Christine at A Morning Grouch is a freelance writer and artist who has been published on The Huffington Post, Faith It, Motherly, Sivana Spirit, Kids Safety Network, Bottle and Heels, Parenting.com, Working Mother, and Your Tango. She creates and sells custom art and murals. She is always looking for opportunities to promote people and products she is impressed with and to work with writers and artists that inspire her.
Contact: amorninggrouch at gmail dot com to discuss partnerships, collaborations or commissions.
A Morning Grouch 
Well, c’mon, now. You’re not being fair to yourself. You’re nice. Very nice, in fact. Maybe you have some super extra ridiculously annoying nice that’s hidden by the fatigue. I think being sleepy just makes us grumpy. For just a little bit.
The morning is a terrible country which I hate to travel in… and when I do, I prefer to do so in silence– alone. My grandmother said nothing good happens after midnight but I say nothing good happens before noon.
The morning is so much better in silence.
Well said.
Amen to that.
THIS. IS. AWESOME. As a woman with PCOS, I am aware of how difficult it may be for me when I start trying. I love your humor and it totally made my morning =)
Thanks Cassie! I didn’t know I had PCOS until we started trying. Glad you liked it, I really appreciate you reading 🙂
nice to meet you
I write here: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com sometimes it doesn’t suck
Found you on Freshly Pressed and loved the post. Had to check you out. I also don’t sleep well and wake up feeling like somehow I managed to drink bottles of wine while sleeping and have a hangover. Looks like you have a great sense of humor and look forward to reading more. Nice to meet you.
Hi! Nice to meet you too, so sorry about the morning sleep-hangovers (sleepovers?) – it’s the WORST. I’m so envious of people who wake up refreshed.
I am envious too. Wouldn’t it be great to wake up and feel like we could conquer the world ? I am 52 and been dealing with this for about 20 or so years. I can get going after a couple hours but still not at the level other people do. Have you tried sleep studies? I see the doctor today, she is thinking I may need to enter the sleep study program.
I haven’t yet but I know I will. I think I might have sleep apnea. If you do the study, I want to hear about it! I don’t know what to expect.
I absolutely love your blog! Can’t wait to read up on future posts, I love your style of writing 🙂
Thanks, dear!
I also don’t wake up well. I usually need at least two cups of coffee to get going. I also write a hodgepodge on my blog. Whatever enters my brain at the moment. Anyway, it’s great to have found you via Freshly Pressed. Congrats again!
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Just you mentioning it made my mouth water.
this is awesome stuff, i love your blog. i’m glad you were freshly pressed, it made it super easy to find you.
i apologize for being a guy just like your husband. i rock the mornings, and i can’t help it. but my girlfriend is just like you, so it is really nice and kind of refreshing to see into the mind of a person who hates the wee hours of the day.
ps: i beatbox in the morning, so thank the lucky stars that your husband just sings. could be way worse. 😉
You’re one of THOSE people! Beatboxing?! I hope you spoil your wife in so many other ways, since that is most certainly torture (before coffee, at least).
Half arsed still got you Freshly Pressed, congrats!!
there’s hope for us all!!
You’re blog is refreshing and honest. I think we have some things in common but I’m not prepared to share them with the world yet…perhaps after another cup of coffee. :0)
EVERYTHING after coffee.
OMG, I can soooo relate. My husband calls me the Morning Monster. Love your sense of humor!
omg that’s hilarious! sounds like we’re soul mates.
Love your frankness and your writing style. Great blog!
Thanks so much for checking it out! 🙂
Looking forward to reading more of your posts! 🙂
I love your “The Office is the Only Hope” poem. I was wondering if I might quote it in a book that I’m writing, “An Ethnography of American Birth.” One chapter includes a discussion of how people experience infertility in America. If you want to read more about this book, visit this website: http://ethnographyofamericanbirth.wordpress.com. If I may quote your poem, could you send me a quick email at ethnographyofamericanbirth@gmail.com to let me know?
Best to you and your family,
Sharon
How refreshing to read your blog. I have just started one myself, a little slow as I have had a horrible few weeks. But thank you for your sense of humour and sharing. I am just getting a little brave to share mine. Thanks for the smile today. will be back to read more 🙂
it takes a lot of courage to start, and keep a blog. Yay for you!
