One of my all-time favorite commercials has got to be the “I Feel Great” Nutri-Grain ad. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and look it up. The commercial hilariously conveys that when you make healthy decisions and take care of yourself, your whole outlook on the day changes. You feel the energy and confidence to accomplish goals and make a difference in your life, and the world!

After moving out of a noisy loft in the city, I suddenly feel like things are GREAT! My routine has changed, and I love it. For example, this morning I woke up at 5:30am when the sun poured through my windows and could hear the birds chirping happily outside. I fell back asleep for two hours until my alarm went off at 8:30. We have no cable or internet yet, so I got up and headed downstairs where I ate breakfast, packed my lunch for the day (with at least one item from every food group I might add), straightened up the living room, read for an hour, took in the trash cans/recycling, did some laundry, and made my bed. I showered, got ready, and arrived at work with enough time to get settled in at my desk 5 minutes before my day began. That is a good morning.

This was a typical day for me on my “late days” (when I go to work at 11am) when I lived in the downtown loft: Wake up at 8:30 in a pitch black room (no windows) and immediately despise the idea of being awake for the day. Since going to bed the night before I have probably been woken up between two and four times due to the train outside the building, partying neighbors, or the building’s faulty fire alarm. Turn on my TV and watch an episode of whichever TV series I am currently addicted to. At 9:45 realize I am on track to being late for work so I run and take a quick shower. The shower has an 80% chance of being cold because Kevin, my roommate, showers at this time everyday. Blow dry hair, throw on clothes, and speed to work arriving at 11:01. Forget glasses and badge (dangit!). Students and teachers immediately start throwing problems and questions my way and I get frazzled and realize how very long the day is going to be. What do you know? It’s 11:30am and I am starving because I forgot to eat breakfast. Take my lunch break at 12pm where I inhale a huge meal that leaves me feeling bloated, tired, and horrified that I have just consumed 900 calories in one sitting. Head back to work and realize that there are still 7 hours of my workday left. Dinner at 7:30 is a handful of mini-Twix bars and Rolo’s from my co-worker’s candy drawer. Head home at 8pm feeling exhausted and depressed.

What a difference a few life changes can make! One of the most important ones, I believe, is not having cable. I could not be happier that Isaac and I decided to not get cable in our new town home.  Tomorrow we are having internet set up, but no cable! We are going to have a Roku player (a little box that allows you to stream Netflix, Hulu, etc. in HD), but our TV watching will be dramatically less than if we had 2,000 channels like before. I also love the fact that my bed faces East and there are two big windows that allow natural light to wake me up every morning. I never realized the affect that waking up in a pitch black, 68-degree room was having on my attitude.

Not having cable and internet at the house has been great for me, so much so that I even thought about suggesting to Isaac that we not get it at all! The reality is that we need  should have internet to handle things like online bill payment, emails, and blog updating! So while we will be back in the 21st Century tomorrow, I have loved living a week without being connected to the internet or TV land. It has made me think that when I have kids someday I would love to live in a cable-free house. Who needs it with Netflix and Hulu nowadays? That way I can put on one TV show at a time for the kiddos and it eliminates the hours of zombified children (and husbands) channel surfing.

If you have a cable or internet addiction, try going without it for a week! You may also find that your daily routine changes for the better and you don’t miss it at all!