Food and friends

We had a barbecue tonight. Sort of. It was kind of planned, kind of impromptu.

Originally, it was supposed to be a group of my girlfriends coming over for burkers and social time. We planned this, oh, a month or so ago. Then one ended up with a last minute deal on a new place to move in to, but had to be out of her old place this weekend. Another has been having some health problems and wasn't feeling well enough to come (in fact, the last time I heard from her she and her husband were headed to OHSU - I hope you're feeling better Court!). Another was hoping to make it but had to do pickup and dropoff duty for her younger sister. So there were 2 friends left, which was fine.

Except they weren't here by 7:45, so Ricky came home and we fired up the barbecue, planning on having the turkey burger dinner ourselves. By 8, though, we heard a "yoohoo!" There were my two missing friends! Apparently, mapquest/google maps/whomever doesn't give very accurate directions to our house. Oops. And somehow neither of my friends had my phone number. Double oops. Totally ok though, we were just glad to see them.

Just before they got there, we were talking with our neighbor, Bruce. He's divorced and his two kids have both moved out, so it's just him. He'd been working under his house on the plumbing all evening, so we invited him to come over for burgers too. He came by around 8:30 or 9 and stayed for a couple of hours.

We had a great time with our makeshift party. What started out as a group of girlfriends morphed into two of my friends, Ricky and Bruce. It was a wonderful evening of food and friends, with plenty of good conversation to go around.

He's touching me!

She took my marker!
He wrote on me!
She said I'm stupid!
They won't let me sit by them!
No one in this class likes me!
I'm not using any costumes he makes!
This is dumb!
Wait, what are we supposed to be doing?


Ready to tear your hair out yet? Yeah, welcome to my world.

While I love my job most days, recently it has been two ginormous thumbs down. The list above is a list of actual student complaints I've heard this week. No, I did not get transferred to a Kindergarten classroom. Yes, those words came directly out of the mouths of 13 and 14 year olds - some of whom are just 16 school days away from moving up to high school. The joys of being a middle school teacher!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the Moms in my life - my mother in law, sisters in law, friends, grandmothers, aunts, and former students (scary, isn't it, that I have former students who are moms?!) - Happy Mother's Day!

But an extra special Happy Mother's Day to my own mom, who is so amazing and special to me. I have no idea what I would have done without her over the years. She is my friend, confidant, advisor, mentor. I have learned so much from her, and continue to learn from her on a daily basis. She taught me how to cook, even though everything was "till it tastes right!" She taught me (and is still teaching me) about gardening and growing flowers. She gives great advice, is slow to anger, and always has time to listen to me when I need to whine or vent or cry.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

It will only take 5 minutes

Thanks to Rachel and my mom, I did end up getting my buns in gear and going to Weight Watchers tonight. It was really good, and I'm very glad I went.

First of all, yes I did gain weight, but not as much as I had feared and certainly nothing I can't take care of in a week or two of tracking and exercising. When the lady weighed me in she was so cute; she whispered to me "you went up just a little." It was cute how she was trying to be so sympathetic. And here I was afraid the people working there would judge me for my gain!

Secondly, it was a good meeting. We talked about turnign negative thoughts into positive, ways to counteract the negative thoughts running through our heads on a daily basis. My negative lately has been "I'm too tired to deal with it." "It" being everything from exercising to cooking to packing my lunch, but mostly surrounding tracking, planning my food-day, and getting it all together.

My response to "I'm too tired to deal with it" is "It will only take 5 minutes." And it's very true. While I was watching Law and Order tonight, I'd run into the computer on the commercial breaks to track my meals and snacks for tomorrow. Then, when L&O was over I threw in a load of laundry, packed my lunch, put the leftovers in the fridge and started the dishwasher. Bam, it's 11:15, the kitchen is cleaned up, the snacks I bought at the store are split into serving size portions, my breakfast and lunch are prepared and packed, and I'm ready to go to bed. Had I only been dealing with packing lunch and breakfast, I think I really would've been done in 5 minutes.

With that, I am off to bed. And remember, if you need to accomplish something, just commit to 5 minutes. You'll get at least 5 minutes of the job done, possibly more. Either way, you're 5 minutes ahead of where you were, and really, what else were you going to do with those 5 minutes?

Fear.

I was doing so well. I lost 17.4 lbs in a little under 3 months. Weight watchers was working.

And then I got busy. I couldn't go to the meetings like I wanted and needed. I didn't have time to cook, let alone grocery shop. Working 3 (yes, three, I teach after school too!) jobs kinda took it's toll.

Now I'm scared. I haven't weighed in 3 weeks (?) I think. I gave into the cravings. I am a major stress eater - and I don't eat anything healthy. Donuts and ice cream and fast food abound during my days of stress. Somehow I have to find a way around this, because I'm going to face another 3-4 stressful weeks over the summer when I teach ESL and run a show all at the same time.

My meeting is tomorrow night and I'm debating. To go or not to go? I'm afraid I'm going to go weigh and have gained 5 pounds or something. I gain really, really fast. Well, who doesn't when you are eating like I've been the past couple of weeks? Part of me wants to take a week to get back on track, to track my food like I should, to get some exercise in, and then weigh in next week. Another part of me feels like I need to go weigh in, if only for the reality check. No one except me and the person weighing me in will know how bad it is - and I might be pleasantly surprised.

Somehow I have to convince myself to go. There's no reason not to, except my vanity.

Because I'm boring...

A boring update.

Softball is officially over. After starting the season 9-0 against some very good teams, we had a brain fart during season and, while our overall record was impressive (27-9), finished middle of the pack in conference.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

In other parts of my life...

• Five weeks of school remain, or something like that.
• In the process of finding new renters for our rental home so we have minimal time with no one in the house. Waiting on a background check on two potential renters so hopefully this will all be over shortly.
• Ricky is still at the same place, doing the same job. Once upon a time that was a bad update. In light of today's economy, it's a good thing.
• We still know nothing about my job specifically. Waiting on the state, and the union, and all the higher ups, in that order.
• Because softball is over I can now wash clothes and dishes and grocery shop. Life might just return to normal!