I joined Weight Watchers during my Spring Break in early April. Some may say that's not the best time- right before you go on a vacation for break. But I knew if I didn't do it then, it wouldn't happen for a month or more.

First week (while I was in Texas, half trying to be good) I lost 1.2 lbs. Second week, with me really trying and doing better at tracking my food, I lost 2.6 lbs. for 3.8 total.

My current goal is 5lbs. I can see it, visualize it, and it seems attainable. When I get to 5 lost, my next goal will be another 5.

I can tell a small difference in how my slacks fit. Yay!

And now, your moment of zen:

If you know what you want, if you’ve made up your mind, if you can see it, feel it, and move toward it in some small way every single day . . . it has to happen. -The Universe

Saved for Another Year

Update: I went to the "citizen task force" meeting last night. After 2 hours, it was decided to take my school, and a couple others off the list. I left, tho the news media reports the meeting went on for 2 more hours after that.

Originally, when the budget deficit started, the plan was to redistrict high schools at the same time as close schools. Then the deficit increased, and it was decided to hold off on the high school issue because it would take longer to sort through everything and they wanted a quicker fix.

There are 3 schools (including mine) in my area that feed into our area high school, that were on the list. Of the three, and 2 others that are in our area, none have enough empty rooms to take on the overflow generated by a school closing. Even my school of 323 students, if half went here, and half went there- it would only be to a new trailer city at each school.

There are schools not too far away that have room, but they feed into a different high school.

So for next year at least, my school is safe from closure. If the county plans to redraw the attendance lines for the high schools later, then we could be up again.

Our building is more than 50 years old. Four years ago a teacher retired who had herself been a student at our school when she was little. What was hard about the meeting was hearing other staff/parents from another school in our area bashing our building as "decrepit, depressing, and dark". I was astounded, thinking "What are you talking about? Our building is not decrepit" I even said as much to her, and later moved to be with others from my school.

The meeting itself started off hearing from parents of the schools involved, some of whom simply let their children speak. At the end of that section, some parents pushed their children forward anyway, thinking it'd make the task for look like bad guys if they made the kids sit down without speaking, or perhaps hoping to tug on their heart strings even more. In the end, 2 children were heard and the rest had to return to their seats.

The task force is made up of volunteers, and they don't get paid for these meetings. I don't envy them the job of whittling down the list to 4 schools to recommend to the board to close. Even after they do, there's talk of 8 more schools to be closed the following year.

At one point in the evening, hearing the parents speak about the wonderful programs at their schools, I really thought my school would get the axe. We're not big, we don't house magnet programs or teach International Baccalaureate curriculum. We're a small school that is home to a diverse community of black, white, African (Sudan, etc), Indian, and Pakistani kids. We have a large special needs program. We have an award winning garden that we use to teach kids where food comes from and brings the community together, we've made AYP (adequate yearly progress: ie, we pass state mandated testing). We don't however have huge academic ribbons. I got sad as the task force talked about the actual process of locking up schools, boarding windows, lawn maintenance etc. When one member of the task force brought up the fact that there was nowhere to put the children of any of the three schools, and that they weren't going to change "cluster lines" for the high schools, I felt a ray of hope. It was with much relief that our school was pronounced off the list.

There were other issues brought up last night, I'm still sorting through my feelings on that, as well as the teachers from my school that didn't show up... One school near us had 85 parents/staff show up, and we had only 18. It made me feel like somehow we care less, are less organized... and if we are, then eventually we could close due to apathy.

In the end though, these decisions are largely made without regard to feelings, as it is such a firebrand issue. No one wants their school closed. No one wants their property values to go down when a school closes. No one wants their kids to be bused further than is reasonable, and trailers are not the answer.

Update and Board Games

I haven't posted in a long time, but yes I'm still here.

I still feel bad about my weight, but apparently not enough to get me off the damn couch, away from my laptop, and into *doing* something repeatedly each day.

