Update from San Antonio

I'm in San Antonio at the moment for TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association) Convention. I came down yesterday with a couple of choir director friends, and today has been the first full day of reading sessions, clinics, etc. I've missed the convention for the last couple of years, so it's good to be back.

This morning, I visited the hotel fitness center.

Side note: Dallas Cowboys Training Camp is happening in San Antonio right now, and the team is staying in the same hotel that I'm in - but no, I haven't seen any players yet, at least not that I recognized. There were some pretty big dudes in the fitness center this morning, but they may have been (a) players I don't know, (b) coaching/training staff, or of course (c) normal people.

Regardless, I went to the fitness center this morning, and I have good news! I jogged two miles in just under 30 minutes. This means that the winner in the battle of treadmill accuracy is my preferred treadmill at home! The treadmill that I was on at first, the one on which I ran from Satan, moves faster than the display screen indicates. At least, that's the explanation I have for all of this. If someone else has another explanation, I'll entertain that as well. All I know is that on the Evil Treadmill, I can't go more than 3 or 4 minutes at 4.0 mph. On the Nice Treadmill at home, as well as the treadmill here at the hotel this morning, I can go for 20+ minutes at 4.2 mph. Actually, this morning I went 20 minutes at 4.3 mph! Big doings! Here's hoping that was enough to burn off my four glasses of wine from the previous evening. =)

Tonight, I plan to be a homebody. Convention living can get pretty expensive pretty fast, and my goal is to be frugal enough during this convention that I am able to buy a new Vera Bradley bag when I return home with leftover money. The bag I have my eye on is called the Metropolitan, and I like it in the fabric called Barcelona:

My plan is to walk to school at least a few days a week this school year. But of course, I tend to need a lot of stuff at school - and while I'm willing to walk to school, I'm unwilling to be mistaken for an actual middle school student any more than is unavoidable. I like that this bag has a shoulder strap, which should be very walking-friendly, and it also has a padded compartment for a laptop, which I often take to school. The bad news is the bag is pretty pricey, but the good news is there's a sale on August 4th that will save me 20%. So, hopefully a night in tonight will put me a few steps closer to my goal!

Great Success!

Two great successes today:

1. We bought the Taurus pictured in the previous post, and paid for it 100% in cash. I felt a little crazy carrying around a purse full of hundred dollar bills for a few hours there, but it felt pretty good when we were in the finance office and (a) the paperwork was VERY simple and we didn't have to bring a bunch of info about ourselves, proof of income, past bank statements, etc. etc. and (b) it came time to pay and there we went with our cash... 100, 200, 300, 400, 500....

I think Andrew really feels good about the purchase (we both do, but it's in his name and he'll be the primary driver), especially when it started raining tonight and there was no need for us to scramble outside to tape up his car windows.

2. I went to my WeightWatchers meeting this morning, wearing the lightest clothes I could come up with, and having eaten only a small fiber plus granola bar. I weighed in at 173.8 pounds! For those of you keeping score at home, this is a loss of 3.4 pounds this week and an overall loss of 30.2 pounds since starting WW in December! This is also hopefully the beginning of breaking through my 12-week plateau. I would love to see 165 or so before school starts on August 23. For the visual learners, a chart of my progress thus far:

You'll notice my "Goal Weight" is listed as 163. It's not really the final goal, just the next goal. I actually haven't a clue what the final goal might be, mainly because I've never really been at a healthy adult weight, so I don't know what will feel/look right on me. Since I'm only 5 feet tall, the "healthy weight" charts indicate that it would be totally within reason for me to weigh 100 pounds. I passed up 100 pounds in 7th grade, so that seems a little nuts to me. I'm betting if I'm able to get into the 130's I'll be a pretty happy camper. Make that an ecstatic camper. But for now, the goal is to reacquaint myself with the 160's.

Big Day

Today was a very busy and long day.

First off, I started the day with a short workout: about 20 minutes on the treadmill, mostly jogging, but some walking. I was forced to go back to the original treadmill, and that 20 minutes did seem more strenuous. Still not entirely sure what to make of that situation.

