Burning the Midnight Oil

After my middle of the night cleaning spree the other night (it was just too darn hot in our house during the day,) I realized that I may have stumbled onto a couple of very important lessons.

The right thing to do may not be the same thing for you and me.

“Burning the midnight oil” worked for me. So maybe that’s what I should do.

For months, nay YEARS, I have been working on improving my cleaning ethic here at home. For years I have also been struggling with going to bed on time and getting up early so I can get enough done in my day. I will do well with it but then I will get right back to staying up insanely early and sleeping in til 8 or 9 (or some mornings ten!).

I’m just not disciplined enough to get up early. I’ve been trying to get there. But it’s not happening.

Now, I’m not saying it would be okay clean late and sleep in until noon – No, I have small children who depend on me to take care of them. Well, and it probably wouldn’t be okay to sleep in until noon even if they were older – cuz then you get into the issues of laziness.

As I was saying, perhaps instead of trying to go to bed by eleven and getting up by six, I could go to bed by one and get up at eight. Who’s to say I can’t? My children don’t need to be at school, my husband doesn’t need to be at work that early. The deciding factor would be what I do with those late night hours. (And, well, how my hubby feels about it but he’s a night owl, too.)

Writing a really great blog post does not justify staying up til the wee hours of the morning. I know, I’ve done that. But staying up late to catch up on cleaning? Now that just might.

I don’t know about you, but it seems that it’s the sort of thing the Proverbs 31 woman might have done. Well, not staying up til one and getting up at 8 specifically, but I meaning staying up after everyone else went to bed to get some work done and take care of her family.

I also listened to some good worship and a good sermon podcast while I was cleaning so it was a very quiet and spiritually uplifting time as well.

And don’t think for a minute that that means I am going to neglect my husband! Oh no! It’s absolutely possible to meet his needs and let him go to sleep and get to work on the dishes. I’m just sayin’.

I don’t plan on staying up as late as I did the other night. I just can’t stay up till 3 every night anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be. But I usually stay up until midnight or one anyway. I’m just, usually, well… blogging.

So I’m going to try this out for a while. Every night before going to bed, I will get off the computer a little earlier and get some work done. Every three or four days, I’ll stay up and get a LOT of work done. We’ll see if I can stick to that better than I can stick to getting up super early. We’ll see if it helps us keep the house cleaner during the hot part of the day. We’ll see.. if Momma can take care of her family by burning some midnight oil. My family is worth it.