It occurred to me this morning that I am on a mission every Saturday (since my weekdays are really out of my control) to make it the best day it can be. My body will no longer allow me to sleep in past eight o’clock in the morning, and most Saturdays I am awake before then unless I’m feeling under the weather.

This day is no different. I woke up, sufficiently rested after my average of 3 rollovers during the hour before I really wake up. I sleep like a dead person all through the night and then in the morning I have to change my position as I fight to stay asleep.

When I turned over this morning to get up, the clock glared at me with its wide, red eyes:

7:38

Are you kidding me?

He wasn’t, so I tossed the covers back and got out of bed. It’s always interesting to me to watch how people wake up and what they do. Not that I’ve had the opportunity to see many people in their waking up stage of the day. My immediate family, sure, my grandparents, some of my cousins (including the one who can’t keep her elbow out of my side), and a few friends and roommates. Not really Kevin, but kinda, since he spent Christmas with my family last year and someone woke him up about 2 hours before he was ready. Sorry, dude. That’s how we roll.

But it is interesting to see people as they shrug off sleep and open up to the morning. Some are quiet, some are moody, some, like myself, are pretty awake immediately and once I get around I am ready to go for the day. Coffee helps, of course, but I’m generally a pleasant person in the morning. Three o’clock in the afternoon is a different story because by then I need a nap. Bad.

I let puppy out of her crate in the garage and open the door that leads into the backyard.

“Go pee pee,” I say two or three times. She finally gets it, but she would rather play and we spend some time at the door with her slapping at my pink Croc, a shoe that does not offer the necessary amount of coverage a person needs on this sort of morning.

After she is fed and medicated I come back inside to check my email and get the day going. Something is calling me from the kitchen though and, surprise, it’s not coffee this morning. No, today I head to the fridge and pull out a pint of heavy cream, a measuring cup and spoon, cocoa from the cabinet, along with some cayenne pepper, Splenda, and some canned whipped cream. That, my friends, is a recipe for some tasty low-carb (high fat, high calorie, sugar-free, artery clogging) hot chocolate that cannot be beat. I admit that the cayenne does sound a little crazy and it’s not in the recipe, but I like the added spice. Ever seen Chocolat? Well, me neither, at least not the whole thing (I’ve never made it to the part where Johnny Depp appears…I think I must have been watching it on Pay-Per-View at my parents’ house and of course we didn’t buy it, so it got cut off in the middle somewhere) but I know she added spice to her chocolate.

This morning (and the past few) I am enjoying:
♥ hot chocolate
♥ the quiet
♥ the warmth of this house
♥ sunlight streaming in through a pair of white french doors
♥ the possibility of the day
♥ “brand new, with no mistakes in it”
♥ indentity by milan kundera
♥ wreck this journal by keri smith (and now, me)
♥ Friday Night Lights
♥ knowing next week exists and will be here soon
♥ the winter here’s cold…and bitter, it’s chilled us to the bone