Lazy Sunday

So, it's been a very lazy/restful/uneventful weekend except for a few exciting events. I got my hair cut Friday, and I mean CUT! I probably got almost a foot cut off of the back and it feels great! You all can tell me how much you love it next time you see me (he he). Since I had a new and exciting coif, I couldn't just go home and chill out like I do most Friday nights, so I met up with Emily, Lauren, Mike, Laura and Pete at Oscar's for half-price drinks while Sylvain mosied on downtown to hear Ben play at the Dame. Laura, Pete and I proceeded to DeSha's for an excellent dinner - I had the best salmon I've had in a long time - then to Winchell's for some karaoke. Laura and I sang our very best rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which brought the house down, if I do say so myself. All in all, a pretty fun Friday.

Yesterday I had to be at Tates Creek High School at 8 in the morning because I volunteered to be a moderator for the Academic Challenge. My school had six teams there, and after I was done moderating the first round, my duties were over, so I decided to stick around and see how far our teams could get. Don't you know that we had one Primary team that went all the way! They won their division!! Hooray!! I was so proud of those kids and I was so honored to be a part of our school. What fun! Sylvain and I went to dinner at Rincon afterward because I was starving, dinner at 4:00, some light shopping at Target and JoBeth, home by 7 and in bed by 9:00!! Can you beleive that? What kind of girl goes to bed at 9:00 on a Saturday? A lame one, that's for sure.

Today has been filled with our usual Sunday activities. Sylvain went to the grocery, I vaccuumed and did the laundry, then we both settled in to get some school work done. I made all of my plans for next week, caught up on my grading, finished an assignment for my grad school class and now I'm getting ready to read some text books which might take the rest of my life to get through. Ah well, c'est la vie. We have no intention of watching the Super Bowl tonight since it's not UK football and I plan to be in bed nice and early yet again. Hope everyone else is doing well. Until next time...

How to Stay Happy

Okay, I just had a really great early morning workout and I have a theory as to why this moring's routine was so much more pleasant than the last week's worth of morning workouts - I laughed my ass off right before bed last night! I'm not even kidding. The last few mornings, I woke up groggy, stuffed up, cranky...but today I woke up refreshed and energized. Right before bed, Sylvain and I were watching AFV and I always laugh when people fall down, but last night there was the FUNNIEST video of a little kid at a T-Ball game. I won't go into details, but it's been a LONG time since I've laughed that hard and it felt really good. The best part is, I didn't feel stupid or guilty for laughing until I cried because Sylvain was laughing equally hard and we shared one of those - "Wow, this is really weird and really fun" - kind of moments. I fell asleep with a smile on my face and woke up exactly six and half hours later. I didn't wake up ONCE in the middle of the night; I don't even think I switched sides. I didn't move a muscle and I got the best sleep I've had in a long time. Then I went to they gym and ran like I've never run before. I'm about to start my day at school and I'm actually looking forward to it! It's amazing how far a little laugh will take you.

I'll try to find the video on-line and post it either here or on MySpace. Chances are it won't be nearly as funny today, but I'm hoping for the best!

Nice, long weekend!

Hooray for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! One extra day on my weekend makes me so much more productive. I've really been sticking to my 5 am workouts, which I've grown to love, but today I didn't have to work out until I woke up - at 10:00! I'm coming into my third week of Weight Watchers and exercise, which is a very important week because I've never really stuck to anything for more than three weeks before. This time I have a very effective goal in mind - I just want to look as good as my sister-in-law in a bathing suit when we all go the Bahamas in June. 22 weeks and counting!

I got lots of school work done this weekend - tons of science plans and "flashbacks," the new buzz word around our building and the new F-word to fourth grade teachers.

On Friday night I was fortunate enough to go to a dinner at the Louisville Writing Project where we heard author Linda Reif speak about being a teacher who writes. Not only did she give an amazing talk, but I met lots of people from the LWP, which was great. Then on Saturday we went to Emily's for a sushi dinner - yum! Last night we went to Laura and Pete's where the manfolk watched the football game and the womenfolk went to see a movie. It was a surprisingly good movie (27 Dresses) and I had so much fun hanging out with girls! Who knew?

Today was filled with exercise, laundry and school work, but it's been fine. I'm going to add a few new fun websites to my blog. I was introduced to them a la Emily and Laura. Thanks, friends!

Organized!

I had a brief panic attack this morning as I started to do laundry and realized that our closet and dresser are overflowing with clothes. I tried to go to school to get some work done, but decided instead to go to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond to get my laundy situation under control. I bought an over-the-door shoe holder (which is fabulous!!) and three powder blue bins to put in the closet floor with the hopes that laundry will be placed in the correct ly sorted bin instead of thrown on the floor. We'll see how long that lasts. Well, one thing led to another, and before I knew it I had two enormous bags full of Goodwill outcasts from the closet and dresser. Ahhh, what satisfaction a good purge can bring! I feel SO much better.

We went up to NKY for Dad's birthday last night. Chud's been working on Portfolio and lesson plans all day. I'm still knee deep in laundy, even though it's more systematic now! I guess it's been a pretty plain weekend.

