Miss Zoot’s NaBloPoMo prompt for today was to write about your morning and/or evening routine. What do you do each day when you first wake up or to get ready to go to bed? This is pretty much perfect timing, because just last night I was thinking about how I needed to get a good kick in the butt when it comes to my bedtime routine, and I had already sort of planned to expose my shame to all of you in the hopes that you would yell at me. So. Allow me to do just that.

Here’s what I would do on an ideal night:

After spending the after-dinner hours hanging out with my husband and/or finishing up work for the next day’s classes, I make sure the dog has gone to the bathroom one last time and settle him down in his crate. I brush and floss my teeth, taking care to really wrap the floss around each tooth and go way down below the gums. I get an A+ in flossing. I wash my face and remove all the last traces of eye makeup and then apply moisturizer, which magically works to smooth and tighten my skin while I sleep. I change into cute but comfortable pajamas and get into bed, where I read for a bit until my eyelids get heavy, then go to sleep.

And here’s the shameful reality:

After spending the after-dinner hours hanging out with my husband and/or finishing up work for the next day’s classes, I make sure the dog has gone to the bathroom one last time and settle him down in his crate. I almost always brush my teeth. When I feel like being Very Good, I also floss my teeth, but in a perfunctory manner. I get a B- on flossing. I occasionally think of washing my face, and even less often than that do I actually remove my eye makeup or use moisturizer. I remove pants and bra and get into bed wearing whatever tee shirt I was just lounging in, and then I sometimes read for a bit until my eyelids get heavy, then go to sleep. All too often, though, I look at Twitter, Instagram, and Feedly over and over again in an endless loop until it is far later than I planned, then I have no time to read a book, and my eyelids are still not heavy enough for sleep.

I don’t really know what my problem is with the brushing, flossing, face washing, makeup removing, and moisturizing. I would like to get good feedback from my dental hygienist every time. I would like to improve my skin. And yet, I usually privilege an immediate faceplant into bed over spending the ten minutes it would take to do all those tasks consistently every night. Shameful.

I mean, on the bright side, next-day makeup often gives a great smoky eye look, am I right?

And yet. Please feel free to yell at or mock me. I know most of you are probably totally appalled that I go to bed with makeup on so often. I DON’T KNOW WHY I DO IT. I can say nothing in my own defense.

The thing I do like about my bedtime routine is that I do a pretty good job of getting to bed consistently early enough to get a good eight hours of sleep most every night. It means getting into bed earlier than my husband some nights, but, over all, it’s worth it to get the sleep, especially because I’m teaching early three mornings a week and running early another three mornings a week. I like to make the most of my early mornings, and an early bedtime is a big part of my success with that.

This makes me think I should write about my morning routine, which is much more successful! I suppose I’ll save that post for another day.