After that, Andrew and I headed off to look for a new-to-us car. After some (expected) trials and tribulations, we have found a winner! In the morning we'll be finalizing our purchase of a 2003 Ford Taurus. Ta da!

As usual, we have to give a little bit of thanks to Dave Ramsey for helping us to be in a position to pay cash for a car, even as we continue to pay cash for an SMU Master's Degree.

After a morning of car shopping, we returned home for lunch, had an afternoon of running unrelated errands, and the returned to the car lot to have Andrew's dad give the car a once over as well. After getting the green light from Jim and mooching a free dinner off Andrew's family (it's all a part of the Dave Ramsey plan, I swear), we headed home to relax for what was left of the evening.

Sometime around 10pm I got the itch to go back to the fitness center. And, as I'm working really hard to indulge that craving when it appears, I went. This time, back to my new favorite treadmill. Once again, something about this treadmill works for me (probably I'll find out that what it's claiming is 4.2 mph is actually much slower.... and that will make me sad, but oh well). I was able, after a short 90 second warm-up walk, to jog at "4.2 mph" for a full 23 minutes or so. I followed that up with 2 minutes at "5.0 mph", and then went back to a slower pace for just long enough to hit 2 miles in exactly 29 minutes. Go me!

Tomorrow: Weight Watchers weigh in, followed by buying a car. Stay tuned for that!

Weekend Warrior

Andrew and I have had a busy couple of days this weekend. Saturday, we checked out some of the local used car lots - mostly the somewhat lower end lots, as opposed to those affiliated with a big brand or "family of dealerships". The frontrunner thus far is a 2003 Hyundai Elantra with well under 100K miles at a good price... but we haven't yet driven the car, seen a car history report, etc. Tomorrow morning we plan to visit a few more lots and find out a bit more about the Elantra, see what happens. I leave town on Wednesday for a convention in San Antonio, so in our perfect world we'd get something squared away before then. We'll see.

Saturday was another good day for me in terms of my eating, fitness, etc. I used a different treadmill at the fitness center than usual, and it seemed very different to me. I'm not sure which treadmill is more accurate, but on Saturday morning I set the speed at 4.0 and it seemed much slower than what 4.0 had been on the other machine. So, I went for 4.2 which was a fairly comfortable jogging pace. I started out at 4.2 with the goal of jogging for 5 continuous minutes, but at the end of that time I wasn't all that tired, so I decided to press on to the end of the song. The song ended and I felt pretty good, so I kept going... and so on and so forth until I had jogged for 20 full minutes! WHAT?!?!? Yes! 20 entire minutes of jogging without stopping! At 4.2 mph, that's nearly a mile and a half! After that, I did a couple of minutes of walking, then a "sprint" at 5.0 mph for 90 seconds or so. At that point I realized I was simultaneously getting close to the 30 minute mark and the 2 mile mark, so I adjusted my speed to hit 2 miles in 30 minutes, which I did.

So, there is a third treadmill in the fitness center - if possible, I'll use that one for my next workout to try to determine which of the other two it's the most like, and hopefully which one is more accurate. I'm hoping the second one, because 2 miles in 30 minutes makes me feel pretty good, so I hope it's true!

Today was a busy day with church activities: early service this morning, where I have been serving as the interim youth choir director as we've been between Music Ministers. Next Sunday will be my last Sunday as interim, which will be kind of sad because I've enjoyed the gig - but Andrew and I are definitely looking forward to driving to and from church together again soon. Speaking of which, we both completely forgot about our one-car-family status this morning until it was time for me to go warm up the youth choir, and Andrew had just woken up. So, poor Andrew missed worship this morning, and I had to go pick him up right after the service so that we could go to Sunday School. We both felt like idiots for not remembering the whole one car thing until it was too late, but oh well.

After church was a fun lunch with our Sunday School class, which has gone through a mini-rebirth in the last few weeks. It was good to hang out with the other couples/families and get to know everyone a little bit better.