Just discovered your blog. Very funny and entertaining! I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Hello! I can’t help suggesting this as I too used to have the problem of not being able to sleep and all and waking up exhausted etc. You might look into treating it with traditional chinese medicine!? Worked like a charm for me! I enjoyed your most recent post and am about to read further… :))
I’ve heard good things about acupuncture. I’ll do a sleep study at some point then might try that depending how that goes. Thanks!!
I don’t sleep either. What kind of Chinese medicine?
On nights my fiance and I go out for a night of drinking, I stay in bed the next morning as late as possible; however he pops out of bed feeling great… nice blog!
Ive nominated you for some awards, now I know that you may or may not accept awards, either way, please enjoy because your writing says it all:) xxx
http://dietrying999.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/way-to-start-2014/
Thank you!! Love it. Sometimes I’m too lazy to pass them along, sometimes I do them. Appreciate it much! (And congrats!)
“I’m a half assed blogger”. Beautiful and irreverent. 🙂
I have had to learn the art of, “faking it”. I smile and nod pleasantly as my husband chatters on in the mornings, rough housing with the dogs. All I’m really thinking about is, COFFEE. And quiet. And every day I try and be a better person by not yelling at everyone to just be “QUIET!” until I have had my first cup. First sip? ugh. I need a nap.
I need to learn how to act with such grace. Teach me, oh wise one.
Hi
I love your blog
How can i cite this in an education article?
Russell
Thank you 🙂 I blog anonymously so you could use the name A Morning Grouch and/or the website (if it is online a link back would be lovely). please share the article if you do write it I’d love to read it. 🙂
Will do. Thanks for the info.. Russell
I can totally relate… I am also a grouch in the mornings. And silent mornings are most definitely the best albeit rare. Looking forward to reading more of your posts.
I have also set up anonymously – so i’m encouraged that you have become so popular yet remained anonymous. Love this blog!
Somehow I seem to have a little more patience about the “silent” part when it comes to my kids than I do when it comes to my husband – hah. Looking forward to checking out more of your blog – started following you today 🙂
Just found you on Fresh Pressed…after reading that someone else I follow was “Pressed”. I suspect I will not be flattened anytime soon, but I am enjoying my visit to your world and will continue to explore!
A friend just directed me over here, and I’m happy she did so. I’m more of a quarter- assed blogger, myself, so at half-assed you’re doing great. I totally relate to writing about whatever you’re thinking about. Problem is that these days most of my great inspirations happen when I’m in the shower, and are washed away by the time I get out. 😦
Pleased to meet you. I’m off to fire up the coffee machine now.
I fully support quarter-assery. Thanks for stopping by – I’ll check you out, too!
Your blog is pretty honest! Many thanks for stopping by Precious Awakening and for following my blog. Truly appreciate your kind gesture!
hah – honest to a fault, perhaps?
Hiya – yup, I’ve got a chirp hubby, too and I think maybe once or twice this year I felt amazing BEFORE the gallons of caffeine. I think I’ll give you a follow if you do not mind. I hope Reader obliges. It’s been acting wonky lately.
Thank goodness for gallons of coffee, eh (and even chirpy husbands..lol love that phrase)? Such a glorious substance.
It’s Rachel from The Tao of Poop here! I didn’t see a way to contact you on your blog, so I’m writing a comment here. A fellow blogger is working on a self-published anthology called Mom for the Holidays, and she asked me to help her edit it. I would love it if you would submit a piece for it, because I think you are a great writer. She is offering some compensation after expenses are recouped. If you are interested, contract me on my contact form on my blog and I will give you the details.
Ooh wow! Thanks for thinking of me! I will contact you.
I understand – I’m a nocturne. I married a morning person. I still cannot work out how, but it’s proving useful on weekends with kids. I’ve read a couple of your posts and can totally relate. Can’t wait to read more!
see, nature has a way of pairing us up with who makes sense! love it.
Well hello! I think, given your description mirrors me in the morning, that I might be your long lost twin living in South Africa. I just read your ‘About me’ to my husband and he is convinced I am your ghostwriter. Eerie!
haha! That is AWESOME! Heloooo my soul twin!!
Love your blog! Blunt. Hilarious. Real. All things I admire! Keep it coming.
thanks dear!
