The morning routine.

It is a good thing that I have a lot of coffee as I wake up. Since I am never sure what to post, I am going to do my morning routine. This is partially for you readers and partially to help me remember what I am supposed to do.



start e-mail, respond or act as necessary. (I immediately post card ideas for the DS blog from our e-mail links on the card submissions page, etc.).

Start Skype, check for messages, check open conversations for new comments. (My skype is markeharmon if you want to contact me that way.)

Open ichat for our internal communications and aim contacts (AIM is markharmon@mac.com).

start Netnewswire. This checks for blog updates. several game blogs, DS people I know who have revealed they have a blog. I also pick up the science channels and blog news. Sometimes I get bogged down here. (Did you know that some frogs can cross species breed? Neither did I. A little Dragon's Blood in them maybe?)

start ical calendar to see what is on the menu for today.

Start Canary, my simple Twitter app. Check local flint news. (My Twitter is markellisharmon)

start itunes a set it to pick up new podcasts.

start Awaken and set daily alarms.

Fire up Yojimbo, good program for holding snippets etc.

Check for on-line orders, print and pull them.

Log into Etsy to update and check for patron conversations. Did a renewal too.



During this process I get Sue here coffee, make breakfast, get herbs in us.

(Herbs are a side effect of being uninsured. As self employed our last estimate for a decent plan was $14,400.00 per year. It has not gone down.)

Do a few minutes of work out. Making time for this is difficult, I skip it way too often.

Walk Mocha. She needs a short trip outside in the morning. Check her food, water and emergency pee pads. (She uses the pads occasionally if we don't respond properly. It is all our fault, of course.) Then I take a few minutes and explain to Mocha everything she needs to get done during the day. While she may not be very efficient with her assignments, she provides a great excuse for why "stuff" did not get done.



Finally I open MarsEdit and write a pithy blog post on one, or more, blogs, which is what I am doing now. And, I am doing it now to avoid doing the dishes *sigh* I doubt that is going to work, I can not make excuses forever. Besides, Sue likes to cook in a clean kitchen. I clean it and she cooks in it. Good deal really. Ahhh, I need more coffee, that will buy me a couple more minutes.

Pulled orders, need to pack them. Sipping coffee. A moment to relax.

It has now been four hours since starting today. Dishes are still staring at me. I see that the garbage needs dealing with and that I am out of vacuum bags.



For the rest of my day I have a shopping trip to do and I want to spend a good amount of time working on the Whispering Village for Crypt Crawl. I still have a lot of web updates for DS, so I will "break" by doing some of that. Now I will post this and get to work. Time for a second work out stint.