I’m having such a fun time with April’s challenge, guys! I love that she’s asking us to chat about stuff that I don’t think I’ve EVER talked about before, like the prompt for today: bedtime reading rituals. AWESOME. Although, my bedtime reading routine is not very exciting. Since it mostly involves me…umm, reading. And then sleeping. Still, reading is the last thing I usually do before falling asleep, but I’ll fight it of as long as I can.
So, first thing you need to know? I gotta get ready for bed first. Wash my face, brush my teeth and all that jazz. Once I have that stuff out of the way, I’m ready to hop into bed and crack open a book. Or, just as likely, my Kindle Paperwhite.
If I’m reading a print book, I’ll just leave my bedside lamp on instead of using my booklight. If I don’t absolutely need to use my booklight for any reason, I’ll always turn on a lamp. My eyes are tired enough at the end of the day!
The great thing about my Paperwhite, though, is that I don’t need to leave my lamp on if I don’t want to. I usually do, though, because of the tired eyes thing, until I’m SERIOUSLY ready to fall asleep. Then I’ll turn of my lamp and read with the Paperwhite’s backlight for a few minutes.
Whether I’m reading on my Kindle or a print book, it usually winds up next to me on the bed when I fall asleep. Even if I had a ton of room on my nightstand, I still probably wouldn’t put my book there before I nodded off.
Speaking of nodding off, this is the very last step of my bedtime reading before I KNOW that I’m basically done for the night. I’ll read a sentence, and then nod off. Then I’ll read a few words and nod off. Every time I open my eyes again, I have no idea what I jut read, so I try and read it again and FAIL.
That’s not to say that I don’t push myself. Because HELLO I do all the time. If I’m reading and almost at the end of a chapter, I’ll make myself at least finish it before I go to sleep. If I’m on an odd-numbered chapter, I’ll often see if I can’t push myself to end the day on an even-numbered one. I have a thing with odd numbers.
That’s pretty much the extent of it. I sleep with my book on my mind and then I wake up in the morning and start it all over again.
My Paperwhite basically lives under my pillow because I always read at the end of the night. I upgraded from my old Kindle specifically because I wanted to be able to read under the covers–and it was a really good decision. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Haha. That’s too cute that you have a thing with odd numbers. But your nighttime reading routine sounds a like like mine 🙂
This is pretty much exactly what my bedtime reading routine is like! It’s always natural for me to settle in with a book and keep reading until I’m falling asleep. Like you, I have a bit of quirk; I need to finish a chapter or end on a page divisible by 5 or 3 or I’ll feel restless.