Conclusions

Well, the first 3 days of my body boot camp have gone pretty well. I have written everything down and stayed in my point range each day. I have walked/jogged (if you can call it jogging) twice this week and am aiming to go 2 more times. Here are some of the conclusions I have drawn over the past 3 days:
1) It is much, much cheaper to be fat. When I went grocery shopping to stock up for this week I was shocked at how much fruits and vegetables cost. Pretty sure my buggy full of Oreos, Doritos, assorted miniature candy bars (because don't we all feel better when we eat 6 mini Twix, as opposed to one regular sized one) was a whole lot cheaper.
2) You fellow Weight Watchers have heard their famous quote, "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." What a load of crap. Whoever came up with this wise saying has obviously never had strawberry cake from Edgar's or chocolate pie from Johnny Ray's.
3) The Battle of the Bulge (over the top of my pants) has started back up, and I am determined to win! One of my students loves to touch the flab on people's arms. I was talking about this with my aide earlier today and then wondered why this same child then came up and kept patting my stomach. Hmmm... wait a minute... Ummm is she playing with my stomach flab? Uh yes. Guess my "suck-it-all-in" camisole was not doing its job.
4) I am pretty sure that one of my neighbors comes out to smoke pot in his car around 5 each day. The two days I have been walking he has been sitting in his car that is facing the street with a very large smile on his face and a strange odor wafting from his car.
5) The next 3 days will bring lots of temptations. I have a shower at a wine bar after school tomorrow, a graduation party Friday night, and a cook-out Saturday night. That is a whole lot of cake to turn down... praying that I will have some sort of self-control from deep inside.
I will be sure to check back in after the weekend to let you know how I did and what the scales say!

Back in the Saddle(bags) Again

So, here I am, back in that annoying place I have been so many times before - climbing the hill on the rollercoaster of dieting. Last January (2009), my friend Keri and I started Weight Watchers together. I also joined Curves and really stuck with counting/tracking my points. By September I had lost 40 lbs. I went to the doctor last week, and as always, they kindly welcomed me by showing me my growing weight (Nice to see you, too...ya jerks). Since September, I have gained back about 15 pounds. I have lots of excuses for why that is (football season, holidays, stress, cream cheese whispering my name until I caved and re-united with my old friend), but none of them are worthy of gaining back any of those pounds I worked so hard to lose.
I have started and re-started Weight Watchers approximately 37 times since January. Many Sunday nights have been deemed "The Last Supper" as I loaded up on a buffet of cheese, butter, chocolate, etc. in a last attempt to enjoy myself. The weeks have gone well, but I usually blow it over the weekend, which would be okay if I wanted to maintain my current weight, but I DON'T. So, here we go again.
Weight loss is not easy for me because of several reasons:
1) I LOVE food. I find small joy in a perfect cupcake or cheese dip or lasagna. The great thing about Weight Watchers, is I can still have all of those things, but I have to recondition my mind about what appropriate portions are. Apparently a whole basket of chips with cheese dip is slightly excessive.
2) I have little self control when it comes to food, especially sweets. If you offer me a donut or a brownie, I have a very hard time saying, "No thanks, I will have this delicious fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free chocolate pudding instead."
3) I do not enjoy exercise. One might say that I actually hate it. Okay, so that one would be me, but whatever. I do not like to sweat and I am lazy, so physical exercise ranks right up there with a trip to the gyno.
Basically, I can keep using these excuses until I am right back to where I started, or I can get serious this time and start losing again. I am choosing the latter. Over the next few weeks I will let you know how it's going and hopefully have some success to share with all of you. I am hereby officially stating that I am putting on my big girl panties and dealin' with it!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Here are a few things I am loving right now:
1) Music: I love Kari Jobe. She is a Christian singer with one of the most beautiful voices. Her songs are amazing. I also love Rita Springer. She is another Christian singer who has some great songs of praise and worship.
2) TV: YAY!!! Glee has finally returned! Oh how I have missed Sue Sylvester and her completely inappropriate comments that kinda make me cringe. I have also developed an obsession with Alias. Yes, I know it came on long ago, but my friend Julie has gotten me hooked on it. She owns the first 3 seasons, so we have watched all of those and just finished the fourth season (which has been my favorite so far).
3) Books: I have been reading lots lately. I just finished The Help, which I loved. I am now reading House Rules, which is Jodi Picoult's latest. If you have not read any of her books, you need to start now! They are soooo good. I have also started reading Janet Evanovich's series about Stephanie Plum, the world's worst bounty hunter. These books are good, quick reads between the more intense books on my list.
4) Food: Yesterday I went to Auburn for A-Day with Ashley and Carson. Our road trip of course called for snacks, so I made "the world's best trail mix" (if I do say so myself). Yogurt covered pretzles, M&M's, goldfish crackers, mixed nuts, and chocoalte Cheerios.
5) Fashion: I am so glad it is warm again and I can wear capris, sandals, and shorts. I also love that my hair has finally gotten long enough to pull up in a wee ponytail. I have LOTS of thick hair, so it feels so great to pull it up off my neck. I tried scrunching it up last week. It actually held the curl pretty well, but some of my family members were not feelin' it. "What did you do to your hair? You look like you have jheri curl." "Whoa, what happened to your hair?" Of course all of these comments came from men. What do they know??