We capped off the evening with the Texas Rangers game, which was a lot of fun. If you're not a Rangers fan, this is a good season to start, because they're playing really well. This outing was particularly fun because we went with the whole Hamilton clan: Andrew's parents, sister and grandpa. For Grandpa, this was his first Major League game, which no one realized until he casually mentioned earlier today that he had never been to a MLB game. Added bonus - former Texas Governor, former partial owner of the team, and former president of the USA, George W. Bush was at the game. Kind of cool in a way. He's definitely my favorite 43rd President.

Bits and Pieces of News

Hello all, whoever you are.

Things have been pretty good these last couple of days. I've continued on my quest to jump-start my weight loss, drinking lots of water, exercising, tracking my WW points, and sticking to my promise NOT to weigh myself prior to next week's WW meeting.

I actually missed a day of exercise yesterday - I skipped hitting the treadmill in the morning, thinking I would come back to it sometime later in the day, and next thing you know it's bedtime.

So, lesson learned, I got up this morning and headed straight to the fitness center, did not pass go, did not collect $200. Also didn't eat breakfast. I only did about 30 minutes on the treadmill, knowing that I was a little short on time... so I decided to really kick my own butt. I jogged most of the time at 4.0, with a couple of intervals at 5.0.

I came back home, had another glass of water (my third of the day already), took my morning vitamins and headed for the shower. I hadn't even gotten my hair wet yet when the nausea kicked in. I hopped back out of the shower and involuntarily purged.... a whole bunch of water. Yeesh. So, I'm not sure whether to blame it on the exercise itself, the empty stomach, an excessive amount of water consumption, or the vitamins (which occasionally make me nauseous, but not usually so instantly)... but I'm betting on empty stomach. So, tomorrow and from now on I'll be making sure to grab something, anything before my morning workout.

On a non-fitness-related front, Andrew and I are now on the hunt for a used car. Andrew has been driving a 1994 Toyota Camry, which now has over 200,000 miles and multiple windows that need to be secured by tape. In the last couple of months, we've had to put some cash into this car to keep it alive, including a memorable incident in which Andrew broke down in Denton with smoke coming from the hood. That was at the beginning of June. A few hundred dollars later, we were back on the road. A couple of days ago, the Service Engine light came on again. Ugh.

This car has a Blue Book value of $725. At this point, we're not putting any more money into it. We're done.

Now, we are NOT interested in going out and buying a new car. In fact, we're hoping to stay more in the neighborhood of $2500 if possible. The car doesn't need to go far, really. Andrew drives about 8 miles round trip each day that he has class, getting to the light rail station and back. Once a week he drives to Dallas. That's about it.

So, I post all this to say that if (a) you or someone you love has a car for sale that fits the bill or (b) you would like to share your used car buying tips, we would love to hear from you. Tomorrow we're planning to spend at least some portion of the afternoon on the hunt, so think happy thoughts for us!

So far, so good.

My progress today on my new resolutions:

1. I got up early this morning and went to the fitness center. I did a more jogging-heavy treadmill workout this morning, a little less than two miles in a little over 30 minutes. I don't remember everything I did, but I know I did two five-minute stints at 4.0 as well as a 90-second stint at 5.0. An hour and a cold shower later, upon arriving at Kids Arts and Music Camp at church, two different kids asked me if I was sunburned. Because I was still that red. Throughout the day, I could feel "the effects" of morning exercise... I can't really describe it, but I was more aware of my body actually working, blood pumping, etc. Pretty good feeling, not gonna lie.

2. I ate according to what I had mapped out yesterday. In an effort to get back to better portion control, I'm planning to eat a lot more frozen dinners this week, the WW Smart Ones that I like. I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons to not eat quite that much processed food... and in general, I would prefer to try to cook more "real" food. But, for one week, I think this will be a help to remind me what a serving of you-name-it looks like. So, today's eating went as follows. A dark chocolate fiber plus bar, 3/4 cup of Honey Bunches with Almonds, with 1 cup of 1% milk, all measured out. At camp, a handful of baby carrots and broccoli florets in the volunteer hospitality room. That snack was not on the original plan, but obviously I feel pretty good about that one. For lunch, Smart Ones Chicken Alfredo with a fresh apple and ice water. For dinner, Smart Ones Tuna Noodle with a sizeable portion of baby carrots. I was VERY aware of what WW calls "BLT"s today. Bites, licks, and tastes - little bits of this and that throughout the day did not occur today.

