UNconnected

I love living in the country, but I HATE our rural internet provider.

I pay top-dollar for our connection, and it’s shoddy at best. I am always slack-jawed when I visit my parents, and pages load at the snap of my fingers. But the worst is when we try to use our Apple TV.

This is what I wanted to do today:

1. Get up
2. Use my Apple TV to home-share my already downloaded copy of Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred
3. Maybe have time to run before the bugs get up

This is what I DID do today:

1. Got up
2. Screwed around with the Apple TV, reset our internet connection twice, started waiting 21 minutes for a 29-minute show (that was already downloaded!!) to load
3. Screwed around more while the Apple TV screen froze, rebooted everything, commenced waiting another 21 minutes, decided to start my run instead
4. Had the Apple TV say that The Shred was loaded, start workout, have it switch to “buffering” after the first 3 minutes
5. Started my run over again while the stupid show “buffered”. Seriously, is there any word more visibly annoying than buffering???
6. Had my kids wake up, thus interrupting all running and working out

I know you may be thinking, “Why doesn’t the personal trainer just do her own workouts? Why did she spend $9.99 on the DVD of a person she cannot stand??”

While those are very good questions (answer: I’m too lazy right now, I want to be spoon-fed instead of creative…), the more important question is this:

IF I’VE ALREADY DOWNLOADED A TV SHOW, SHOULDN’T I JUST BE ABLE TO WATCH IT??? And even if it does stream, why is it that I can stream Netflix easily, but NOTHING on my Apple TV will stream??

Why? Why, for the love of the internet-gods, why??

Why am I spending $65/month on internet that shuts downs 2+ times a day and can’t stream a tv show, let alone a movie rental?

And why is this even important? It’s not. It’s just that I really, really, REALLY was looking forward to doing this this morning, and instead I got to experience a touch of rage and 3 minutes of pushups/squats/shoulder presses.

And now I am sad 😦

 

**quick edit: Let me also add that I out-geniused myself and though, “Hey! I’ll just play it on my iPad/iPhone!” …which was great, until I discovered for some reason that all my playlists are empty thanks to “home sharing”. Thank goodness I found that out before I was standing backstage at a dance competition tomorrow night!!

Bloggin’ It

This internet fast has been hard.

Not life-or-death hard, or poor-pitiful-me hard. Just a hard in the sense that there are days when I have so much to say and not a soul to say it to. Then, by the time the kiddos are in bed and I have some me-time, I’m overwhelmed and overflowing with words and just can’t organize them into a coherent post. I’m like a sugared up kid with duct tape over my mouth. It’s insane!

I’ve fallen off a few times, usually in that 2-3pm hour when I’m trying to give the bugz some quiet time and I have nothing else to do. My house is clean. My food is cooked. My laundry is absolutely all folded and put away. So I cave a little. I tweet-stalk and Facebook-stalk my friends, but don’t comment…just to take the edge off.

Overall though, I’m doing okay. We’ve done a lot together, my bugz and me. My house really is clean, and we play outside and go for a walk almost every day. I count my gratitude gifts and work on my gluten-free cooking repertoire. But there are times when I need the internet: days when I forget to write out a recipe for dinner and am torn between breaking my rule or eating rice pasta as punishment. Days when I want to research something online while the bugz play nicely. Days when I just want to veg a little because I’ve been so good!!

Ugh.

And then the weekend comes and I am free to be online as much as I want, and do you know what?? I don’t want to blog! I want to go out and do things and stay away from my house and be adventurous and watch movies and cook and clean and anything but blog. It’s like shopping: you always find something when you don’t have the money, and the second your bank account is full, there’s nothing in sight.

Sigh.

But it’s good. I’ve broken the habit. I still physically flip my phone on, but it’s less automatic than it was. I’m not concerned with what’s going on in the world – it can wait, and if it can’t wait until 7pm then it really doesn’t matter that much. I can still organize play dates and stay on top of who’s had their babies 😉 With 4 days left in March, I’m happy with what I’ve done.

One thing is certain: I need my computer during the day. There are things that need to be done that can’t be accomplished in the 2 hours between bugz’ bedtime and my bedtime. As a compromise, I am buying a small desk for our living room so that I can be out in the open and still get my work done while they’re playing, instead of harping at them to leave my office. I can get photo prints ordered online, do my banking, etc and maybe even blog!

So even though this post is breaking the fast, I’m proud of myself. I was a full-on internet junkie, and now I’ve learned to live without it. I’ll probably still keep my cell data turned off at home – after all, I have an iPad and iMac, and the whole reason I don’t have a laptop is so that I can be present and able to stand up with a moment’s notice 🙂

Four days from finish, this mission was successful. Now I’m logging off until I finish teaching tonight, and you won’t see me breaking the fast until the week is done!

Ciao!