jenniferh

That’s all I have to say.  mmmmmmm

 I missed breakfast and lunch today - it’s the first week of the new semester and I’ve got new students, new classroom layout, new objectives for the lab… and all that newness means a lot of work, and that means no time to EAT! 

So when I came home today I made myself breakfast - a glass of fat free milk and a peanut butter and banana sandwich on toast.

Lunch will be for dinner, and apparently I’ll be short on calories today because I’m not staying up late enough to eat a third meal.  I’ll be asleep by 8 - racked out on the baby’s bedroom floor.  That’s where I was last night.  How pathetic is that?  Can’t even stay awake long enough to get to my own bed after getting the baby to bed.

Then I’ll be up at 4:30 to get some exercise because that is the only time of day I have.  I think I’ll make myself another peanut butter and banana sandwich to eat while I’m walking.  Then I’ll at least have had BREAKFAST, for once!

I’ve decided to look for a job closer to home when the contracts come up in March.  I love the job I have, I love the challenge of trying to help the kids who need the help the most, but it is draining and I hate having to leave my house so early to get to work.  I’m applying at my kids’ high school, which is only about a mile from my home, and looking into the daycare that is closer to my neighborhood.  I just think it would make life that much easier for all of us.

Still eating the veggies and drinking the water, but I’m a little bloated because last night we celebrated a bit and we had pizza and I had a beer (oh and it was awesome to have hot pizza and cold beer!)  So today I’m still aiming for persistently following my plan.  No more celebrating for a while.

My lab kids aren’t taking a final exam, but I’ve got them taking a practice TAKS test so they know what objectives they, personally, need to study in the next six weeks to prepare for the real TAKS test.  We’ll be taking another practice right before Spring Break to do the same.

I’m back down to the weight I was when the school year started.  If I keep on this track, I should reach my goal weight by swimsuit season!  (crossing fingers)

I wore comfortable shoes today, because I’ve decided to start walking for half an hour during my conference period. I mean, our school is a third of a mile from end to end, with about 6 sets of stairs, so I can REALLY get a good work out just by WALKING, as long as I commit to getting upstairs, too!

I forgot to eat breakfast this morning, but I’ve got a spare FiberOne yogurt in the fridge. 

Didn’t do the sweet potatoes I’d planned for dinner last night - I ended up making chicken-salad instead.  SO I’ll be making the sweet potatoes tonight.

The contacts, by the way, TOTALLY ROCK.  I’m never going back to glasses!  I’m a little tired this morning because the toddler found her way to my bed, last night, and I never sleep well with her (she’s all OVER the place!) but my eyes feel WONDERFUL - I wish I’d discovered the Refresh eye-drops years ago.

It took each of my classes about 10 minutes to say that.  Then the students all sat there looking at me for about 30 seconds until someone said, “Where are your glasses?”  So I had to play show-and-tell and show my cool contacts-case to my classes (they hang suspened in the solution in a nifty little cage-like contraption instead of sitting in a puddle of solution in those little flat dishes.)  I felt the love, today - ALL my students were smiling and happy for me while I was telling them how much I love my contacts more than my glasses. 

I did well, eating, today, but not GREAT.  I need to work more calcium into my day, somehow.  Maybe take a yogurt with me for breakfast and a string-cheese to go with lunch.  I did do SUPER with the water - I have a huge water bottle and I had to refill it at lunchtime today (when I usually fill it once, and take a lot of it home with me to get dumped out!)

This evening I’ll be watching Superstars of Dance and jumping on my trampoline for at least 30 minutes.  I meant to go jogging this morning, but I accidentally hit the off button instead of the snooze button, and my kids had to wake me up at 6:15.  I have to leave my HOUSE by 6:25!  But it wasn’t a catastrophe, just an inconvenience. 

Can’t wait for Superstars of Dance!

It’s not really that big a deal, I guess.  I went prematurely gray, I might as well have premature cataracts to go along with it.  Of all the things to happen, a slow-growing condition that is imminently reversable once it gets bad enough to affect my life is actually not that bad of a situation.  This is the part where I thank God for all my blessings (including the people on this site who help me to see more clearly, pun intended).

After going through all the trouble to make that delectable, delicious chocolate-cherry cobbler yesterday, I didn’t even bother to eat any! YEAH!  I’m truly back on track!  And I actually got enough sleep last night to feel like I WANT to work out today!  HELL YEAH!

You know what? This little incident may be the pivotal moment that changes my life.  I had a hard time with eating right just to make the fat go away, because I’m not yet suffering from any of the ill-effects of being fat other than being uncomfortable in my body.  I don’t have high blood pressure or diabetes, and I haven’t had any warning signs that I’m yet affecting my health.  I KNOW those things are right around the corner if I don’t reign myself in and start eating a more balanced diet and exercising.  But somehow the knowing never translates into the doing.  But now I know that if I 1) take the omega-3 capsules, 2) eat a ton of dark green leafy veggies and 3) drink more water, I can slow the formation of the cataracts in my eyes and preserve my vision for a long, long time.  That’s a BIG DEAL for me. 

Breakfast: a strawberry/mango smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal

Lunch: tuna on crackers with a giant salad

Snack: V-8

Dinner: I have no flippin’ idea, but I’ll figure it out.

I’m 34.  THIRTY FOUR.  And my new eye doctor just told me that the problems I’m having with my vision (glare, night-vision problems) are primarily because they are such a light color, but also because I have CATARACTS.

AND I have problems with my right eye drifting outward. 

