Routine: 8 A.M.

On weekdays, 8am means work! Lunchboxes are loaded because we don't eat out much anymore. Laptops fire up when we work from home. Early morning conference calls are conducted on our mobile phones because no one goes to work that early just for a meeting. Cars are warmed up for the short trips to work. A typical American workday is in full swing.

I work only about 6 minutes drive from home. The short distance was one consideration for living in this part of town. At work, my responsibilities span anywhere from writing web services and scripts, to responding to support and admin tickets, to managing licensing and a hybrid environment of disparate services, to managing the technical aspects of projects and product releases, and facilitating the movement of business data/reporting. For the next 8-10 hours, I wear the geek hat.

She works 15 minutes drive up the interstate, supporting a team of web developers as an admin, updating websites and other resources for child sponsorship, processing contracts, and facilitating meetings or events. That both our jobs are flexible is one perk, but the benefits and stability are definitely welcome. We are aware of the difficulty finding work these days, so we don't take what we have for granted.

An hour before the workday starts, we have breakfast and devotionals as we have done since our wedding day. It's pretty common now that breakfast is the only meal we can count on eating together because of various other evening obligations. We tried doing lunch once a month together but it didn't quite work out. Six o'clock brings us back home for much needed unwinding. Ours is still a very simple life indeed.

Routine: 5 A.M.

Three hours after I wake up, the world around me begins to stir from their sleep. You hear more cars leaving the apartment complex or cruising on the nearby street, and chatter beyond the neighbors' walls. The relative peace of early morning begins to evaporate. My wife awakes about an hour later and goes about her workout and preparations for the day.

At 5AM, I study for a couple of hours whatever topic is of interest that month. This month, for example, has been all about Apache HTTP Server on odd days of the week, and French (language) on even days. Although I'll continue studying French until April or May, the next few months will also touch on jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, and the topic of responsive web design. The question is how much I can learn in a month (or thereabouts) about something specific, and the goal is to learn enough to be able to apply the knowledge in my current environment. This is how I am able to keep abreast on so many topics throughout the year.

Routine: 2 A.M.

Since I only need about 4-5 hours of sleep per day, I have plenty of wake hours to spare. So that I don't waste the time, it helps to have some routine that I swing into daily.  I'm usually wide awake around 2am, without an alarm clock, ready to get rolling. Except for vehicles driving on the nearby street and the occassional dog barking, those early morning hours are remarkably peaceful and productive. The next 3 hours are spent programming or studying something related to software development. On weekdays, I work on LeafCompass.com. On weekends, I focus on personal projects, including a new version of a financial app and a management application for my business.

I've found this 2am - 5am time slot consistently productive such that anything requiring a clear mind and serious focus should be done then. I can usually also cross off a few others tasks: I might look through our finances (online banking and investment portfolios) and respond to messages (emails and social networking messages) from the previous day.

This Year's Devotional

As we have done (almost) everyday since we got married, we do devotionals in the morning during breakfast. This year, we will be engrossed in "The One Year Love Language Minute Devotional" by Gary Chapman. A week into it so far, we like how this devotional is reminding us of things we ought to continually do as a married couple, little things that we had began to neglect.

I personally am not big on the whole "love language" movement that is prevalent in the church today, but I do see its value: that couples ought to learn to communicate love to each other. I think that although people might have a few ways they prefer to communicate or express love, you can learn other ways as well. So I do not see the point of being hedged into one "language" other than having it be the first step towards a diversity of expression. As you may guess, I do not feel like I have a specific love language, which is quite frustrating for my wife to contend with. Yes, I have done the love language test twice and wound up with two different designations (touch and acts of service).

In agreeing to do this devotional however, my goal is to learn enough about how my wife communicates and how I should communicate for her to feel loved. It may be through one of these languages or other ways that are uniquely hers. Maybe I'll find out I have a language too, although I maintain that any one works for me, as long as I recognize the intent and effort to express love through it. It's really all about effective communication in a marriage.