Early to Rise

Ah, getting up. Early.

It’s been tough lately unless I’m going swimming.

In my mind, it’s set to go on Tuesdays and Thursdays at around 5:40 to the swimming pool.

It never fails: after swimming for an hour with moderate intensity, I feel energized. All the tension is relatively gone. My forearm muscles are a bit sore, but I’m mostly good.

It’s a Wednesday morning. Eating a large dinner late and working on the iPhone around 1:00 doesn’t do me any favors of waking up at 6:00, let alone 5:30.

If I want to get up feeling refreshed at 5:30, I got to get to sleep by 10:30. No later than 11:30.

I know the phone has to be off and away by 9:30.

I know the ingredients of how to rise early. It’s the question of execution.

Taking Joe to the Hospital

So I got up at 7:00. I knew I wanted to get up around 6:00 to try the new routine I wrote in my last post.

But I set myself to fail. Badly. Moving on.

Around 7:30, I took Joe to the hospital. He got this illness that has spots and blots on his arms, legs, and inside his mouth for a few days.

The big hospital we go to has a doctor that took care of most of Joe’s tough illnesses. Here’s hoping this can be put under wraps.

I found a couple of interesting things. The hospital opens at 8:00. Parents come in with their kids pretty early; the earliest one was 8:01.

We arrived at 8:20. The doctor took the first case at 8:27.

Even if you’re first, you have about a half-hour wait. I think coming in first and early isn’t a bad thing.

In our case, the time is 9:00. A 40 minute wait so far. We still have 1 more child before it’s our turn. And there’s a small chance that the doctor may make her morning rounds upstairs before our turn.

The trip to the hospital is about 45 minutes. The optimal time would be go as soon as possible. Accept the half-hour wait. The examination takes about 15 minutes. The trip to the pharmacy is about 15 minutes. Another 45 minutes back home.

Altogether:

45 minutes to the hospital.

30 minutes waiting.

15 minutes for the examination.

15 minutes for the pharmacy trip.

45 minutes back home.

Total time: 150 minutes if we can be the first one.

I can be home before 10:00. Not bad.