Exquisite Turmoil

Time to stop procrastinating and get to work! I have to admit, not having internet completely killed my desire to do like.. anything. By the time my family finally all went home, everything was just like blaaaaaaah. I didn’t manage to get ANY painting done and for the first time in so many years that I can’t even recall how long (definitely more than seven years, maybe more than eight) I found myself glued to the television. I’ve never been a big TV watcher and I’d say that over the entire duration of my marriage to Dan, I haven’t watched more than maybe.. 48 hours of TV (movies and this internetless period discounted).

I think that last week alone I probably watched 40 hours. Maybe more. Definitely at least three hours a day (two hour long episodes of What Not to Wear every day and an hour of Celebrity Fit Club). It kind of makes me sick thinking about exactly how much TV I’ve watched lately. I’ve learned absolutely zip (unless you count the fact that I now know Tempestt Bledsoe is an annoying cow) and haven’t done anything productive at all. If I’d spent as much time painting during this period as I did watching TV, I could have easily finished my Varghulf, my dire wolves, and probably a few of the Blood Knights that Dan bought me for my birthday. So anyway, here is my solemn vow. I’m done with the TV. I’ve been addicted to Celebrity Fit Club like crazy and the last episode of Season Two played today, and they’re starting in on Season Three tomorrow (reruns, of course), and I’m just not going to start watching.

On a less annoyed with myself note, Dan and I have been pretty good about working out lately. I’ve been on a running kick the last two weeks, which is a really nice change of pace. I don’t exactly hate cardio, but I’ve always hated running. I’m an asthmatic and whenever I start running and I start getting short of breath, I begin to have fears of an asthma attack. Quite honestly, I haven’t had one in an extremely long time and I’d about wager money that it is a childhood affliction which I outgrew. I went through basic training, for example, without ever having an attack (I concealed it when I enlisted, actually, since they wouldn’t take me with asthma) and I haven’t had one since that point (and that would have been in 2001). I think that it’s been a bit of a convenient excuse not to run and just stick to walking and extremely pathetic jogging for a long time.

Anyway (and yes, I know it’s pathetic) I’ve done a continuous .5 mile run a few times now, which makes me feel all happy and good. Dan and I even did a 3.5ish mile run / walk to Subway the other night which felt very rewarding. I won’t lie, it was more walking than running and it took somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour, but it still felt really good.

I’ve developed an obsession with the Nike+ system right now and am currently attempting to wheedle Dan into getting me set up with one. The only problem is that I don’t have an iPod nano, I have the 80g video.. and the Nike+ iPod thingee is only compatible with the nano =/ I could get the sportband instead, which doesn’t require an iPod at all, but I just can’t make up my mind as there are pros and cons to either system.

iPod Pros

• Listen to music while running.
• “Power song” button to easily select a song that really gives you a boost when you need inspiration.
• Vocally informs you of things like current distance, pace, calories burned.

iPod Cons

• Need to buy an iPod nano or see if my father will trade his new nano for my video.
• Don’t currently listen to music while running on the street since I always run with Dan and he’s in good shape and just yammers and rambles for the entire time (which is, honestly, more interesting and distracting than music — or it might just be that I’ve conditioned myself over the last six years to tune Dan out and daydream once he starts talking, which is extremely effective at taking my mind off of running).
• Need to wear an armband to hold the iPod. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, however… I have an armband for my video and when I wear it (even just barely tight enough to prevent it from falling off) I feel like it cuts off the circulation in my arm and I get dizzy (probably due to my ridiculously low blood pressure or anemia). It’s possible that the smaller, lighter nano will not cause this problem but I’ll have wasted a large sum of money if I go this route and discover that I can’t wear the armband.

Sportband Pros

• Displays run information on a watch interface so that you can see your progress without needing to listen to it (which would be convenient if I want to listen to Dan instead of music and still see my progress).
• Wears just like a watch and isn’t particularly heavy (I’ve picked one up in a store), and also functions as a watch (as in.. tells time).

Sportband Cons

• Provides no music if I ever manage to work up to a fast enough pace that Dan can’t just ramble with impunity while running with me.
• Costs $60 as opposed to $30 for the iPod addon (meaning it is more expensive if I decide that I want to swap iPods with Dad).

Anyway, that’s all that I can think of for now. Now to hope that I actually get some time to run today. It is curriculum night at school, so I’ll need to head up there. I won’t get a chance to run beforehand since we don’t run until my mother gets home from work (5:30) since she watches the kids for us while we go and I always feel bad asking her to watch them once it starts getting lateish (since she is always in bed by nine and sometimes by eight). Guess I’ll see how she feels once we get back from curriculum night.