jenniferh

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.

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 guess I lost my motivation once school started.  Honestly, I started getting serious about losing the weight late in the summer so I could at least be ten pounds lighter by the time I went back to work.  Well, I did that.  And then I stopped. 

 SO I’m floundering around trying to find some other motivation - setting goals, telling myself “I can buy music for every five pounds.”  But those things AREN’T WORKING.  I still hover, 2 pounds away from my mini-goal, and when I jump on the scale every day I think, “Hey, at least I haven’t gained any back.”

I’ve started jogging daily, hoping that I will better.  I’m eating more fiber because of a different challenge.  But what I really need is a REASON to drop another ten pounds.

I may have found it.

If I drop another ten pounds, there is no way my size 14 clothes will fit anymore.  I’m already sewing darts into the waistbands to keep my pants and skirts up, but when I lose 10 more pounds, there will be no quick fixes - I’ll have to either take the clothes apart and reconstruct them or just break down and buy size 12’s.

Could I also be subconsciously sabotaging myself because I had to spend SO MUCH money this summer to get Rachel into band that I don’t want to spend money on clothes for me?  Maybe. 

But now I have a reason to want to get out of those clothes and go ahead and buy new ones.  A teacher I work with is a single mom, with three kids, struggling to live in this economy on a single, teacher’s salary.  Let’s not get back into the debate over whether or not teachers make enough money - I’m just going to flat out tell you that a single woman CANNOT comfortably raise three children on a teacher’s pay.  She also cleans houses in the evenings to try to get her budget to stretch a little farther. 

Well, last week, someone stole her wallet.  Her bank said it could take up to 6 months to reimburse what was taken out of her checking account via a debit/credit card.

She was complaining this week that because of her recent financial difficulties, she hasn’t been eating.  She figures in another month she will need to buy new clothes because her 16s won’t fit anymore.

So here’s the plan.

I’m going to work my ass off to lose those ten pounds as fast as possible, and then I’m just going to park next to her one morning and have her open the trunk of her car.  Then I’m going to take all the size 14 clothes I can’t wear anymore and transfer them from my car to hers.

Pray for us both.  I want to do this for her so badly.

I joined the Phoenix weight loss challenge about getting enough fiber, and I’m starting my own personal fitness challenge.  Any of you who feel up to getting started jogging are MORE than welcome to come join me.  As you will see (Trick-or-Treat Jogging Challenge) I’m starting at the very beginning.  This is not a challenge for marathoners.  This is for people like me who can do the bare minimum and just want to get better. 

 I like the sound of that: getting better. 

Being this out of shape makes me feel ill.  I want to feel better.