3. Water water everywhere. I know I sent through my Sigg bottle (one liter) three times. I also has at least two or three additional glasses of water with meals.

4. I asked Andrew to take and hide the bathroom scale while I was at church this morning.

A Much Needed Kick in the Face

Tonight I went to a WeightWatchers meeting. I weighed in at 177.2. This is a 1.8 pound gain from last week. Last week, I posted a loss... of 1.8 pounds. On April 26th, I weighed 177.4, which marked 26.6 pounds lost in 17 weeks, or an average of a pound and a half per week. Apparently, in the 12 weeks since then, I've lost 0.2 pounds.

So, I'm a little frustrated, to say the least.

So, the following are my resolutions for the next week:

1. I will do something active every day. I think that for the sake of building some kind of discipline in this area, I'm going to stick with the treadmill for a while. I'm not sure I'm ready to be left to my own devices with regard to my pace. Also, the weather concerns are obviously still in effect for a while. Today I did a little over 2 miles on the treadmill in 35 minutes... more walking than jogging, but a few short jogging stints. Tomorrow I'll go back to the more strenuous workout, more like what I did yesterday.
2. I will plan my eating a day ahead (and stick to it). I've already mapped out what I'll be eating tomorrow, complete with snacks, fruits and veggies, etc. I should be coming in a little bit under my allotted "points" for the day, which is a target I'll have for this week as a jump start. WW allows you some additional weekly "flex points" which I've been making good use of, and is probably at least some portion of the problem, given my relative inactivity.
3. I will drink water. Lots and lots of water.
4. I will not weigh myself until the next WW meeting. Just because it makes me crazy when I'm hopping on and off the scale all week, and it's not even all that accurate or helpful.

Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?

Fitness Follow Up

Thanks, first of all, to all those who commented on the previous post, either on the actual blog, by facebook, e-mail, or otherwise. I got lots of advice, but the main thing I got was that it's better to do something I can maintain than to burn myself out Running From Satan. I think this is true on the small scale - an individual workout, as well as on the larger scale - this whole weight-loss quest.

As a person who has considered myself to be a "big girl" for most of my life, I have unsuccessfully tried many times to lose weight, with various motivations. Usually, the motivation was some kind of image-related thing. Usually I decided I didn't like being a size whatever, and I would go on a very short term crusade, and then eventually I'd decide that I actually like myself just fine the way I am. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I have never hit "rock bottom" in terms of self image - I've always liked myself, body included, pretty well with the exception of a few bad pictures or bad days. I think this is mostly a good thing, except that maybe under other circumstances I might have gotten more motivated earlier in life.

This time around, my motivations are a little different, more health-oriented. Maybe another time I'll talk more about that in detail... but the main thing for today is that I feel like that change in motivation is making a difference. Tonight, after a long day of arts and music camp at church, housework, an impromptu nap, and rehearsal in Lewisville, I got home a little after 10pm. I then went to the fitness center and did a 30 minute workout on the treadmill. Details on the workout are in the comments section of yesterday's post. This is a huge victory for me, and I think it's really all about trying to live a healthier lifestyle, be more active, and do healthy people things.

Another change for me is, as much as people often recommend working out with a friend... I think that working on this more independently has been good for me. Times that I have worked out or otherwise tried to lose weight with others, I've usually ended up feeling inadequate in one way or another. This is no fault of my friends, I don't think.... I think I've had some weird mental blocks in the exercise department for basically my whole life.

I was celebrating tonight's workout success with my husband, and I told him that I was sweating like crazy, which led to a moment of revelation on my part.

I have always stopped at the threshold of exertion.

I have always seen sweating as a bad thing and grounds for embarrassment.

My husband, a soccer player in younger days, laughed at this concept... and I realize it's a silly thing... but I think I know where it comes from, at least a little bit.

