studied tirelessly before tests...and I failed every single one. Somehow (probably by the grace and mercy of dear Chuck), I passed the class with a C-. Brett occasionally did some homework and studied just enough that he would get an A on EVERYTHING. Which meant that the entire semester, he studied about one tenth what I did EVERY NIGHT.

He is still extremely bitter about the A- he received in Humanities. That class was a straight up joke. We wrote half-page essays on random topics ("Give me a half a page on art by Thursday" or "I'd like a couple paragraphs on Aristotle by next Tuesday"...seriously?). We had one final paper. No tests, no quizzes. We didn't even have real grades. He would just give us a + or - on the top of our essays. If he really liked it, maybe a +++, or if he wasn't sure, a +-. At the end of the year, I am entirely convinced that he just matched names to letter grades, because he didn't know a single person's name in the class.

Brett's A- in Humanities is the only grade less than an A he received in his entire college career. Which means he graduated with something like a 3.995 or something ridiculous. And he did a total of maybe three hours of homework in two years.

All of this to say I finally convinced Brett to donate blood with me back in March. It was his first time, so he was sort of excited when he finally received his blood donor card in the mail--mostly because he wanted to know what type of blood he has.

Well, to the shock of absolutely no one, his blood type is A positive. Yes, he has A+ blood.

My husband is the valedictorian of having blood.

The Book

I'm nearing the end of great journey. In fact, it will end tonight.

This journey started about three and half years ago, though it has seen it's share of interruptions. My senior year at Northwestern was a crazy one. When I returned at the beginning of the school year in August, I was a bit disillusioned--with my writing, my professors, my roommates, and myself. Frankly, I was unhappy. I was nearing the brink of graduation, about to become engaged the man I'd been dating for the last six years, and lost. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know what I wanted to be--but more importantly, I didn't know who I was at that very moment.

In the fall, I was working in the college's writing center, tutoring over-privileged college students (mostly freshman) who didn't know a comma from a semicolon. They were desperate to pass Comp I, and I was desperate to prevent the rapid downfall of the English language. And also make enough money to fill up my gas tank to drive home on the weekends.

I arrived to work one day exhausted, I had a raging sinus infection, no voice, and a headache that was furiously scratching at my eyeballs. There was only one appointment scheduled, so I sold my soul to my co-worker to take it, and I slept on the floor, desperately pleading that no one walk in for an appointment.

But someone did.

He was a freshman in Comp I. He had failed multiple grammar quizzes and was now required to receive a certain number of hours of tutoring. I pulled myself off the ground, and I'm sure he was just as thrilled as I was to start the session. I was wearing over-sized sweatpants and hoodie--both borrowed from my roommate, who borrowed them from her ex-boyfriend. My hair was matted from the floor nap, and I hadn't worn makeup in a week. I told him I didn't have much of a voice, but we would try to crank out a few practice quizzes so he could get his coveted "blue sheet" signing off on his mandatory tutoring.

We had just sat down to start studying when he asked if he could pray for me.

I eyed him suspiciously. This was Northwestern. There are a whole lot of genuinely wonderful, loving people there. And there are a whole lot of hypocrites. I shrugged and let him pray. He laid his hand on my shoulder and prayed for healing in my body and the strength to finish my tutoring for the day.

This poor young man was terrible at grammar. He repeatedly failed quizzes and essays, so he was constantly in the ALPHA center. We started hanging out outside of work in the Student Center, and he would help me with my theology homework. We stayed up all night one night in the discussing beauty for one of my Christianity and Writing essays. In all my life, I had never met anyone so genuine--and some one who truly loved Jesus as much as he did.

And that's when this journey started. I shared with him my disillusion with my life and myself. And he bluntly asked if I was reading my Bible. He encouraged me to read the entire Bible--not in one setting, not even in one year. But to read it start to finish--every book, every chapter, every verse.

So I did.

I started in Matthew (I was afraid I'd get discouraged if I started in Genesis and had to read the Pentateuch right away). Tonight, I will finish with Malachi. It's taken me years, as I've mostly read just two-three chapters a night. I admit, some time shortly after we got married, I stopped. We began reading The Daily Bread together, and I let my personal reading slide. Eventually I picked it back up, and now I'm finishing. I've been on this journey in my Moyer 12 dorm room, my room at my parents' house when I moved back home for the summer, our first apartment on Vine Street, and now the very first house we've owned. The same pink Bible has traveled with me on various night stands near my bed.

For whatever reason, I'm very thankful that one young man was sent to me in the ALPHA Center while I was sick out of my mind. He taught me how to love Jesus and how to read the Bible.

So while this is an enormous personal accomplishment for me, I know this journey is nowhere near the end. I'm not sure if I'm going to start over or start something new--but I'm so glad I've made it a habit.