Five a.m.

I've never liked waking up before my body tells me to. Who does?

In my business - flowers - waking up at 5a.m. has been a regular part of my life. I do it about two times a week, sometimes on big event weeks I'll do it five days in a row which is completely exhausting and just about kills me, but it's how it goes and I'm not complaining.

Since my little boutique opened I've added a new dimension of early rising to my life, antique fairs! This lifestyle can wake you up as early as 4a.m., especially if you're a Bay Area girl going to Sacramento. So now, waking up early happens, or so it seems, all the time. Still I'm not complaining. We find beautiful things at antique fairs because we get there so early and we beat the big nasty crowds.

So together with the flower market and the antique fairs I've created an early to rise, early to bed sorta life. But I think it's the life I was meant to have. As a kid my mom told me that I would tug on her pants and tell her it was my bedtime. As a young adult I could never make it to midnight to bring in the new year. And now, here in my thirties I can't seem to make it past 10pm.

I like my alone time at night - it's the one part of my day that I feel I truly get to be with myself. I don't even let the stress of setting my alarm to 5a.m. get to me. Because really, the only part of waking up early that I don't like is the transformation from warm blankets to hard wood floors. Because really, being a part of those magic morning hours always feels like I'm getting a little bit more out of life - living more - . When I come back home to discover the house is still quiet and not a soul is yet awake after I've been up for three hours, I feel I've just had the whole world to myself.