My Early Birthday Present

My birthday isn't for a little over 3 weeks, but I was in desperate need of a new iPod. I actually have two iPod Classics, but they have really been acting up lately. The first one randomly dies and says it has no battery power left when it has been charged in for hours. The second one started giving me a strange error message that I can't get rid of. I probably could have sent them back to Apple to have them fixed, but I figured this is a good excuse for me to get a new model.

I give you my new iPod Nano ...

My favorite colors are pink and purple, but I see those colors around all the time. I wanted something different so I chose green. I had read that the new 5th generation iPods had FM radio and video cameras built in, but I forgot about that until I bought mine. Super cool features I must say.

Caitlin over at Healthy Tipping Point wrote a blog earlier today about people who listen to podcasts while running instead of music. Several of her readers said they prefer podcasts for various reasons to music while running, so I thought I would give it a try today. I downloaded several different podcasts. One I was really interested in trying was called 4 Feet Running. I also downloaded The Biggest Loser Fan Podcast as well as a couple others. I started off my 5 mile run trying to listen to the 4 Feet Running, but I found the sound quality so bad that I couldn't deal with it. I don't know if it was just that specific episode, or if that is the way that all of them are but I had to turn it off. I ended up listening to the Biggest Loser podcast. It was pretty interesting commentary, the actual recap of the episode was boring because they are discussing the show from 2 episodes ago. I might start listening to podcasts more often if I can find some really good ones. I get bored with my music so quickly it would make for a nice change.

We planned to grill out BBQ chicken breasts tonight for dinner, but I'm still really confused with the time change and before we could get out to cook it was completely dark. Instead we made homemade pizzas. I've made these several times before, but they are always delicious. Tonight we didn't have any goat cheese since we ate it all last night, so we used regular ol' mozzarella instead. We had spinach salads with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and apple slices on the side.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 9 days off, but its almost time to go back to work. I have to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week. So I'll see you guys on Sunday! In the meantime ... what are some of your favorite podcasts to listen to? I need some ideas.

$13 Running Socks

These babies are my $13 running socks:

Tim has been raving about these Wigwam socks for weeks now. We went to Kinnucan's a few days ago and I saw them for sale. Tim insisted that I should buy them.

So today I decided to try them out for my run. When I first put them on they felt like HEAVEN. They were squishy in all the right places, fit exactly like I like them, and weren't too thin or too bulky.

I ran 6.3 miles in them and honestly I have to say once I started running I couldn't tell a difference between these socks and my Champion socks that I normally wear which are $10 for 6 pairs.

I'm gonna have to say the verdict on these socks is a big thumbs down. There is nothing wrong with them really, but I don't think they were really worth the money.