our alarm system

in college, i once had a roommate who would get SO mad at me every morning. we had a 2-story dorm room and i had the entire second floor loft all to myself. for as long as i can remember, i've always woken up with the radio or some sort of music playing. in college, i continued this system and had a radio/buzzer alarm system where the radio would start playing about 15 minutes before the harsh buzzer jolted me out of dreamland. this particular roommate, however, could hear the radio from her bed on the first floor and would yell at me to turn it off. i tried setting it on the most quiet volume level, but it was to no avail. if i only set the buzzer alarm and not the radio, i would hit the snooze button for about an hour before finally getting out of bed. fortunately, we got along in all other aspects of daily life, but we could never come to an agreement over my method of waking up each morning.
in the back of my mind, i always wondered how this would one day affect my marriage. God totally had it all taken care of, because my husband hits the snooze button even longer than i do! he doesn't like the radio alarm, though, and if i ever let it play longer than a minute or two, he either nudges me or says my name until i turn it off. it amazes me how something that is so soothing to me can wake other people from a dead sleep more effectively than a buzzer alarm. anyhow, any given morning in our bedroom, you can hear each of our alarm clocks buzzing and then being snoozed...over and over again. next, the dog pitches in with his effort to wake us up. as soon as he hears the alarm, he gets up from his sprawled out position on the bathroom floor, picks up a toy (preferably a squeaky one) and immediately heads to my side of the bed to wag his tail as hard as he possibly can and try to convince me to take him for his morning run. i usually reach over and pat his head and rub his chest until he decides to lay down next to the bed and wait for the alarm to go off again. this goes on for about 30-45 minutes every morning. it's a system that works for our family and i love it. and can i just add that i have never, ever seen my husband wake up grumpy? no matter how little sleep he might have had, he always wakes up with a smile on his face. i love this about him and wish that i were the same way. if i happen to fall asleep on the couch at night and have to wake up to go to bed, i am so cranky. i'm trying to be more like him, but it certainly doesn't come naturally!