As early as elementary school PE class, I remember getting winded playing kickball, dodgeball, whatever. As I remember feeling like I was the only one who was getting sweaty and out of breath, which I found embarrassing - a red flag that I was out of shape, the fat kid, whatever. So, I would immediately dial it back to avoid embarrassment. Somewhere along the line, this became my definition of pushing myself too far, and I think this has remained true for a long time. Possibly all the way until, well... tonight.

So, that's my revelation of the night. Sweating is OK. Sweating is actually a good thing and I should do it more. So, that's the new plan.

Workin' on my Fitness

Some of you may know that I started jogging back in March, as a part of my overall weight-loss/fitness crusade.

Those that know me well have a better appreciation for how very far out of my comfort zone this is. I have never considered myself an athletic person... I don't even know if I could reasonably be considered an "active" person. In general, if I am running, someone dangerous is probably chasing me. So, naturally, when I found a program online called Couch-to-5K, that sounded like me.

I've been doing the program since mid-March (more or less... I've not been the most consistent... but pretty good) and I've taken my time working through the "weeks" listed in the program. I've been doing my jogging outdoors on the trails around our apartment complex and the adjacent park. As the weather has gotten hot in the last several weeks, I've not really been sticking with jogging like I should. The few times I've gone out recently, I've waited until almost dark, when it's a cool, crisp 95 degrees. Not terribly surprisingly, I tend to move very slow and wimp out quite a bit at these warmer temperatures. I end up sticking with the walk/jog intervals for the first half and then just walking the rest of the way home.

So, yesterday I tried something different. Living in an apartment complex, we have access to a fitness center that has a few treadmills, elliptical machines, weights, that sort of thing. I've avoided using the treadmill up to this point for a few reasons - mainly because for a wimp like me, there's value in running away from my home... and therefore being required to get back. Even if I walk the whole way back, that's still distance that I won't cover if I'm on a treadmill and wimping out is as easy as pressing STOP. Also, being outdoors has been fun and definitely makes the whole thing more interesting, even if I do occasionally see one of my students while I'm out on the trail sweating my face off and panting like a wild animal.

But of course, in the Texas summer heat, the treadmill starts to look pretty good. Yesterday I decided to restart my Couch-to-5K with Week One... on the treadmill.

I know from previous treadmill experience that I can walk fairly comfortably at 3.0 mph and still feel like I'm getting my heart rate up. I decided to push it a little bit and do the walking portions of the program at 3.5 mph. Now, the WeightWatchers website suggests that walking at 5 mph is a good speed for exercise. I don't know if it's a function of my current weight, or of my height, or of my generally "unfit" self, but 5 mph is not walking in my world. To be totally honest, 3.5 mph felt like I was booking it.

For the jogging/running portion, I thought 6.0 mph might be pretty reasonable, perhaps a little ambitious, but not out of the question. In real life, I will refer to 6.0 mph as "running from Satan" because it felt like breakneck speed to me! As in, I may literally fall off of this treadmill and break my neck.

Needless to say, my heart rate got way up there (at least according to the little heart rate sensor on the treadmill, I was clocking in at about 180), and I only lasted about 15 minutes total before hitting STOP and bailing out of there.

All this leads me to a question for the more fitness-minded folks out there.

I know I need to push myself... one thing the treadmill definitely taught me is that I'm sure my pace is all over the map when I'm running outdoors. But, is it better to set a more reasonable pace (whatever that would be.... definitely less than 6.0 mph) and therefore be able to exercise for a longer overall time? Or is it better to Run From Satan, even if I'm only going for 15 minutes? Or, is some mix of the two appropriate? This is one of those times when I wish I had Bob or Jillian (well, maybe not Jillian, she's frightening) helping me decipher when I'm letting myself wimp out vs. when I'm actually pushing it too hard.

A Tale of Two Boxes

As mentioned in a previous post, we moved into our current apartment about a year ago and have only fairly recently began to feel "moved in". This is largely due to the fact that my parents were the ones that actually executed the move - so there have been any number of boxes that didn't get unpacked Right Away, because it was all about necessities.