I teach kindergarten here in Atlanta, and I signed my contract for next year on Friday. I'm agreeing to a max 6% pay cut (the budget isn't final, the board may approve a 2% or 4% pay cut). Our school is on a list of possible school closings. Yes, central office staff positions are being cut, it's not all about sticking it to the classroom teacher. Mostly I'm just glad to have a job next year. Even if our school is closed, the county will have to employ me somewhere. We shall see how that goes.

Saturday the boyfriend and I went to his neighbors for a cookout and game night. We ate well- steak, chicken, raw veggies, bagel chips, dip. I brought fruit for dessert. I drank wine and coke.

I learned how to play two board games. One is called Settlers of Catan.  The information on how to play gave me overload at first, but I asked for advice from the other players, and based on their knowledge, I actually won the game! Next month when I have money again, I'll be getting one of these. We had 6 people playing, lots of banter back and forth. Eventually my confusion gave way to joy.

The other is called Ticket to Ride  This was ok, more solitary compared to Settlers. I was glad to learn something new, but I'd rather play Settlers again if given the choice.

I'm looking forward to Spring Break in 2 weeks. I'll be going to Dallas to see old friends. Should be fun.

Update

Wow, it's been awhile since I blogged. I meant to several times, but there never quite seemed like a good time. My last post was at the start of Valentine's weekend, and my boyfriend and I had a minor falling out. Suffice to say I didn't feel like venting on the web. We're fine now though.

My toe isn't healing properly. I had surgery on it to have a piece of bone removed on December 29th, and apparently it's having a reaction to an internal suture. When I went to the doc last week, there was a huge amount of pus visible under the skin.  She cleaned it out, found the remains of a suture, removed it, and then proceeded to tell me my new care regimen.

I'm using something called Prisma Matrix, a blend of silver and collagen in a cellulose medium. I tear off pieces of it, apply it to the "wound" area, and wet it with saline solution. I've been doing this for a week, and since the toe is still swollen around the area, I'm not sure as to how much healing is going on. I hope to find out later today when I go back to the podiatrist.

My weight is back up somewhat. Add to that the fact that yesterday was my birthday, and I'll be celebrating through the weekend.  My mom is up to see me, to get away from her empty house in Florida, and it's good that she's here.

I got more ink done.

Back in 2004 when my divorce was final, I wanted a tattoo that reminded me of who I am, apart from any man. During my marriage I had lost a lot of myself  in the relationship. I fought to regain my sense of self, and self worth throughout the 8-month divorce process. I wanted the ritualistic art-through-pain process.

This is my tattoo that I got 5 and half years ago.  I'm a Pisces, naturally.

So I've been giving thought the past few months of having some work added to it. I wanted water to represent my first home that I bought in June, and I wanted the space shuttle to represent my father, who passed away in November (he was an elecrtrical engineer who worked at United Space Alliance creating gyroscopes for instrumentation on the shuttle - also, he was a space enthusiast all of my life)

The artist I went to had a great style to her art. She was also the owner, and my entire process there- from the start of synthesizing the ideas, to drawing up a composition (I took her reference photos of the shuttle), to doing the ink- kept getting interrupted by customers. She had no store manager, or front desk person, and the other 2 artists there didn't seemed interested in helping someone unless they had nothing else to do. All in all I was at her store 8 hours. Four before the ink was started, and 4 during.

 

Linework

This photo was taken after the line work was done. Line work took about 45 minutes, and was actually the most pleasurable, least hurtful of the ink. If I had known ahead of time how long everything would take, I would have arranged to come back for a second session. By the end I was not the most attractive or sane person in the world, and many kudos to my boyfriend for seeing me through it. 

The finished piece

This was taken after the area was cleaned. Currently it's been 10 days since the tattoo was done, and I'm at the "don't-you-dare-pick-at-your-scabs-no-matter-how-much-they-itch" phase of the healing process.

