Tuesday 4~ Routines

 Routines

Howdy!
Welcome back to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4.
They say having routines in your life keeps you mentally healthier than living a disorganized or haphazard life. Schedules have a profound effect on our well being. Belonging to clubs, organizations is good for us.
According to research from UCLA Health, " a predictable daily routine supports mental health by reducing stress, lowering cognitive load, and creating a steady sense of personal control. "
It keeps sickness away too. People with good daily routines and habits live longer and decidedly healthier lives. It promotes a feeling of productiveness and purpose.
Boredom contributes to sickness and cognitive decline in the elderly.


1. Do you have a daily routine for yourself and for your home?

Yes, I'd say we definitely do. It's more like my husband has a daily routine, and I do my best to follow it.  Actually, even though I sometimes balk at bedtimes and mealtimes always the same...it really is best for us both. I just sometimes want to be a bit more "carefree" with less of a schedule, but I've learned over the years it's just better for everyone concerned if we stick to the routine as much as possible. Of course, there are days that we have doctor appointments and other activities that take us out of our normal routines and we have to be flexible and adapt to different mealtimes in particular. But I think we are both happier and less cranky when we get back to our "normal" time schedule and take our daily naps. LOL.  (Retirement is a lot like going back to our early childhood days when we needed to stay on that mealtime/nap schedule LOL.).


2. What is your morning routine? How about your bedtime routine?

Well, now that we have another mouth to feed, a.k.a. "King Blackie", we are up and out of bed by 5:30 a.m.  Blackie is waiting at the back door and doesn't even stop for a How do you do? as he races to his food dish. After he has eaten about half of his food, he'll stop and come check to see if Daddy is up and out of the bedroom yet, and once he sees him, he's contented to go back to finish the rest of his food. Then he comes out to the living room to say a proper hello while we drink our coffee and tea. You've seen the pictures of how he comes to pay a visit to me while I try to read and write on the computer.

Once we finish our tea/coffee, we read our devotions together, and then I fix breakfast.   

At sunrise I always put our American Flag out on the front porch, and take a picture of the sunrise. THIS beautiful sky is what greeted me yesterday morning!   "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning!"  And yes, it was a forewarning of a rainy stormy day!

And one of our other "morning routines" is to take a walk, weather permitting. Yesterday morning was warm and humid in advance of the afternoon rains coming in, but we took a quick walk anyway before the rains came...

The Beauty Berry bushes are all blooming with berries now!

And we got outside in time to see these lovely wild morning glories in bloom!

Here they are, growing up the trees along our walkway. So pretty.

And yes! We did get a LOT of rain yesterday afternoon and evening, with more promised to come today and tomorrow.  Little by little, our Still Waters Pond is getting saturated! We rejoice at every drop of rain that falls on it!

Now, regarding bedtime...well we head for showers/bed around 9:00 most nights. If there's a late football game going on or something interesting on TV, we might stay up until 9:30. LOL.  


3.Do you have a routine get together for a family meal or game/movie or pizza night?

Most Sundays our son Scott is here for lunch after church, and sometimes Benton and Rose come too, if she isn't working.  Once in a while, maybe once a month or oftener if available, we get together with Rose and Benton for supper, either here, or sometimes we go out to eat, or we make pizzas together and once in a while we play a game of cards or dominoes. It's been a while since we did that...it's more of a fall/winter thing when we have these longer winter nights.

As a matter of fact, today we are planning to go eat lunch at the all new "Backwoods Country Kitchen" with Benton and Rose.  This is the place that used to be the Hog Wild Country Cafe'/BBQ, but they had a bad kitchen fire over a year ago and they have since moved to a different location here in our town. But another company bought the building and over the past year has rebuilt the kitchen and cleaned everything up, and yesterday was their much awaited grand opening.  Since Rose is off work today, we decided we would go there for lunch and check it out. I will be sure to let you know in a new post how it goes!  Our little community doesn't have a lot to choose from in the way of restaurants, so when there's something new in town, everyone gets excited!

Facebook Photo

4. AnyTV programs, clubs, organizational routines you never want to miss? Do you attend town meetings, choir practice?

I think you all know that I sing in our church choir, and we have practice every Tuesday night, so I don't want to miss that! And NOW, I'm so happy that our son Benton has also joined the choir, and so I pick him up on my way since I have to go right by where he lives. (Although now that it's getting dark earlier I may have him pick me up and do the driving. I'm finding that my night driving just isn't all that good anymore!)

Here was our song for this past Sunday. We record it on Tuesday nights at practice, and then this goes on our church website and Facebook page on Sunday. It also has the Pastor's sermon for the week.

As far as other meetings, etc., I also go to the Ladies' Bible Study at our church every Monday afternoon.  I do look forward to that time of fellowship and sharing God's Word together, and I don't like to miss it!

Of course, nearly every week there's some kind of doctor appointment or test for one or the other of us. This week hubby will have an echocardiogram on Friday. It's mainly to rule out any heart issues that could be causing his fatigue. His EKG was just fine, and this is more precautionary.  Next week will be the dental visit for his root canal and new crown preparation/temporary crown.  Never a dull moment!  But we are very thankful that it isn't anything worse. God has been very gracious to us, and we are extremely grateful.

Today, October 6th, is our grandson Noah's 27th birthday.  I hope we can talk to him on the phone. It's been a long while since we've been able to "connect"...not for lack of trying...but for whatever reason, he just doesn't communicate with us these days. Of course, he's young and busy and he lives 1500 miles away...but hopefully we will be able to reach him today and wish him a happy birthday. Our card/gift should also reach him in the mail by today...so here's praying we can make that connection. It means a lot to us and we hope it means a lot to him as well.

Well, that about sums up our exciting routines!  I am in the midst of my morning routine now as I finish this post...there's my cup of tea. Blackie is actually back outside already. He already had his breakfast (it's 6:44 a.m. right now) and expressed his desire to go back outside. He'll probably want to come back in later.  

In addition to our regular daily devotions, I also have a lot of little devotional calendars and booklets that I like to read from.  I was looking at this one today, even though it says it's for October 7th, I liked what it had to say today because I thought it went along better with our theme of routines...

I like Goethe's idea of hearing "at least one little song every day, read a good poem, see a first-rate painting, and if possible speak a few sensible words."

Let's all try to add that to our routine, shall we?

Have a blessed and wonderful day, whatever you do!