You may have noticed that each morning, Valerie and I have been taking turns posting “Fresh Morning” tidbits, tips, quotes, etc to help you start your day with a smile on your face.  You can spot these posts by the cheerful sun in the upper right corner of each one:

Speaking of mornings (which I rarely do with a smile on my face), I recently discovered a very cool blog about morning routines.  It’s called, um, Daily Routines, and it’s basically the author’s collection of the morning rituals of thinkers, writers, artists famous and not. 

Here’s one about the 19th century French author Gustave Flaubert (how nice for him):

“Flaubert, a man of nocturnal habits,
usually awoke at 10 a.m. and announced the event with his bell cord.
Only then did people dare speak above a whisper.”

And here’s a sweet reflection on our pal Mister Rogers:

“Once upon a time, Fred Rogers took off his jacket and put on a sweater
his mother had made him, a cardigan with a zipper. Then he took off his
shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers. He did
the same thing the next day, and then the next… until he had done the
same things, those things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865
television programs, over a span of thirty-one years.”

It strikes me how strongly our routines define us, and how sometimes departures from our routines can define us just as strongly. 

So how do you start your day?  Do you model your morning rituals on someone you admire (like Gandhi, or your mom), or do you do mornings differently depending on your mood, the moon, the proximity of the snooze button?