Last, but not least: the past two days I attended a training workshop called SIOP - Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. That long indecipherable name is an educational approach when teaching a classroom that has English as 2nd Language Learners (ELL). We got a huge amount of information in the 2 days, and I could have used another day with the trainers.  Today however, in honor of my birthday, I took the day off from school. So when I left work Monday, I was ready for 3 days of sub plans, and a giddy feeling of guiltless freedom.

Yay for birthdays!

SNOW

Yes, it's snowing. The wet thick-flaked kind of snow. I didn't believe it would get like this, but it's still coming down.

Some photos:

Normally this would make me giddy with excitement. Snow for a teacher usually means a day off and sleeping in. But my county has a 4 day weekend scheduled, so I was off anyway Fri-Mon. Now if it snows again Monday night, I may get excited.

I was also looking forward to a Valentine home-cooked dinner from my boyfriend tonight. But he's not coming over with all this snow.

I have a warm home, warm dog, and food in my fridge. Time to snuggle up to some WoW I think.

Friday Weigh In and Oprah

Starting weight: 261
Last weigh in: 256
Today's weight: 255.4


So I lost half a pound this week. It's movement in the right direction at least. And considering I've not been as good as I could have been about food and exercise, I'll take it.

My thoughts this morning are a bit jumbled, so I apologize if this isn't the most cohesive post I've written.

On Oprah this week I saw Ruby, the woman who used to weigh 700lbs, and now weighs less than half that. She looked amazing considering the amount of weight she started at. She has considerable follow-through.

How do I get around the part of exercise where it feels like I'm killing myself? If not around, how do I work through it? Sheer willpower? I saw another episode of Oprah on "Undercover Boss" and the president of Waste Management was undercover at various jobs in his company. He met this man who underwent dialysis every few nights, but yet he had a physically taxing job and never complained about it. When asked by the boss, he said his spirit tells his body what it's going to do.

And then yesterday on Oprah (can you tell I record everyday?) Dr. Oz was talking about diabetes. He showed the ravaging effects one woman was going through and how she'd lost part of her leg do to the disease. Dr. Oz stated that people don't make life changes based on what they know, they make them on what they feel. He wanted the viewers to feel the plight of this woman, in an effort to get people motivated to A)find out if they had diabetes and B) treat it properly if they did.

Do I feel motivated to lose weight? Some days I do, and some days I don't. I guess I should break down that statement into 2 parts. Do I feel motivated to eat better, and do I feel motivated to exercise? More often I feel that about eating, than I do about exercising.

What do you, the readers feel? How did you get to a point where you exercised regularly, and worked through the "omg, this is killing me I just want to lay back down" feeling?

Food, Glorious Food

Friday began the weekend well. I'd weighed myself and lost a pound. That gave me the motivation to skip the donuts and bagels with cream cheese in the teachers lounge. Dinner with M was pot roast that had been slow cooking all day, with a nice merlot.

Saturday I didn't eat right, nor Sunday. I was out of Nutrisystem snacks and meals. I had made cookies on Sunday and ended up eating just about all of them. Monday at work included two vending machine packages of shortbread cookies with the jam center. Fought lots of sleepiness, and felt again the sugar cravings that had ended when I was on the plan's food last month.

Yesterday after work though, my Nutrisystem order arrived.

How can I explain the feeling I had, putting away 28 days worth of food and snacks? You know the cliche about people rolling around in money, and the feeling of ecstatic joy?  That's how I felt. If I could have rolled around in it without crushing boxes, I might have. I felt giddy. Some connection to food I have, huh?

A Meme

Saw this on Athena's Melting and thought I'd share my answers

1.What time did you get up this morning?
4:13am

2. How do you like your steak?
medium

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Avatar 3D

4. What is your favorite TV show?
It was Doctor Who with David Tennant- won't know if still is till I see the new Doctor in action. I record Castle, Ghost Hunters, Project Runway, Top Chef, Heroes. I LOVED Defying Gravity and wish it hadn't been canceled.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
I'd have to travel to a lot of places to decide that... can I start with Italy?

