All the journals I’ve read from women of the past have been clear on this subject matter: A good farm wife is up with the sun and continues in an up-right position until said sun goes to bed. Ugh.

My nature, my genes, my will and everything else that makes me me desires to go to bed late and get up late. Oh, and I LOVE to nap. I realize how luxuriously lazy I sound, but I typically get a second wind between 9 and 11 p.m. and have accomplished many things during these late hours.

And while I have been forced, literally forced, to adjust my desirable sleeping habits because the children kept coming and they don’t sleep in, I don’t have much of a desire to get up when the alarm goes off. I have LOTS of plans to get up, but those plans seem so ridiculous and crazy and just not good for my health when the time actually comes that I almost always succumb to the beloved snooze button (for the next hour).

Not anymore (I tell myself)! That was then; this is now. And now, I am a REAL farmer, farmer’s wife, etc., etc.

For the last 2-3 days (hey, that’s a start), I have been making myself, literally telling myself, “Ginia, go to bed,” at around 9:30 p.m. And so far, I have obeyed. Now the getting up part has been harder. Yesterday I arose around 5:30 a.m. Today (ehhhhh), 6:15 a.m. … BUT, that is progress, right?

And so the voyage continues, bright eyed and bushy tailed (with an apron on, of course) at 5 a.m. (hopefully, some day).

Categories: Frugal homemaking on the farm

Ginia

My name is Ginia Oehlschlager and I'm a small-town gal from Missouri. Join me as I document my crazy life on the farm with my husband and four kids. I'm always looking for frugal, simple ways to live the life God set before me. Where faith, family and fun come together on the farm.