Not long after my last post, Steve came in with my old Fitbit…
It must have fallen out of my pocket and then been driven over, maybe more than once. I’m glad I went ahead and replaced it because this one is toast.
After reading your comments, after thinking about it a little more, and after lunch, I went to Target yesterday and bought myself a new Fitbit Charge. Thank you all for your comments. I didn’t feel the least bit guilty when I bought this new gadget.
It’s hard to take a nice picture of your own arm :-).
The color choices for this model are not great: black, gray, dull navy, and orange. Black seemed to make the most sense… it will look fine with fancy attire, right?
I had a discussion about the Fitbit over dinner with friends last night—about why some of us like wearing this sort of device. I believe that Oscar had it right when he said that it offers validation. I don’t feel the need to broadcast my daily activities, but I do like knowing how active I’ve been, compared to how active I usually am.
I have always treated my body as if it is a used car. If my car starts acting up, I take it to the mechanic because I do not want to be stranded somewhere. My body is in reasonably good shape for its age, but when parts of me act up, I go to the appropriate doctor. The Fitbit is just one part of my simple, self-monitoring system. That, and I like the mental pat on the back I give myself when I reach my daily goals :-).
I have been wearing a Fitbit One for more than a year. That’s the kind that goes on a waistband or in your pocket. It’s not fancy, but it did keep up with my activity. I lost it yesterday. If I knew where I lost it, I could find it, but I don’t. Deep sigh.
This morning I got up as usual, took my 2+ mile walk with Laurie, played 45 minutes of pickle ball with Catherine, Carla, and Ann, and then did a hour of barbell blast. That last hour is not exactly my favorite thing and during the entire time I’m wishing it was over. But I can tell it’s good for me so I’m going to continue to make myself go, twice a week, Mon and Wed. Pilates is Tues and Th—also not my favorite thing but I’ve been doing it for so many years that I’d feel guilty if I didn’t go.
Anyway, the point is, I did my normal thing, but there is no Fitbit to record it. Do I care? I sort of think I do which is funny because the only time I notice the thing is when it tells me either that I’ve almost met my daily goal or that I’ve surpassed it. I don’t check my stats, I don’t care about my heart rate, and I’m darned sure not going to spend time tracking my calories or sleep. Why on earth do I care about this thing?
Steve and I are going with friends, Amanda and Keith, to Hawaii on Monday. We are going to be there for 3 weeks because it’s far enough away that it makes good sense to stay awhile. (FYI: I’ll post lots and lots of photos!)
Now, back to the Fitbit… We are going to do a whole lot of walking and hiking. One thing I especially like about the Fitbit is that is tracks not just how far you walk, but the number of ‘floors’ you’ve done. (My morning walk includes hills and which amount to 32 floors!) I’m pretty sure that after each hike (and they mostly involve inclines) I’m going to want to look at a Fitbit to know just how worn out I should be :-).
I’ve looked at the various models and I am seriously considering the Fitbit Charge, which looks like the one below but doesn’t come in purple. The one below is a Charge HD that comes with extra bells and whistles that I don’t need.
The Charge costs a little more than my previous model but maybe it will be easier to keep up with. And it can double as a watch! You know, I had hoped that by writing this post, I would talk myself out of wanting to replace the lost Fitbit. I’m pretty sure the opposite has happened. Sigh.
An aside: People who know me well, know that I am into tech gadgets, Apple gadgets in particular. I am surprised that I don’t want an Apple Watch yet. The main reason is that I have such a small wrist that I don’t love the way it looks on me. But it’s also that the watch is connected via bluetooth to your iPhone. When it’s out of range, many of the cool ‘connected’ aspects of the watch no longer work. I’m going to wait until Apple makes a watch that has its own cellular connection and that looks good on my wrist.
Jeff is a biostatistician on the faculty at Columbia. I try to understand what he does, and sometimes I sort of get it, but I can’t exactly explain it.
He goes to conferences to present papers often. I’ve never seen him speak until now. He gave a talk in Banff at the Frontiers in Functional Data Analysis Conference a few days ago and it was recorded. He said I could share the link with you!
Click here to watch Jeff’s talk. I find it interesting that it is the norm for a speaker to speak fast at these things—they have a time limit and a lot to fit in. I’m proud of the fact that Jeff is clear, even when he’s talking fast. I don’t think I could do it.
Here Jeff is, younger. It’s fun to show him in front of a quilt-in-progress on my design wall. I’m lucky that my boys (and my DIL) all love my quilts. And it’s interesting to me that they like different quilts so everyone get to be happy.
FYI: That quilt went to American Patchwork & Quilting. They patterned it, and they own the quilt.
Fortunately, the city really sparkles and transforms during the holidays. You’ll spot random Christmas trees up in places, even on the sidewalks, and tons of holiday decor everywhere. So, if you ever visit during the holidays (starting from Thanksgiving to January 1), this is what I highly recommend you do — please note, they’re super touristy things, but I love doing them all!!!
Jeff and Ella testing out the rink back in 2013!
If you subscribe to my newsletter, you know that our newest book, Wool Applique the Piece O’ Cake Way, has arrived. I haven’t written much about this book on the blog yet because I wanted to make videos first. I had to wait until I got my nails done, yesterday, to film the videos because when your hands are going to be preserved online for all time, you want your nails to look nice :-).
If the video isn’t there, click here to see it on Youtube.
I’ll post with more wool-y news soon. Until then, happy stitching!
Piece O Cake Blog 