Ode to Phillips

As those who are reading this from Paris know, the last few weeks have consisted of some pretty serious gray weather. Even if the sun shows itself, it's generally after 9am. In addition, our bedroom has very little natural light (tho in these weeks this doesn't exist anyways), therefore, if you love to sleep, as I do, it has been very hard waking up in the morning. I found myself slapping off my alarm and rolling over in pure denial. Late mornings were becoming the norm and this is not a good habit to form--even if you work from home and don't have a boss yelling at you for tardiness. In anycase, it is more of psychological thing and so last weekend we headed to FNAC and purchased the Phillips Wake-up light, an ingenious lamp which slowly lights up in the morning to mimic natural sunlight. (Leave it to those nifty Dutch to think of it).

That first night I went to bed feeling like the next day was Christmas morning...couldn't wait to see these magical results. We set the alarm with birds chirping to give it full effect. Around 755 I saw the light beginning to light up (it starts 30 minutes before your alarm goes off to give a smooth transition). I smiled and closed my eyes when soon after I heard the chirping sounds, a bit disorienting when there are no birds in Paris this time of year but pigeons, but indeed, this was a nice wake-up call. Light and birds. I started to close my eyes and pretend I was in the country, but clearly that fantasy soon ended.

I highly recommend the Phillips for those of you deprived of morning sunlight. We switched off the birds for FIP radio, but that morning glow really helps get you up and at'em. yay phillips.