I'll admit that I was quite intrigued with some of the alarm clocks I saw when I went to replace my fledgling standby. A clock that sets itself as soon as you plug it in?! Bonus! And resets to the right time if the power goes out?! Sweet! Knows the time zone? And date? What more could a person ask for in an alarm clock?

Well, an alarm that actually wakes me up would be nice. I know, I know, that's a lot to ask of modern technology, but getting out of bed in the morning is a small price to pay for actually having a job.

As you'll recall, I blamed that first new alarm clock for my the demise of my walking routine. The soothing beeps just didn't rouse me enough to actually wake up. I would find that I had unconsciously hit snooze for 45 minutes before actually waking up enough to realize that I was late. Can't wake up in time=no exercise for Michelle. I gave that clock probably more chances than it deserved.

I went searching again for an alarm clock that would kick me out of bed. I was now searching for what I assumed was an endangered term: buzzer alarm. I was happy when I found a model that offered the buzzer alarm in addition to the self-setting features.(I double checked the first clock's box for the buzzer word to no avail.)

I thought I had hit paydirt until the "buzzer" alarm actually went off. Wimpy alarm. It was like deja vu all over again as I hit snooze entirely too many times. It got to the point where The Mr. was talking about getting up before me because he was left with about 30 minutes to get ready in the morning. On more than one occasion, No. 1 was late to school--likely because I didn't wake up in time, which meant The Mr. didn't get up in time, which meant the boys were running late...

When all else fails, buy the cheap one with no fancy extras. Last weekend while shopping, I went for the alarm clocks again (even though I can't stand the fact that I've now spent close to $50 on stupid alarm clocks that are cluttering the back of my closet). The $5 model that requires me to set it, doesn't provide the date or the time zone, and has a definite buzzer is the one that's actually been waking me up the last three days. In fact, it sufficiently scared the crap out of me yesterday morning--my heart was racing!

An "extra" roughly 20 minutes in the mornings since I'm getting up more on time should allow me to get back to my walking routine. Now if we could just get rid of this sub-zero weather so I can walk outside, I'd be all set.