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Chicken Tikka Masala leftovers

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
hmm sushi, Indian, pizza

8. What foods do you dislike?
Veggies most of the time... I'll eat if others fix it, but rarely fix for myself.

9. Favorite place to eat?
Cafe Bombay

10. Favorite dressing?
honey mustard

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
VW Jetta

12. What are your favorite clothes?
my comfy fleece pajamas

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
I'd love to go back to Japan with friends

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
full

15. Where would you want to retire?
someplace warm

16. Favorite time of day?
bedtime

17. Where were you born?
Maryland

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
hot dog eating

19. Bird watcher?
Nope.

20. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Depends on time of year.. I have to be a morning person for school, but I love sleeping in and staying up late.

21. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share?
I'm going to be an Aunt any day now.

22. What did you want to be when you were little?
A teacher, or a go-go dancer

23. What is your best childhood memory?
climbing trees

24. Are you a cat or dog person?
dog.

25. Are you married?
Not for the last 6 years.

26. Always wear your seat belt?
Yes.

27. Been in a car accident?
Yes. I was a passenger.

28. Any pet peeves?
People in a position of authority who cannot communicate well in emails (all caps, more than one ! etc).

29. Favorite Pizza Toppings?

black olives, artichoke hearts

30. Favorite Flower?
Roses but not the hot house kind- has to have a scent

31. Favorite ice cream?
Breyer's mint choc chip.

32. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Wendy's.

33. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
Once- I didn't stop at a stop sign- never made it out of the parking lot.

34. From whom did you get your last email?
Facebook

35. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
American Signature Furniture- I need bedroom items for 2 rooms

36. Do anything spontaneous lately?
I broke out into a Michael Jackson-esque dance in the hall at school as kids were returning to class

37. Broccoli?
yep

38. What was your favorite vacation?
One to Seattle where I got to take a ferry to Vashon Island to see a fabulous artist.

39. Last person you went out to dinner with?
B

40. What are you listening to right now?
Oprah on DVR

41. What is your favorite color?
Red is my power color, Yellow is my happy color, Green is my Calm color

42. How many tattoos do you have?
One, but want to add 2 things to it soon

43. Coffee drinker?
Sometimes.

Protein Packed Pancakes

I was wanting pancakes this morning, so I looked up a recipe and tweaked it to include protein:

1/2 cup flour
1egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup almond milk (or your milk of choice)
1 scoop whey protein powder (I used chocolate flavored)
1tsp Splenda
1 Tsp cinnamon

Apple sauce instead of syrup. YUM! Made 4 pancakes.

A Weird Thing

I spent the hour afterschool with my first meeting of Japanese club. Kids in grades 2-5 meet on Monday afternoons to have me teach them beginning Japanese Language and Culture.

When I got home, I realized I felt a weird thing.

Calm.

It was the first time in...weeks I hadn't come home too tired, stressed, or angry. The first time I didn't immediately crave food of some sort. I didn't crave pizza, or Chinese or Indian. I actually sat and had to think... what do I want to eat?  Understand that I'm usually driven by my brain-tummy impulses. I had none today. It was like being free. I could choose to eat, or not.

I waited a bit, until my tummy was saying it was hungry. I fixed a Nutrisystem "Cheesy Homestyle potatoes with Broccoli"  Well, not much broccoli, but it has 10g protein and 4.5g fat.  200 calories.

Later while watching TV, I began to be aware of my brain searching for more... I had a half-urge to go to Wendy's for a chocolate frosty. Instead though of going, I got some strawberry banana Kefir from the fridge, and put it in my ice cream maker. YUM  It did the trick.

I don't know why it's happened, but I really hope I have another day like this.

Also- my feet and ankles ache from the trampoline work. They hurt like when I was a kid and would ice skate for an hour. Kinda good in a way, but sucks when I'm on my feet at work all day hehe.

