Geeky Mom

From Thursday to Sunday, we were one busy family. On Thursday night, Mr. Geeky and I went to see Regina Spektor in concert. She was amazing. I only knew a few of her songs, so almost everything was new to me. What amazed me the most was that it was just her on stage. She played piano, percussion and a little guitar. Mostly it was just her voice and whatever instrument she was playing. As Mr. Geeky said, he thought is was one of the best concerts he’s ever been to. It helped that we were only 6 rows back.

I was in the same row at the same venue for Iron and Wine on Friday. And I have to say, I was really disappointed. Their new album came out only on the 25th, so naturally, very few people had heard it. They played almost entirely from that album and only about 3 or 4 (that I could tell) familiar songs. In addition, Sam played almost entirely with his back to the audience. The music was nice, but without seeing him, it just kind of annoyed me. I felt like he (the whole band really) was playing for themselves and not for us. They basically had no stage presence. I’ve seen them before and I didn’t really feel that way the last time. Now, I’m not sure I’ll go see them again.

Saturday was soccerpalooza. We had to go for pictures at 7:55. Game at 9:00. Pictures for Geeky Girl at 8:55, game at 10:30. It was an exercise in parental juggling. After soccerpalooza, I decided to get in my exercise for the day by gardening. I did some much needed weeding and pruning, planted some new flowers and some bulbs. So far, I’m happy with the results. I had decided that on the weekends, I was going to try to get exercise in by doing some kind of activity, preferably with the family. No one wanted to garden with me. According to this web site, I burned 540 calories. Woo hoo!

Sunday, I had promised Geeky Girl I’d take her ice skating. Yes, ice skating. She watched Ice Princess on the Disney Channel and gotten it into her head that she wanted to go ice skating. So we went to the nearby rink and skated for about an hour. It was pretty fun. And it burned 374 calories to boot. Later, I finished up some gardening and then the whole family went to play tennis. On a calorie-burning scale, that was the best activity, plus it was the most fun.

In addition to the weekend activities, I walked almost two miles a day throughout week, except for Friday. I’m going to take today off since I did so much over the weekend, but I’ll be back walking tomorrow. I don’t know if this is helping or not in my goal to a) lose my dissertation weight or b) to be more fit. But it feels pretty good so far.