No More Plans!

My smart phone was one of the first generation smart phones or very close to it. I have had my little Droid Eris for just about three and a half years which is well past the lifetime of any modern day smart phone it seems. I am content with functional and don't usually need all the fancy things. Well my phone is so old it is basically a brick. I couldn't add apps, couldn't download most anything, and I was paying for it still. I said this is stupid.

My friend Adam had talked to me about NET10 back in December when he was visiting and it sounded like a cool idea, I just had to get warmed up to it. Basically it's this: no contacts, month to month, unlimited everything (for my purposes anyway), and cheaper than current phone plan by a lot. So what's the catch? You do have to pay for your phone. Yes the real price and not some discounted "deal" which you end up paying for in your service plan 8 times over.

We did some math and it was actually cheaper to pay the cancellation fee with our old service provider than to wait out the contract terms which ought to tell you the price difference we are talking here. Under our currently family plan we got only 700 minutes and the smallest data package for 2 people. The bill (with discount) was just under $150 each month. Our new plan, unlimited talk, text, and data (for what we use it will be unlimited) is just $85 a month. Um, yeah let me think about this... Done. New phones are expensive, but when you stop and think about how much you still pay for a phone with "discount" for anything remotely newish, it's not that much different. So if I am going to pay $100-200 anyway, I can justify spending the remaining amount to get a phone to have a cheaper monthly bill. Especially if this one lasts as long.

That sounds risky right? Well my thought was this, I now own the phone. If this prepaid provider doesn't work for us, we can just buy a new $10 SIM card and try again. No contact means no obligation to stay. I can also go back to another big box place if I wanted but no contact needed. You get contracts to offset the cost of the phone, if you have one then that solves that issue. Overall, I couldn't find a reason to not try it. We will see how it goes!

And because I love my new phone, I have written this blog entry from it with an app I previously couldn't ever have on my old phone. Neat!

Victory!

So I wanted to follow up on my race status since the last post on my Movement from the Couch.  I have in fact completed both races, the 5K and the 4 Miler.  I am proud to say that I was able to run both the whole way!  I am not only impressed with completing those races, but my time for both wasn't half bad either.

Wounded Warrior 5K (aka - LM 5K)

So in my first for real race ever, I was mostly on time for the start.  I managed to get there, get out of the car, and find my posse I was going to start with with a handful of minutes to spare.  No one was under any illusion that we would run the whole race together.  Especially considering some flat out told me they would run the first short bit, be it a block or a mile and then walk the rest of the race.  :)  No hard feelings for sure.  By the end of the first hill we were all split up.  I fell somewhere in the middle of our group and just kept on trucking.  I have to say, the layout of this race did nothing for me.  It was an out and back (as people in the running business call it) which I have decided aren't my favorite, but for this one I couldn't remember where I had been running on the way out, so I didn't know where I was going on the way back.  That's just as annoying because you think you should know, you were only just there.  The course was anything but flat, so that also had some annoyance factor.  I think about half of the second mile was straight uphill.  The second half was at least downhill, but still not enough of a boost for all that uphill.  Haha.

Anywho, the overall weather was nice.  It felt too cool to run without a long sleeve shirt, but really, I didn't need it after about the first mile, but my bib was on there, so I couldn't just take it off.  Lesson learned.  :)

My overall time for that race was a 35:57, which put me at an 11:25 mile.  Way faster than I was hoping for, so that made me feel pretty giddy.  As for my first race, it was small, uncomplicated, and just a way to get out there and get timed.  :)

Mother's Day 4 Miler

How nuts must have I have been to sign up for a 4 mile race a week after finishing my first 5K?  My friend Megan had talked me into doing this race with her with all kinds of encouragement, "You'll be fine.  If you can run 5K, you can totally do 4 miles."  In the back of my head I was thinking, are you high?  Haha.  I am thinking of this from the perspective of a person who couldn't run a mile in February, so 4 miles seemed a bit of a tall order.  I went into this race thinking, ok, if I have to it's ok to walk.  My personal goal was to go at least 3 miles since I had demonstrated that I could handle that without many issues last weekend.  When I got to the third mile, I was thinking, "Ok, cool, well you can walk anytime now and no shame."  The back of my brain was like, seriously?  You can do this, get your butt up that hill and get on with it!   The back of my brain won out in the end.  I managed to pull it together for the last hill and finish the race without walking.  Totally shocked about that, but still kind of an ego boost.  "I CAN DO IT!"

So the overall results for my 4 mile status: finished in 46:49, which breaks down to an 11:42 mile.  I thought that was pretty fantastic for adding an additional 0.9 miles to my longest run which was only last week.  This also earned me 46 active minutes on my pedometer which topped off my max points for the day and earned me a badge of "Busy Bee" for having 45 active minutes in one day.  Winning!

So now I am an official running fool.  Onward ho!

Will It Grow?

It's been a long long time since I have lived in any one place to be really "settled" in.  In fact, now that I think about it, the last time I was in one place this long I was in high school.  Wow.  I guess that enhances the reason of why I am so excited about my garden project.  It's been forever since it was even a possibility!

My father is a farmer.  He grew up on a dairy farm and has basically had a farm, tractors, land to play on most of his adult life.  I know how delicious food from a garden can be and have wanted to have a mini garden of my own for a long time.  Even growing herbs seems to be a challenge around here with cats.  This year I decided to get serious about it and figure out what I wanted to plant and how.  I called my dad and said, "I have room on my deck that gets good sun, what can I grow?"  The answer was apparently a lot.

This is my year of experiments.  I plan to take notes on what grows well, what doesn't have a hope and a prayer for making it on the deck, and how much of any one thing I really need.  I went to the garden supply store in March and purchased starter soil, containers, and seeds.  A lot of them.  I think the whole thing came to about $50?  I figured there's something to that 'strength in numbers' philosophy, so I planted a bunch of them.  Probably more than was necessary, but that whole survival rate can be tricky.  There were a few things that had a terrible success rate; oregano - zero, catnip - one plant made a come back, dianthus and carnations are running at about 2 plants each. 

Most people think I am nuts that I am growing everything from seeds.  Apparently, getting starter tomato plants is the preferred method.  What do I know?  Seeds were $1.69/pack with the potential for 24 plants.  I had time and space, so give it a whirl.  If it does work out, I am out $5 for the containers, dirt and seeds.  I am ok with that investment risk.  So far about half have made it and of those, I am not sure which are going to thrive in the transplanting process.  I tell myself the solution will be to just buy the starter plants everyone else buys and call it a day.  :)

So what did I decide to grow?  I am so glad you asked!  Here's what's growing so far:
Heritage Tomatoes
Roma Tomatoes
Peppers
Jalapeno Peppers
Romaine Lettuce
Butter crunch lettuce
Spinach
Radishes
Green Beans
Peas
Green Onions
Parsley
Basil (also sad growth rate, but I have 3 tiny plants)

The radishes and peppers are doing very well, the tomatoes had a lot of struggling seedlings, but they are in the zone where they may make it.  I am planning on also planting a hill of cucumbers for giggles.  I am probably most excited about the lettuces because we do eat so much of them.  It would be wonderful to have a good crop to save some money there.  I am planting waves of those to have them available all summer/fall long.   

So, the ultimate question - Will it Grow? should be answered over the summer.  I'll keep you posted!