What are you loving right now?? Do tell.

F-Bombs Away

Times, they are a changin'... Each year I am more and more amazed at what 5th graders say. The things they know at this age blows me away. I am pretty sure when I was in 5th grade I still thought boys had cooties and the worst word I knew was "butt".
One year I asked my kids what some of their favorite movies were and I got everything from Scary Movie to Saw. Most of the movies they named were rated R. The first rated R movie I saw was Pretty Woman (which now a days would probably be rated PG). Sidenote: Pretty sure that using the phrase "now a days" makes me old.
This year many of my boys have an obsession with WWF (wrestling). In the past month I have taken up 2 wrestling magazines that are full of scantily clad women. Pretty sure they didn't check that out from our school library.
The biggest shocker to me, though has been the 3 F-bombs that have been dropped in my classroom in the past 2 years. Last year I had a student singing a song using words that rhymed with luck (duck, buck, f***). Of course the kids that heard him reacted with lots of giggles, which only made him sing it again and again until finally one child came and told me he was saying "the F word". I pulled him in the hallway and asked him what he was saying. He said the word and asked what the big deal was. After I picked my jaw up off the ground I explained to him that the word he said was a very very very bad word that he should never ever use again.
This year as we were lining up for lunch I had a child simply ask (in front of the whole class), "Ms. Meadows is f*** a bad word?" In my shock I said, "What did you just say?" which of course caused him to repeat the word. I gave him the same speech I had given the student the previous year.
Just a few weeks ago I had the 3rd student yell out the word in a moment of frustration because he had not completed his work. Needless to say, seeing as he used the word knowing full and well what it meant, his consequences were a little more severe.
Disclaimer: I assure you that these students are not repeating ANYTHING they have heard me say, unless they are mind-readers (just kidding).

The Final Countdown...

I cannot believe it is already April! It seems like just last week I was packing up all my Christmas decorations. Now, here we are with 80 degree weather, flip flop feet, and the overwhelming anxiety that comes with the arrival of swimsuits in all department stores. (By the way, I have often wondered why Spanx doesn't make swimsuits. Well, now they do!). So, my toes are polished, my legs are finally shaved above my knees again, and I am loving sitting outside in this brief window of time before it becomes stifling.

This is my fourth year teaching and it really does feel like each year goes by a little faster. I am very ready for summer, but I will be sad to see this class leave. So, here we are with 37 school days left until summer... but who's counting? I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

April Fools

On my way to school this past Thursday I was planning out a great April Fools' joke to do on my class. I was going to convince them that I did not feel like they had done their best on all of the SAT tests they had taken so far, so I had asked for special permission to have them re-take them all. I was going to pass out their #2 pencils, scratch paper, etc. and then loudly declare, "April Fools... hahahaha... Gotcha... Booyah!" Apparently ALL of their parents had already been pulling pranks on them because they all came in that morning telling me I had something on my shirt (which I stupidly fell for too many times). So, basically they were already on to me, so I knew I would not be able to pull off my great prank.
Also, apparently some students thought that April Fools' day is a free opportunity to hit other kids without getting in trouble. One boy told someone they had a spider on their head and then offered to get it off by smacking them on the head as hard as possible. Needless to say, his theory about not getting in trouble was untrue.