Just an hour a day July!

So as you know "Just Do It June" was kind of a bust ... a learning experience to be sure and a damn good reminder that a diet is a diet is a diet and they don't work!  So instead of limiting food I'm going to do something I know will get it going ... this month I'm going to limit myself to no more than one hour of TV a day or a total of 7 hours a week.  God when you put it in numbers like that it makes you realize how much the time adds up ... what could you get done in 7 hours?  Right now Hubby and I watch way more than that a week.  As I really think about it the pattern is that every weekday morning I grab breakfast and watch about 30 minutes of the Today show while eating and waking up.  After work I cook / grab dinner and eat it in front of the TV where I usually stay from about 6 to 9PM before going up to read and sleep.   On weekends again the same morning routine only stretch it out for about 2 hours.  Weekend nights if we aren't out again are spent in front of the TV.   So if I had to guess I'd say my average right now is at least 3 hours on weekdays and 4 on weekend days.  And that is at the low end of the guesstimate.  That's an entire DAY a week!  Doing that I can't give an excuse of "I don't have time" for ANYTHING!  And yet I use that excuse quite often to procrastinate.  I'm really good at putting things off until tomorrow.

So 7 hours total it is!  I'm getting a bit of a late start but only a week into July so plenty of time to really give this a shot.

7/7/13:

Day one was incredibly productive!  I watched about 1/2 hour of TV this morning and then spent the rest of the day getting shit DONE!  I deep cleaned the attic - which is my office.  Since I'd had all my seeds up there and the dogs are always up there with me it desperately needed it.  Between the dog hair, dirt & dust it was truly disgusting.   It took me a good four hours but it is spotless!   I vacuumed over and over and over again - oh my god the HAIR!  That Dyson commercial where they apologize that you'll have to empty the bin more often ... yep that was my life today.   (For the record if you have animals the Dyson is worth the money.  I burnt out vacuum after vacuum - usually the lasted about a year before they died in protest from all the hair ... my Dyson is on it's fifth year and still going strong.)  Then I steam cleaned the carpet over and over.  The dirt in the water as I dumped the bin out was so gross!  But now it is sparkling clean and it smells sooooo good up there from the carpet cleaner.  Going to work tomorrow morning might actually be pleasurable!  Okay ... maybe that is taking it a little too far but you get the point.

After I was done upstairs I cleaned out my closet.  Well, it's more of a room than a closet.  Our old house has four bedrooms on the second floor.  All of them have tiny closets and are pretty small.  The biggest one is just big enough for our king bed and a very small end table.  So our bedroom furniture set (that all fit beautifully in our bedroom in our house in St. Louis) is spread throughout three bedrooms.  One bedroom has become my closet and the other Hubby's.  Later on we are going to do some renovations and cannibalize the smallest bedroom to create a true master sized room with a closet big enough for both of us.   Anyway the littlest bedroom is my 'closet' and has my dresser, vanity and all my clothes / stuff.  I still had all my winter clothes in there and so went through and put all of them away for the season & then reorganized everything.  Once that was done that carpet got the same treatment as the attic.

By the time I was done it was very late afternoon so I jumped in the shower, did some meal planning & hit Whole Foods.   I just settled in with my dinner (whole wheat pasta with homemade pesto sauce, chicken & tomatoes) to write this.  It's almost 8PM.  The rest of my evening I'm going to look up some care tips for my veggies - I remember seeing things about pruning tomatoes, basil, etc. so now that they are actually in the ground I better go back and take a look.  (I WILL have success damnit!  After the disaster with my seeds and how long the backyard took I am bound and freaking determined that I'm going to get this right & actually have something to harvest this year!)  By the time I'm done I may watch some TV or I may just head outside and read my book or take one of the dogs for a walk.   Overall - damn good day!

From 7/9/13 Post:

Day 3 No TV!

If you've checked out my pages you'll see I've got a new one - "Just an Hour July!".  My goal is to watch no more than an hour a day or a total of 7 hours of TV a week.  Today is day three and it is definitely an adjustment.  This is the first day that I'm not sure what I want to do with my time.  Sunday was super productive cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and the like.  I had plenty to do.  Yesterday was the same.  After work I spent some time in the yard and then did some sanding on our front deck ... until Hubby came home and wasn't too pleased that I'd taken on 'his' project.   Um - you mean the one you started 3 weeks ago and then haven't gotten to since?  ... No I didn't actually say that to him but I sure thought it!  Eh - if he wants it all to himself more power to him so I went inside and ended up cooking the rest of the night.  (Recipes & pics to come shortly!)

Today I'm not quite sure how I'm going to spend my evening.  It is humid & HOT outside to the point where doing anything out there would be awful.  Plus I don't have much to do right now.  It is all weeded and planted and mulched.  I did try a gardening tip that I found on-line ... I took all the food scraps from cooking yesterday - the veggies & fruits, not meat! - and boiled them in a pot of water and then saved the water ... refilled and boiled / simmered / soaked & saved again.  After it cooled off I used it to water my veggies - the site said that helps give the plants nutrients ... like an organic form of fertilizer.  I also sprinkled coffee grounds - they are supposed to help too.  I'm watering the back yard with the sprinkler now so it will help it soak in and spread out.  But basically all I have to do now is move the sprinkler now and again ... so not much more to do.  Curling up in our ice cold basement and watching TV sounds damn good right now.  I only watched 1/2 hour yesterday so I can indulge a little tonight but on day 3 I'm not going to do the whole "I'll watch tonight and then not watch later in the week" - that's a slippery slope I've fallen down with other things ... I'll have the pizza tonight and then eat really well the rest of the week.   Can't bullshit yourself!

From 7/13/13 Post: 

Week 1 Done!

Week one with limited TV done!  I splurged this morning on Oz (I know ... I'm behind the times but never watched it when it was on) so came in right at 7 hours for the week.  I've spent a lot of time outside and just getting thing little things done.  I found that in keeping busy like that I didn't even really think about food until around 8PM so by the time I made dinner and finished it wasn't long before I was headed up to bed to read.  I read a good hour every night so generally head up between 9 and 9:30PM.  The dogs have not been happy because no TV means no cuddle time on the couch and since they aren't allowed in the main back yard yet (new sod) they are feeling a bit neglected.   As I write this sitting on the couch in our family room all three are stuck to me like glue & have been all morning.

I jumped on the scale just for curiosity's sake and since the last time I checked (about 2 weeks ago) I'm down 4 pounds!  I'm not surprised that weight would come off - but I thought I'd have to start full on "working out" to make it happen versus just doing yard work and odds / ends around the house.  Nice to have an early reward out of this goal of mine.  One not so rewarding part is the bugs!  I am getting eaten alive outside.  I've got to find a good natural bug spray.  With everything I've learned the last six months about food I've also ended up learning more than I'd ever wanted about pesticides.  What's the point of organic food / gardening if you end up spraying the poison directly on yourself?  No thankee!  Did some looking on-line and there are quite a few essential oils and recipes to make your own but those oils cost a pretty penny and Hubby will lose it if I spend right now ... backyard payments all due plus his class.