Morning rituals

I've always been a morning person.  I really love the cool quiet of a summer morning, or the dark, warm, cozy quiet of a winter morning with a nice hot decaf mocha.  I'd like to cut way back on coffee, especially because that's a LOT of milk, but I can't think of a substitute that I would really like.  I'm unfortunately not a huge fan of tea.  I make some espresso in my stovetop espresso maker, heat up some milk, and add some sugar and cocoa powder, and it is really the best thing ever.  I also love the ritual of making it, and then sitting down in and enjoying it (when my kids let me).  Unfortunately, it's a lot of calories and sometimes upsets my stomach, so I really need to find an alternative. 

My typical breakfasts are yogurt with cereal, or toast with almond butter.  I've recently started making organic whole milk yogurt in my Instant Pot.  I have to admit, it takes a little bit of planning ahead, since it take 8-10 hours to incubate, and then I have to be around to strain it.  I like it somewhere between regular yogurt and greek yogurt, which I find too thick.  I love being able to make something from scratch, though, and it is really the best yogurt I have ever tasted.  Since you need to use some yogurt as a starter, I get the French Village Cream Line Whole Milk yogurt from Trader Joe's, which makes a great batch of yogurt.  It's delicious plain, which is how I prefer it, but it's also heavenly with some jam mixed in.

 Another thing I like about early mornings is getting up and working out before everyone else is up.  Recently I started Masters swimming again.  I have a long history with Master's swimming, mostly involving early morning swim times.  I started at Boston University Masters Swimming (BUMS), then moved back home with my mom to Granite Bay and swam with the Rocklin Aquatic Masters (RAM) team.  After that, I moved to Davis and swam with Davis Aquatic Masters (DAM) for several years, until I had my kids.  When the twins were born, I swam with Davis Athletic Club (DAC) Masters for a few years, this time at noon when they were in school (which got me a nice tan!).  I also got used to having my own lane or splitting, which wasn't all that great for keeping me swimming at a faster speed, so I also got kinda lazy. 

When my youngest was born 3 years ago, that put a real wrench in the works.  I've swam much more intermittently since then - occasionally going to DAC Masters, but mostly swimming on my own, which makes it hard to swim a good one-hour workout because, honestly, it gets boring and lonely.  I tried to squeeze extra yards into a half-hour workout, which worked nicely for a while, but I also need the accountability of swimming with others, and a regular schedule to work into my schedule.  So as of about 5 weeks ago, I've gone back to DAM.  The only time that really works with my kids' school schedules is 6am - the main drawback being that I can't go when Loris is traveling.  Luckily, I can usually go at least Mondays and Fridays, since he mostly travels mid-week, and while I started with the hope of going 1-2 times per week, I'm now regularly swimming 2-3 times per week, which is great.

So, I swam 2500 yards this morning, came home and made a hot mocha and some yogurt with weetabix, and now I should start cleaning up the perpetual mess that we have in this house =)  Before the little monsters get up, which I'm expecting any minute now ...