Another grouch in the morning. Love it. As a Grand Parent it doesn’t get any better. Just to let you know. Although in some cases you can send the little rug rats home with their parents. Then there are times like the position I am in now, one of the grand kids and their single Mom or Dad live at home. That’s always a joy. Trying to write a blog while looking at pictures of sharks or kittens on google to keep the kid amused. Writing goes to s***t and thinking is out of the question. See you have something to look forward too. Love you blog by the way.
Hah, good to know so I can prep myself for the future! 🙂
Hi, Grouchy. I am Grumpy and I am really upset that that dwarf stole my name. I am definitely grumpier than he is. If you really want to know what I look like, just look up Grumpy in the dictionary and there’s my picture. Since you ask me to comment, it seemed good to call attention to what we have in common. And I am Grumpy 366 days of the years. Of course, that’s a leap year. Unfortunately every year feels like a leap year to me. Anyway nice to meet you, Grouchy. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Grumpy, sounds like we’ll get along just fine!
Sleeping is over-rated. Exercising, Meditating, Yoga, Relaxing, Hanging out, making time for yourself are not.
I’m with you – peace, quiet and a good cup of coffee!! Pleased to meet you.
And you as well! Cheers, and namaste.
A very gentle, soft “hello” to you. I won’t say a chipper “Good morning!” because…um…well…you know… I hate to be woken up in the morning, or anytime I’m sleeping. I have an instant “fight or flight” response and am very disoriented, so I totally get where you’re coming from.
We appear to have some things in common, and I can’t wait to peruse your blog.
Have a lovely day–once you’ve had some coffee and are properly awake! 🙂
Lol thanks for your gentle am hello!!
🙂
I’m so glad I crawled out from under my rock and stumbled my way over to your blog! I very much look forward to reading more of your stories, but first I need another cup of coffee. I hope you have a productive day….one of us should lol!
Coffee first. Always. Thanks for saying hi!
Lol…you are funny…you do not write in a grouchy way though….
Hi there! Just wanted you to know I gave you kudos in a recent post of mine. No need to pass it forward. Just bask in the praise. 🙂 http://wp.me/p4yJo8-b4
Thank you! I’m honored!! And I DO really like you!
Just wanted to tell you how much reading your posts about infertility mean to me. My husband and I have been trying to have a child for 32 years- we married young. First it was his problem and then it was mine. I have no problem getting pregnant, but I have a baby killing uterus. DAMN autoimmune system! I have miscarried 11 babies- 3 sets of normal tested donor egg twins in 2014 alone. I was taking 25 pills a day, 6 shots a day, weekly infusions of a med that cost 3k to 5k a dose- my great insurance that I was paying in order to be able to afford these drugs came to $1800/month. I no longer have that insurance as I cannot afford it any more.
I am afraid I will never be able to have children. We have spent over $150,000 in all of these decades of trying and ALL of our money has gone/goes towards trying to have children. We are just adjunct professors and cannot afford to do surrogacy at all, nor do we have family or friends who can offer to do surrogacy for us either. It scares me because our known donor (beautiful, smart, FERTILE, 26 years old now) offered to be a free surrogate BUT the caveat is that she wants to sleep with my husband, have her name put on the birth certificate, and if my husband dies, she wants the baby/child back– um not going to happen. I think she is trying to make my hubby her hubby…I know SHE loves HIM…but he still loves me. I am still afraid though knowing how much my husband wants kids and what 50+ year old man would not want all of what she is offering for free and still get a baby out of it? It gets worse the older we get and my fear grows more the more that time passes….Please dont tell me why did we not do adoption. We have had friends who did this and when the birth parents got their act together, they came and took the children back. OUr friends were heartbroken. I cannot even imagine how we would feel if this were to happen to us if we adopted. We are NOW looking into it, but dont know if we ever can. BTW, our families live into their 100’s, have no alzheimers/dementia, still drive, live independently, etc so though people judge us for still trying, we know we have a good 50 years ahead of us… And if we dont well, my hubbby has 10 brothers and sisters and countless nieces and nephews to loook after any kids we “might” ever have. So please, don’t bother me with your judgement anyone who wants to comment on that. It is our life.
Again, thank you so much for what you write. It came at just the right time. :0)
Oh, BTW we are night owls ourselves!
I loved your piece on exhausted parents. You literally took the thoughts out of my head and also made them really funny. Thanks so much for speaking the truth!
Thanks Rosie!