One of the places that became a catch-all location during the move is our bedroom closet. At various times over the last several months I've promised myself to tackle the closet as my next project.

The good news: the actual organization of clothes is fine, and there's not a bunch of stuff/boxes on the floor. Many of the boxes on the higher shelves are clear plastic boxes that don't need to be gone through - I can see that I have two boxes of Christmas decor, and one big box of old keepsake stuff. There's our suitcases and a sleeping bag. And then:

The bad news: there are two ominous looking large cardboard boxes. Each one has a variety of labels on it, mostly from past moves, but there's no telling what manner of junk could be in these two boxes. I have put off and put off and put off this project. Mainly because I didn't want to think about these two boxes.

Today I tackled the Box Project.

It took me about 30 seconds.

Box 1: empty. Yeah.

Box 2: extra clothes hangers. They're in the Goodwill pile now.

Trouble Sleeping leads to a Lazy Friday

I could NOT get to sleep last night. This is weird because I'm normally the kind of person who can fall asleep anywhere at anytime, given the opportunity. In my world, "having trouble falling asleep" begins after laying in the dark for more than five minutes. Last night at 12:30, after about 25 minutes, I got up to watch TV. Finally at 3am I decided to take two benadryl and try again.

So, I "woke up" at 10:00 - meaning Andrew woke me up because Gilmore Girls was coming on. =) I hung out on the couch in a druggy stupor before taking a nap at 1:30 until 3:00. Then I finally got my act together, showered, went grocery shopping. We have continued the lazy theme of the day with frozen pizza for dinner and watching the Rangers game. Well, watching the first bit of the game before a rain delay in Boston.

No big projects today, but starting to think ahead to the coming school year a little bit. After my one year of being split between two schools, this coming year is looking like a walk in the park by comparison. Both halves of my job have been made full-time for 2010-2011, and when I was given the choice last spring, I chose to stick with the middle school side of things.

The best explanation I can give on that decision is this: When I have a 12 year old in my classroom who can't get their act together - whether it's behavior stuff, inability to come to class prepared, whatever - I can be pretty compassionate and I don't mind working with them, figuring out a plan to fix the problem. When I have a 16 year old student with those same problems - smart mouth, tardiness, can't show up with their folder and other materials - I have no patience. In my head all I can think is that this kid has a license, maybe a job, they're supposed to be an "adult" in two or three years... how are they STILL A FOOL?!?! So, I found I was not my usual happy uplifting funny teacher self at the high school... I was more in Carnage Mode most of the time.

This year, it's all middle school all the time. I'll have six choir classes, which is also a huge victory, in that I'm not teaching some other course to fill my schedule - enough kids signed up for choir to make six classes feasible. I'm not gonna lie, some of these classes will be pretty small, but I'll take it. Basically, I'll have three classes of sixth graders, probably with only 20 kids or so per class, which is a little smaller than I'd like, but it will work. I'll have one class with all the 7th and 8th grade boys in it, about 25 boys, which is a vast improvement over last year's initial enrollment of four boys, all of whom were 8th graders. I ended last year with 11 boys in my 7th/8th grade group. My other two classes will be groups of 7th and 8th grade girls together - one class of about 25 girls and then a more "advanced class" of only 15 or so. Hopefully I've picked up a few more kids over the summer, as choir programs often do. Time will tell.

Today's Project - Front Closet Organization

This summer has been the most relaxed one in recent memory, and certainly our most relaxed as a couple. Neither one of us is "working" on a daily basis or taking any kind of class. So, it's been a lot of quality time together, lots of TV watching and becoming Texas Rangers fans, and the occasional little project around the apartment.

Andrew really got the ball rolling when I went to Atlanta on church youth choir tour at the end of June. While I was gone, anytime I called him he claimed to be doing "not much"... but when I came home, he had done a lot in the way of cleaning, organizing, and even decorating our apartment. As you may remember from this time last year (and if you don't, it's a mere two or three blog posts ago, so it's very easy to catch up) we moved to the apartment in the midst of some other family turbulence.

Namely, Andrew's grandmother passed away and we were at the memorial service in Joplin, Missouri on the day that was planned to be our moving day. So, my parents are actually the ones that moved us in.

