The leaves were fluttering off the neighborhood trees today in the most beautiful way, so of course I was instantly furious because I had to finish driving to work and couldn't just stop in the middle of the intersection to soak in my favorite season for three hours. Responsibilities! Ugh!

I've also been really grumpy all week because I slept at a right angle on Friday night, resulting in serious and non-stop neck pain. Getting old! Ugh!

To cure my foul mood and save you from it, I'm going to recommend watching the video Tyler recently shared on his blog. It features the most darling man and his darling store with all sorts of darling root beer (and other carbonated beverages). No really, it is precious. Watch it even if you don't think you need the pick-me-up, even if you can't imagine it being interesting, even though you don't have ten minutes to spare. Then take me out for a root beer float and do the same for Tyler.

Some people fly hundreds of miles to spend the weekend with you and buy you grilled cheese and laugh at you when the icy waters of Lake Michigan make you screech. Some people wait hours for pizza with you, and some people pass the time by making fun of strangers and their selfie sticks. Some people do not complain about the cold too much, even when it takes an entire hour to fail to light a house on fire at the Great Chicago Fire Festival. Some people do not run away when you later suggest burning down a very nice establishment because you are not being seated fast enough, and some people even offer to help you with said arson.

It's even possible that some people might kiss you and take you to the zoo to see a tiger, which almost makes up for some people not liking scotch.

My morning routine for the past month:

• Snooze through alarms for an hour.
• Wake up. (Meh face.)
• Stay in bed to catch up on Twitter and text messages and emails.
• Shower.
• Putter around in a comfy robe, seeking coffee and breakfast.
• Sit on my bedroom floor in a pool of sunshine with my coffee and breakfast, listen to a podcast, and start applying make-up from my nightstand-doubling-as-a-very-short-vanity.
• Remain seated with coffee and a podcast and some make-up until five minutes remain on the clock.
• Attempt a hair thing.
• Get dressed.
• Shuffle out the door with a long sigh.

Some parts of this have been working really well for me. Ever since I stopped standing at the bathroom counter to put on my make-up (in silence, without food and drink, not a scrap of natural light to be found), I've been a much happier human being. And I like that I'm not rushed and don't have to get out of bed right away.

Kyla Roma's most recent post, "10 Ways to Make Waking Up Easier with a Seasonal Morning Routine," has me re-thinking other parts of my routine, though. Like maybe I should find time to walk around the block and/or calligraph a new word every morning. I don't have many evening commitments currently (a welcome change, I might add), so there's no reason I couldn't go to bed earlier and maybe spend less time hitting the snooze button in the mornings.

Then again, this Netflix queue isn't going to watch itself.