My Apple Watch

I've been saying for a long time that I wanted an Apple Watch. I've WANTED one for a long time. At some point, I decided it would be my reward for finally losing all my baby weight...but here we are...with a 3-year-old 'baby' and no Apple Watch. {grin}

I started thinking that maybe it would help me with losing weight with the Activity trackers built into the watch. I also started looking at other trackers but kept coming back to the Apple Watch. I just wanted one!!!!!

The first week of full-on lockdown, I finally decided to get one. Something fun to have during this gray time, plus I would be supporting the economy, ha. From a cost perspective, these things aren't cheap. BUT Deloitte provides a 'well-being' subsidy, so I knew I'd get 50% paid for, PLUS I decided to buy a used Series 4 {one version behind the latest release} off eBay.

I've had my watch about 10 days now AND I LOVE IT!!!

Hello lovely!

I would say, so far, I'm using the Activity tracker the most. There are multitude of things that are tracked each day, 3 of which are represented by 'rings' - this is when you might hear people talk about 'closing their rings'. The red ring is your active calorie burn - you set your goal based on your activity level. The green ring is your exercise time - a minimum of 30 minutes of activity. And the turquoise ring is your stand time - the goal is to stand at least one minute out of 12 hours. I also watch my total calorie burn and my steps taken - my goal is 10,000 steps. I do really think this is making me a lot more conscious of being active - we'll see if I still like it in a month but right now closing those rings is a definite motivator and is even getting me more active on rest/recovery days. Sunday, for example, I didn't have a planned workout {I had worked out Friday and Saturday}, but I decided to go on a long walk to close my ring ha.

And here's a summary of my rings last week.

Other apps I am using and reasons I'm liking it:

• In conjunction with the Activity tracking, I like tracking my workouts.
• There's an ECG app that watched for heart a-fibs - very cool since my mom has had to have 2 ablations for heart irregularities, plus a co-worker told me about this app SAVING HER MOM'S LIFE by calling 911 when she went into a-fib.
• I like that I get notifications on my phone - I can glance down and see the email isn't important or who the text is from - so I don't feel so tied down to my computer and phone.
• I did get it with Cellular + GPS {meaning I can be away from my phone and still get notifications}, I just haven't set it up yet ha. So I really think that freedom is going to be awesome!
• This is silly but truthful - I think it's cute! I got it with a pink band and it's face is rose gold. I want to get a different band - and maybe a few - but right now I just love how it looks!

So that's my splurge purchase {although very reasonable since I got used!} of COVID-19! Am I nuts?!?!

Our Corona-Routine

I've written before about our morning and bedtime routines, and given how weird things are right now, I thought it'd be fun (word used loosely) to talk about our new routine with everyone home all day, every day!

One of the awesome perks of being home is not having to get up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school. Brent also isn't starting work QUITE as early, so we've been sleeping in. Normally he leaves the house between 6:30-7:00, and now he usually gets up at 7:30 and heads straight to the office, and I get up about 8:00 - pending children waking us up.

8:30 - girls are up for sure, I'm making breakfast, starting to work, and the girls are playing. 

9:00-12:00 - Trent gets up a little later and is LOVING life. He wants to earn his screen time as quickly as possible, so he wants to get his outside time done and his school work done. I usually try to get Drew started on her school work too, which is a lot more hands-on from me because her teacher asked me to give her all of the 2nd grade work {holla!}. We try to do a lot of work outside. So this time is Brent and I trying to juggle work, school work, and keeping the kids happy. The morning seems to be a little easier with happy attitudes. 

Mon/Fri - Trent has a zoom class meeting from 7:55-8:30. Drew has a zoom class meeting from 11:00-11:30. Trent also has an individual meeting with his teacher Thursday afternoon, and Paige also meets with her class on Wednesday afternoons.

12:00 - The kids eat lunch about noon every day, and then they usually get screen time. I am trying to incorporate a chore before they get their screen time, but that usually needs help from me, and I am fresh out of help to give for something else, so this isn't happening super regularly. The kids get anywhere from 1 to 2 hours of screen time.

Sometimes Paige takes a nap and she gets her screen time when she wakes up. We're at the point where if she takes a nap, she's up forever at bedtime, so we don't make her take a nap every day. If she's especially crabby, we make it happen, and she'll sleep for about 1-1.5 hours.

I have some guilt about the amount of screen time the kids are getting right now, but honestly, it's the one chance Brent and I have to be super productive and focused. 

2:00 - By this point screens are usually off, maybe 2:30, and the kids are playing again. Drew FINALLY learned to ride her bike last week, yay!, so we try to also ride bikes in the street and I can work in the driveway. Our street is a horseshoe off the main road that runs through our neighborhood, so our street is really quiet. We also use our blow-up pool when the weather is nice - which was NOT this past week ugh. Basically anything to have them be active and happy.

We work and try to manage the kids and finish up any school work we want to do between now and roughly 5:00. Brent usually works a little longer. The afternoon gets tricky with less patience from everyone. Drew is really whiny and needy with her school work if we don't get it all done in the morning.

6:00 - We typically feed the kids about 6:00, and if the weather is nice we go back outside after dinner. Drew is OBSESSED with riding her bike right now, and what's funny is it's too small, so she looks so funny riding it. We need to get her a new one pronto.

7:00 - We start to get the girls ready for bed here. If Paige hasn't had a nap, we need to get her into bed by 7:30, but if she's napped she can stay up later. Either during dinner or after dinner I read to Trent and Drew. I can't wait until Paige is asleep most days since sometimes that is late. It's really fun right now because Trent and Drew are enjoying each other's books so I read some from each book.

8:00-9:00 - We get everybody into bed. During 'regular' school, Drew is in bed before 8:00, but she's been sleeping in so her bedtime is a little flexible too. At some point, we just basically tell Trent to leave us alone, but he might stay up until 10:00.

From that point on, Brent and I watch TV - we just finished Tiger King and he is going to restart Ozark to watch it with me - or I read, and we stay up way too late - at least midnight every night ha.

And that's our COVID-19 routine!