Shortly after, we both started school and we never really had a chance to "move in" and feel at home. So this June, Andrew took the bull by the horns and made our apartment our home.

Since then, I've had the occasional little project I've tried to do to further our progress. Today's project involved the small closet in our entryway. Up until this point, this closet has not been used really, except if we were on a mad cleaning spree because someone was coming over. Then, we would hang up a few coats, and toss other miscellaneous stuff in the bottom of the closet (shoes, bags, etc.)

See "before" pictures:

We also have a problem in that I have a tendency to walk in the apartment and drop everything - purse, shoes, whatever - right on the floor. So, next thing you know you've got a giant pile of Terri greeting you when you walk in the door.

A visual:

So, we decided to try to make the closet a little more user friendly, using a 6-compartment sweater hanger from The Container Store. We hung that up in the front closet and are now using it for purses and shoes that are in my current rotation, as well as some of Andrew's hats and things of that nature. We took our hangers that aren't being used, pared it down to just a couple of coats (it's Texas, it's not like we really need a lot of outerwear), and used the vertical space above for storage of our small cooler and our picnic basket. Ta-da! Beautiful closet! Also, I didn't take an "after" picture of the Terri Pile... because there IS no Terri Pile! Hip hip hooray!

So, needless to say, I'm terribly proud of myself.

Outside of that, we didn't do too much today. Next project on my agenda will be organizing the portion of our closet that's devoted to my Scentsy business, since my husband was sweet enough to give me a big chunk of his office closet for that purpose.

But for now, it's all about watching the Rangers game. Go Rangers!

Poster Child for Change

It's been a big year - and that's almost how long it's been since I posted. I keep thinking I'm going to make blogging part of my life, and I keep not making blogging a part of my life. Maybe one of these times.

In the not-quite-a-full-year since I last posted, I think the theme of our lives has been change. The season of change was kicked off, I think, with my semi-bizarre decision to leave one school for two. And so, I spent the 2009-2010 school year traveling between two schools, doing two sets of most events.... two UIL competitions, two Solo & Ensembles, two All-Regions, two of most every concert, etc. It was a very stressful job on paper, and there were certainly overwhelming moments, but in practice I really enjoyed the job and the work. The traveling nature of the job allowed me to keep any possibility of workaholism in check, since at some point I had to move on and get to the next thing. But, my six years of experience building a program really gave me a lot in terms of letting me know what would be worth my time, and what's not. So, believe it or not, I probably came home in a timely manner more often this year than in years passed.

Part of that, also, is due to one of our other big changes this year: the big move from house to apartment. For three years or so, I had a 30-40 minute one-way commute from our historic McKinney house to my school. According to mapquest, my round trip daily commute (home to middle school, to home for lunch, to high school, to home) was less than seven miles this year. In other words, 1.5 miles from home to the MS, 2 miles from home to the HS. As you may have noted, I mentioned coming home for lunch, which leads me to another change I made this year.

I joined Weight Watchers on December 28th, 2009. For once, I didn't meditate the possibility of joining WW for days, or even weeks beforehand. I didn't have the famous "last meal" - I'm betting people that have planned to start a diet know what I'm talking about - where you binge on the stuff you love because you're planning on never being allowed to eat it again. I just kind of went. And somehow, this has been my most successful weight loss endeavor in my life so far. More successful I think, although I don't know the numbers, than my Spring 2008 pre-wedding Jenny Craig stint... which was fairly successful.

I started WW on December 28th weighing in at 204 pounds even. Two days ago, I weighed in at 175.4, for a total weight loss thus far of 28.6 pounds. Not bad, eh? Now, I will say, I'm in the midst of a pretty discouraging plateau... I've been hanging out in the 175-177 range since April 26th, according to my little logbook. But, I'm greatly encouraged that I'm making better choices more frequently when it comes to food, and that despite the stressful and strange things that happen at the end of a school year, I didn't gain. And this summer has been the farthest thing from a regular schedule or any kind of routine, but I haven't gained. So, this is all good news. Progress will return soon... right?