The early bird catches the worm

For the past few weekends I have been working from 6:00 am until 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday and/or Sunday. I like this and I hate this. Having to be at work at 6:00 in the morning isn't that bad until you consider that is the time you actually have to be there! There is still the time it takes to get up, get ready, get dressed and drive to work. So when my alarm goes off around 4:30 in the morning (and it's still pitch black outside) I hit the snooze repeatedly with a lot of hostility. But that is pretty much the worse part of it. There are actually a lot of things I like about working those hours. When I leave in the morning there's absolutely no traffic and there's a certain tranquility and stillness driving to work at 5:30(ish) in the morning before almost anyone else is up and around and all the houses are still dark. I get to work and look out the window and see the sunrise and the sky turning beautiful shades of pinks and purples and blues with wispy white clouds as the sun comes up over the horizon. And finally the weekends are normally pretty busy so the shift goes fast and is relatively painless (well as painless as it can be). Before I know it, it's 12:00 and I'm out of there and have the rest of the day to do whatever I want or do any of my errands that I have been putting off all week. The biggest downside of working that early is that to get a full nights sleep you would probably have to go to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 (which is crazy early)and that never happens for me. In fact around 1:00 in the morning I'm often still awake and staring at the clock thinking to myself, "Damn it! I only have 3 1/2 more hours until I have to get up for work." And the more I think about that the harder it is for me to fall asleep. And since I haven't gotten a good night sleep the night before I usually take a (looonngg) nap to recharge my batteries when I get home from work-so I feel like I waste a good chunk of time in the afternoon. Also in the winter I have to get out of a nice warm bed and leave the house around 5:30 in the morning, it's dark and really cold and I often have to scrap ice (or sometime snow) off the car. Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives and it's nice to get an early start to the day and have work out the way.