Back on the Wagon

Happy New Year! I know it's been quite a while since I've written so let me catch up on my quest. I fell off the school lunch train sometime after Thanksgiving and started eating that crap until Christmas. Now that the break is over, I'm back to making my own lunches and trying to get myself in shape. I joined Weight Watchers on-line and I decided to get back to the blog for moral support. Doing their on-line program is easy and convenient for me since I have two night classes and can't make it to any of the meetings, but it also means that I have to weigh myself, which is scary! I told Sylvain to help remind me every day to track my points and to make sure I weigh myself at the same time every Sunday. Yikes! I hopped on the scale for the first time in a long time yesterday and WOW! The holidays were not kind to me!

Anyway, I've decided to turn my blog into a regular, old, "here's what's happening in our life" blog. I'll still keep you posted on my nutrition issues (I got up at 5:00 today to work out! Hooray!) but I also want to write about all the fun and exciting things that go on around here.

Until next time!

(Blech)xercise...No Excuses

I know it's been forever since I've posted, but trust me, I haven't forgotten about my little blog! Every few days I evaluate my eating habits at school and think, "Oh...I should put this on my blog..." So here's a recap of my school's cuisinary events:

Good Things:
1. I still haven't eaten lunch from the cafeteria! Hooray!!

Bad Things: (that's right folks, not many good things lately...)
1. A few weeks ago our school held a fundraiser at TGIFridays. All the teachers ordered lunch out and instead of a killer salad I ordered Bufallo Chicken Wings. I'm a sucker for fried chicken and I felt very guilty after that lunch!
2. The teachers also had a football food day in the lounge on the Friday before the UK/UofL game...I gave in! I don't even remember what I ate from the lounge, but I know it was sinfully good. Forgive me!
3. Okay, so I said I didn't eat lunch from the cafeteria and that's still true, but one day last week I was having a HORRIBLE day, and they were having cheeseburgers.....I debated all day whether or not to get one lunch from the cafeteria. I rationalized it like this: I haven't had a cafeteria lunch for seven weeks, I've saved lots of money, and maybe I could just start having one cafeteria lunch a month. I went downstairs and came so close to buying the lunch, but instead I just bought a small bowl of those heavenly crinkle fries and took them upstairs to eat with my sandwich. I called it my "bad day treat" and I was still able to stick to my vow - sort of.

So those are the big moments from the last four weeks or so. I also found out that our cafeteria (and all cafeterias in Fayette County) don't actually fry anything. All the tater tots and french fries are baked, so I guess that's good. They also switched to whole wheat buns and rolls which I'm really happy about. I don't think the kids even noticed! Hooray for healthy food!

As for (blech)xercising, I have to write a little bit about my first day of "running," and I use the term very loosely! I have some friends, Laura and Pete, who are the healthiest, runniest people I know and ever since they started running together and Laura started looking all skinny and beautiful (not that she didn't before, she's always been lovely, but none of her old clothes fit her anymore and now she's smokin' hot!) I've been feeling fat and lumpy. The best part about Pete and Laura is they didn't let me make any excuses about exercising. Here's a quick version of the conversations we've been having over the last couple weeks:

ME: I need to start walking or running again. It would be so much easier if I had one of those watches with a timer on it.
LAURA: Here, have my old one. I don't need it anymore.

ME: Well, I would have started running today, but I don't have an armband for my new ipod, so I might just wait until I get one.
LAURA: (calling from her car) I just left TJMAXX and they have ipod armbands on sale for 5.99! Now you don't have to wait to get one.

ME: Well, I would have started running yesterday, but I don't really have any running clothes. Just one pair of shorts and a tank top that's probably too small for me anyway. I'll have to wait until I get some good running clothes.
PETE: Hey, why don't I just look through my attic for some old samples that will fit you. (He works for a fitness store)

DAMN IT!! WHAT IS IT WITH THESE PEOPLE? There's just no excuses! So what did I do today? I went to TJMAXX and bought me a stupid arm band, I hauled out my one pair of shorts and my tank top that shows all the flab, I strapped on my old pair of sneakers and hit the pavement. Let me tell you...

It was pretty great.

I walked for four minutes and ran for one, thanks to my new timer watch. Walking and running to music changes EVERYTHING! I had so much fun! The weather was gorgeous, my tunes were kickin' and everyone was out on their bikes or going for a run. There was only one time where I was supposed to be running that I had to stop. I was out for about 35 minutes and I tried really hard not to over-do it, because last time I tried to exercise I killed myself the first time out and never went again. So now I'm going to try to walk/run every other day for a couple of weeks, then perhaps start changing the time increments. I'm not a good runner and my face looks like a tomato when I'm done, but it feels good, so I'll do my best to stick to it. I'm sure Laura and Pete aren't going to let me quit.

Week Four

This was a pretty easy week, seeing as how we were off school on Monday! Last Sunday we went to a Labor Day picnic at my Mom's house and, of course, I stuffed my face with all of Mom's cooking. I did manage to avoid the dreaded cheddarwurst hot dogs, though. Gross!

With Sylvain commuting to Louisville and me taking classes on Monday and Tuesday night, we haven't had much time to eat dinner together. I'm starting to discover that, while I'm doing well with my eating habits at school and even after school, I don't eat very well in the evenings at home. I think that's my next area to tackle.