Netflix Day 15

Two weeks, man has two weeks already gone by?  This summer is flying by! OK, update time.  The kids have settled in quiet nicely to Netflix, they don’t even ask to watch ‘normal’ TV anymore.  As long as there are episodes of HeMan for my son he’ll be happy.  I have a few more old school cartoons lined up for them next on the Instant Queue- Bugs Bunny, Pink Panther, Tom & Jerry, etc.  I feel much more confident with them watching cartoons on Netflix than I do with just popping on a Cartoon Network or Boomerang on ‘regular’ TV.  For me it comes down to influencing my kids; whether that’s through (poor) choice of words for the characters on the show, how they dress the kids (do not even get me started there) or the bombardment of commercials for crap I would never buy at volumes that are more than a bit ridiculous. I want to be the primary influence on my kids for as long as I can.  And when they need therapy as adults I can solely take the blame and not say, “It was those damn kids’ TV shows when they were younger”  I’m just saying, today’s kids are growing up with ads in their faces at levels we could not fathom when we were that young.  I do the best I can at controlling what comes into their influence.  When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s house, they have had a wonderfully, strong, positive impact on my life.  But for the life of me when I was 7 I could never understand why they would never let me watch TV when I was there… I mean NEVER.  My grandma called it the ‘boob tube’ and said it would rot my brain.  And like most things our elders said to us as kids I didn’t believe her however as an adult I now see how right she was.  Between her influence on me and the absolute downhill spiral that children’s tv has taken over the past 15 years, I’m sure that is why I feel the way I do about my kids watching the television.  I know this blog is supposed to be about Netflix not my opinion of tv, however I feel that the two have a direct correlation.  Without crappy TV and horrible commercials today, I would only feel half as strongly about ‘the boob tube’.  J

The other morning when my 9 yr old son woke up he said, “mom what do you watch on Netflix when we go to bed because I can hear you laughing” I’m sure he heard me laughing my ass off last night at Daniel Tosh standup comedy.  OMG, standup comedy?!?!  I hadn’t even thought about standup comedy on Netflix but my husband had and holy crap that was funny! That just opened up a whole new genre for us to watch.  I don’t even know where to begin in my search…. Do you have any recommendations??  We looked for Rodney Carrington last night but no luck there.  I love love love standup comedy so this will be an interesting evolution in my TV watching.  I used to watch Comedy Central but they started showing soo many commercials and SO LOUD that I just ended up just changing the channel.  This is awesome.  I’m excited to watch TV again…..  wait, I think I just came up with what Netflix new slogan should be, “Netflix, a reason to get excited about TV again.  What you want to watch when you want to watch it with no commercials” I like it, maybe I’ll pitch this blog and that slogan to them and make my millions.  Then I can just sit back and watch Netflix all day!  Haha!!

As a departing thought, the TV in my bedroom…  I’m highly aware that when we cancel DirecTV that I’ll be giving that up.  I’ve tried to convince myself that weaning would be the best way.  You know, only watch on certain nights, or only for 30 minutes (if I stay awake that long) however each night as I crawl into bed I think ‘maybe tomorrow I’ll start weaning.’  It never happens.  I’m thinking going cold turkey is going to be more like it.  Just bam no more TV in the bedroom.  It will force me to read more which I really enjoy doing anyway. Now that will be a blog posting worth reading…. Jen minus the TV in her room…

Have a great day and send me your suggestions for stand up comedians! 

Forming Day 9

Weekends off from exercise cannot last…… not if I intend to be serious about training.   I play on a ladies softball team on Friday nights in the summer so I use that as my excuses to not only skip my Friday gym session but then Saturday as well since I might be sore.  (I rarely am sore)  Stuff sometimes does come up that I can’t work out on the weekends but in general if I wanted to it could happen.  I really need to buckle down and start getting my head in the game.  I told you from Forming Day 1 that I need accountability and so with that I think I’m going to start running with the MoJo running group every other Saturday morning.  Huge, I know.  If people are expecting me then I will be there.  Why every other Saturday you ask?  My husband’s work schedule has him working every other weekend so for now that is what it will have to be.  I’m really looking forward to running with people of different skill sets and being pushed to go further and run harder.  To be challenged!  Speaking of being challenged…..

So I was running at Lifetime Fitness yesterday and luckily my favorite treadmill was available.  Next to it was two women who had just gotten started on their run and had a pretty good pace going.  I was feeling like it was going to be a great run- my fav treadmill that allows me to watch ESPN and unwilling running partners.  J  I know I  have mentioned that I am competitive so every time the girls upped their speed I upped mine as well (I swear I probably have a mental condition that doesn’t allow me to just ENJOY something, it has to be a competition!)  We settled in at a great pace, 6.5 and no incline.  When we first got to 6.5 I thought there is NO way I’ll be able to keep this up but I really surprised myself and lasted 2.5 miles there.  I was really really impressed with myself!  Now they went on and did 3 miles but I was so happy with my ability to maintain that pace.  THAT is the kind of challenge I need, I would have NEVER pushed myself to run at 6.5 but thanks to those strangers I realized  that I can do something I hadn’t thought possible!  Yea Me!!  However it certainly didn’t help my ego when as I was leaving my post run sweat session I saw the ladies in a cardio class…. Come on!!! 

Something that I have started to think about is my diet.  I’m pretty conscience of what I eat/drink in general.  Now that doesn’t mean I always make the healthiest choice, but I’m at least CONSCIENCE of the junk I’m putting in my mouth. Haha!  I heard Jillian from The Biggest Loser one time say that she only allows her people to drink water that way they aren’t using up their allotted daily calories on drinks.  I like this line of thinking and so I try to drink as much water as I can during the day (after my 4 cups of coffee in the morning!) so I’m free to eat more during the day.  In general I eat fairly healthy but I really really like junk food.  Wait, allow me to rephrase- I like the way junk food tastes, I hate the way it makes my body feel.   I try to remember how gross I feel after eating chips with my lunch as a deterrent from making that choice again; it works about 75% of the time.  ;)  And as always when I start working out, I notice my metabolism working harder, my body slimming down and so I think I can eat whatever I want since I’m burning more calories now…… One would think that after 20 some odd years of watching what I eat and exercising that I would learn.  I just moved beyond that phase, thank goodness it’s usually a short phase.  Last week I was eating like no bodies business.  Ice cream, chips, Sour Patch Kids, etc.  Somehow I still managed to lose a little weight so I think to myself “if I could exercise AND eat correctly how awesome would this be?”   That is my goal for the week, to start being extremely aware of what I eat and asking myself if what I am eating is a hindrance or helper to my goal of running a Half Marathon….  Why would I want to create more work for myself by eating crap that will only make me have to work out more just to burn off?  I’ll NOT be giving up beer though, I’m only human!  I will be cutting back on how often I have a few though.  Softball games wouldn’t be the same without a giant plastic cup of good old American Bud Lite! 

Have a great week everyone and please keep posting your questions/comments!  I’ve noticed that you will have to log in to your Google account to make a comment though so keep that in mind.  I love hearing your thoughts on this blog!!  Take care and happy trails!!!

Jen