Cute Top

This is my favorite top from my shopping spree Saturday. It's a soft grey that feels like silk. Top was $29, cami was $14, necklace and 2 sets of earrings were $20. My splurge for ME.

Weigh-In

Today's weight- 257.8

That's a small bit of a loss, I think I was 258.4 last time I weighed, but didn't record it accurately.  Guess I should start.

Did 10 minutes on the trampoline last night, and another just now before I get ready for work.  Three minutes into it, I'm watching the clock, aware of how hot and uncomfortable I am, the heavy breathing. That voice that strives to work against me, I'll call her Alice.  Alice told me this was crazy, see how awful I felt and that I should just give up. Is it any wonder that I never exercised she said. Feeling like this was for disturbed people.

I heard her but didn't stop. I'd like to get to the point where I can do 15 minutes regularly, and I'll only get to that if I keep up at the 10 minutes.  However, I may need to go back to doing it in front of music videos. The morning news isn't motivating enough :P

Rainy Sunday

So I'm feeling down today.

Last night we went to some friends' home for dinner and Diablo2.  We stopped at the store on the way there, and I went a little crazy with gaming food. Mostly cookies, and Sour Skittles. I ate a lot of these that night. Dinner itself was good. M did the chicken and spinach/broccoli, and our friend Lynn did the quinoa with mushrooms.

After dinner we played, and I ate handfuls of the sour skittles. An hour or so later, I was experiencing a "sleepy crash" where I literally just wanted to go lay down and sleep. I did lay down on their spare bed a little, but Rose kept me awake. So I ended up going home. The upside to that is I left before the caramel brownies and ice cream - which I didn't really want but probably would have had some if I'd have stayed.

B has been asking me what I wanted for my birthday next month. I told him Nutrisystem. I was hoping he'd help with it through to the summer, but said he feels comfortable for 2 months of it. And that's reasonable. But I think I feel down because I'm interpreting it as "I really think this is just another thing you won't stick to more than 2 months".  And that's depressing. So I want to crawl back into bed and sleep the day away.

On the good side, I got a lot done yesterday during the day. I went back to Avenue and spent my holiday gift  card, and then some. I just woke up thinking, "Damn! I need some new clothes!" Will try to post a photo later this week. Got 4 cute tops, and no jeans because they weren't comfortable.

After shopping I had other errands to do, and discovered that my front left tire was really low. I took it to get filled, and the guy suggested I get it checked for a nail. Sure enough, it was a nail in the side. $120.00  and hour n half later, and I have a brand new tire. While that's not great, it beats having the tire go out on the interstate on the way to work.

Serenity

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. 

Yesterday was a hard day at work. It seems like every time I do something to try and help a child, I end up with more paperwork and less support.  Perhaps the path is quiet helping without looking to administration for support.


I feel as though I'm caught in a downpour.


The best I can hope for is serenity with things I cannot change, rather than rage against the machine. 


I chose comfort last night in beer and Chinese Take Out, rather than exercise and a Nutrisystem dinner. I'm ashamed to say it on here, but the truth is what it is.

Do I Want to Exercise?

I spoke to someone yesterday who runs for a hobby.  She was in track and field in high school and college. She told me that a large part of it is mental.  When I asked for explanation, she said you have to want to do it. If she had 50 pushups to do, did she really want to do it?

Except for a time in 7th grade, I have never said yes to exercise. Do I really want to get up and walk a mile? No.

I have to turn that no into a yes. If need be, FAKEit till I MAKEit. I need to say yes.

Last night I said yes to 10 minutes on the trampoline.

This morning I said yes to 10 minutes.

It's a start.

A New Day

It's a new day. Party's over. I've decided the most I can do for now is watch my calorie intake, and keep making small exercise goals for myself.

Crash! Smash!

That was the sound of my recent buds of hope being dashed to the ground- in a vase of course.