How the $#@^*( did my last eye doctor not catch this shit? 

She says my last eye doctor should be shot because he didn’t do anything for my eye health, he just prescribed glasses. 

 He didn’t educate me about omega-3’s which I need because I’m female, probably low-thyroid, and light-colored eyes are more prone to drying out.  He didn’t tell me that I needed glare-coating on my glasses because I have light-colored eyes and basically live in a brighter, more glaring world than people who have more pigment to protect the insides of their eyes.  She did say that I don’t have any sun-damage to the whites of my eyes, so the cataracts are probably an injury from abysmally low estrogen levels after the births of my four children and my thyroid is more than likely low since I had my last baby and that is leading to protein deposits which clump in my lenses.

I’m not happy.  I’m really trying not to cry because I went to visit this doctor to try to get contacts for the first time in my life, and I’m wearing them now. 

Being able to sit here and read the screen without frames in the way and baby-smudged lenses is really, really wierd.

I’m going to walmart in a little bit to get some eye-drops (she said I had to use the ones that are like real tears, 3 to 4 times a day) and some UV-protective sunglasses.

I really really really really really want some ice cream.  But I’m not going to do that to myself.  I’m having fish, salad, and pretzel-crisps dipped in roasted-red-pepper hummus.  Then I’m going to buy myself a REALLY PRETTY pair of sunglasses because I’ve never had any.

And I REALLY took those two weeks off.  I didn’t grade anything, didn’t PLAN anything… and it’s all catching up to me, now.

I didn’t have time to pack a lunch this morning.  My husband had a hard time getting out the door, so consequently, so did I.  I did eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and I had a packet of instant oatmeal in my desk at school and the Wal-Mart equivalent of a SlimFast shake in the fridge so I had something for lunch.  Not a very appetizing something, but something.

Now I’m trying to break away from the whiney, clingy three-year-old who doesn’t want to get off my lap and let me change into my sweats.  I really need to work out now because I couldn’t this morning.   Then I need to grade tests and create 200 flash cards for my labs to use tomorrow.

At least I’ve kept to my plan of getting my room ready for a sub, just in case, every afternoon before I leave school.  It gives me a measure of peace to know that if an emergency happens, I can just call for a sub and everything will be ok in my classroom.

Off to turn on a Dora the Explorer video to see if that can buy me 20 minutes to work out.

I LOVE being female - I LOVE that God put a mothering spirit into my heart so that I can nurture not just my own children, but also the children in my classroom.  I love being a mom, I loved being pregnant, and being able to nurse my own children.  I’m grateful for all the blessings that have come into my life in the form of people to love.  I love that my husband finds my form pleasing and attractive - that’s a nice feeling.

But there are some things about having a female body that completely suck.  It’s a time-consuming, messy hassle. ‘Nuf said.

Okay, How am I doing this morning?  I jogged 15 minutes on the mini-tramp, took a little break, then did 15 more minutes!  Hooray me!  I’ve already sucked down 20 ounces of water.  In about 3 minutes I’ll be getting off the computer to do my push-ups.  I did an astonishing ONE boy push-up, yesterday.  Oh, I dropped to the knees and did 10 more, then tried again later and did ONE and had to drop to the knees to keep going…  I’m such a wuss.

Today, let’s try for TWO.

Hormonal weight fluctuations frickin’ SUUUUUCK!

I’m grouchy, sleepy, hungry, and feeling claustrophobic but too tired to get it together and get out of my house.  We really don’t NEED to go anywhere, and if I do leave the house, I’ll just end up wasting gas and spending money on junk at the grocery store.

I’ve jogged on my mini-trampoline for 20 minutes, today, and I want to do some upper-body strength training.  I thought about starting a little fitness challenge for myself for the month of January to see how many “boy” push-ups I can do by the end of the month.

As for my resolutions, I’m moving every day, I only had 1 soda with lunch at my Dad’s yesterday (it was that or beer!) and today when I was craving a bowl of potato chips I had a V-8 instead (low-sodium), and the craving went away!  YEAH!

We’ll be having BLT’s with mustard instead of mayo on 100% whole wheat bread for dinner, tonight, with tomato soup.   And I think the girls and I will go for a walk around the neighborhood.  It’s been a while since the weather was this nice and the baby needs some fresh air.

I could NOT get up this morning at the crack of dawn to go jogging.  I was a good girl last night, turned in early so I could get an early start… but the morons in my neighborhood broke the rules and had firecrackers.  Firecrackers of any sort are prohibited by our HOA.  I was miffed.  I can sleep through almost anything because I’m just that tired, but the toddler was kept up.  Consequently, so were mom and dad.

So this morning I slept as late as I could (until the toddler got up) and then after I got her dressed and set up with breakfast, I hauled out the mini-tramp and jogged on it for ten minutes.  After I’ve done all my housework for the morning and played with the Wii a bit I’ll probably jog another 10 minutes on it before I jump in the shower and get ready to go visiting.

We’ve been invited to my Dad’s house.

Anybody who knows me knows that this is a Big Deal.

I’ve never really had a close relationship with my dad.  We just moved within 45 minutes of his house this summer, and he’s been to my house once since then and I’ve yet to go to his.  We talk on the phone maybe once a month.  About once a month he forwards a cool email my way and vice-versa.  Usually we invite him to our house, and if we go to his it’s because we invite ourselves.  We’ve never been ASKED, “Please can y’all come visit.”  So being asked has made me feel all wierd.  Like we’ve got to dress in our Sunday Best and take dessert or something.