I called Insurance today, and there is No Coverage, at ALL, for any type of gastric surgery with my plan. I asked which plans do, and she named one called HRA and the other is called "High Deductible".

I remember 3 months ago, when choosing my insurance plan that I saw one called High Deductible. At the time I just laughed. Would that I had had the foresight to be thinking then about surgery rather than now.

Part of me feels hopeless. That I'll be fat forever. The hopeless part of me just wants to cry. Pity party time.

The rational part of me is looking at my options.

Wait 10 months, and at open enrollment change to a plan that does cover gastric surgery, then get it done January 1, 2011 when the plan is in effect.

Save up money, and blow my nest egg on surgery (NOT my favorite option)

Do what I can to change my habits now for food and exercise while waiting for insurance (and tell that critical voice in my head to shut the hell up when it tells me it never worked before, so why should it work now?)

Maybe this is meant as a "Whoa, slow down there partner" type of thing.

Bleh.

I Clean Up Well

After a weekend of bad photos, I thought I might as well share a good one.  This is me before work, in one of my favorite tops I got at Avenue. Avenue is a chain that carries plus size clothing, and is usually pretty hip- kinda the way Lane Bryant used to be.

Bollywood and Dance

This morning I got up, took a luxurious bubble bath by candlight (cause who says that can only be done at night, right?) and shampooed the remainder of olive oil out of my hair from yesterday.  I LOVE bubble baths, and after reading Banded Girl's post about bribing yourself to exercise, I just may use these as motivation.

This is my sanctuary:

So afterwards, I came downstairs and got out my minitramp. I put on a Bollywood dvd, and chose to "play all songs".

For those of you who aren't familiar with Bollywood, it's the Hollywood of India. Movies are generally musicals, actors dance but lip sync to the words, and the movies last around 3 hours. Bollywood songs last about 5-6 minutes each.  So my goal was to use the minitramp and dance on it (or just plain move, since I'm unsteady on it) for one of the songs. After that song was over though, I still wanted to move. I put away the equipment and danced to another song. YAY ME!

The songs I used were from my favorite movie "Kal Ho Naa Ho" (Tomorrow May Never Come)  If you're curious about Bollywood movies, start with this one. It's funny, upbeat, well written, and takes place in NYC. Sure it has the cheesy wind-in-hair effects that most Bollywood movies do, but at least there's no dancing at the foot of mountains.

This is the song I danced to on the trampoline:

Oh, and I was bad over the weekend with food, and gained a pound. Such is life.

Henna and Hair

I don't remember how long ago it was that I started hennaing my hair. It began as a way to get the red color I loved without the $120 salon pricetag.  I started going grey in college (more silver than grey) and henna turns those into highlights. I have naturally dark brown hair, and the henna is mostly noticeable in the sunlight. I may get my hair chemically lightened this summer, just so I can have brighter henna hair again.

I thought I would share how I henna my hair.  Firstly, I use body art quality henna, from hennalounge.com.  She also puts together an oil blend that smells like chai tea.

Into a bowl I put henna powder, and a tea concoction. It contains black tea, whole cardamom pods, and cloves. I like these for their scent. I add some of the chai oil, and some olive oil.

This I put in a warm dark place for a few hours (I heat my toaster oven to 150, turn off the heat, and place the bowl covered with plastic wrap inside).

When it comes time to put it in my hair, I grab some plastic shopping bags, vinyl gloves, and head to the bathroom. Lotion is applied around the hairline so that if I goof, I don't have an orange brown stain there when I'm done. I section the hair out, and apply the henna with my gloved hands to the hairline (where the new growth greys show most). With a brush I'll grab a new thin layer, put it over the first one. Add more henna, repeat.

When all done, I cover it in a plastic bag.  Oh so pretty I know....

I leave it in a few hours, then shower it out.  This part is pretty messy, looking like I'm washing mud out of my hair.

The end result though, leaves my hair shiny! Something about the way henna binds to the hair shaft. I also don't have to use conditioner anymore in my hair. YAY.