First Week = Success!

Well, we've finished up the first week of actual school with students, so it's about time for another update of my life of constant change.

This year I've returned to life on just one campus, like a normal person, which has been really nice. Last year I never really "moved in" to either of my schools, and there was a certain amount of disorganization... which I can live with. Anyone who has seen my desk or my home can attest that I'm one of those "organized chaos" people... my desk is like my own personal archeological dig. But, it's by no means my preferred way of life, particularly at work/school. But, it takes time and forethought to create the systems that lead to lasting organization. This year, I feel like I've actually taken several giant steps in the right direction, which is nice.

On a similar note, I've resolved to rein in my after school hours this year. Last year, I didn't do a ton of "overtime" work because I did the entire year more or less in crisis mode, cut a lot of things I might have done in more normal circumstances, and therefore I was pretty much shot by the end of the school day. I think it will be a temptation, now that I'm at one campus, to go back to my old ways of constantly adding on more and more until I'm either (a) at school 24/7 trying to keep everything in control or (b) running around like a crazy person at school because I've taken on more than I can do in a reasonable number of hours. So, that's the plan.

Bad news for this weekend was that I left school before 5 yesterday, assuming that I'd be able to put in a few hours today. Didn't even think about the possibility that the school building would be closed... which of course, it is. Oops. So, I'm a little nervous about falling back into my old flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants ways on Monday, but I'll make it work.

So far, my kids seem very pro-choir and on board. No obvious attitude problems or behavior issues right off the bat, so that's good. It's looking like a great year for growth!

In other news, I'm still doing WeightWatchers. I transitioned this week from going to Monday/Tuesday meetings, to now going to Saturday morning meetings. So, I went this morning and posted a 2.2 pound loss. That's a total of 33.8 pounds so far. So, back by poular demand, my awesome weight loss chart:

I'm at 170.4 right now, so hopefully next week I'll break into the 160's for the first time in a long long long time.

One of my seventh graders this week said something about me looking different, and I said "well, I've lost thirty pounds." He said "well, that'll do it." So true.

On the exercise front, I'm gone running on the treadmill three times this week (MWF) and each time did about two miles in about thirty minutes. I've now gotten to the point where jogging at 4.5 mph for several minutes (7-10, perhaps) is doable. So, that's nice, to feel a little faster and a little more "in shape".

For those of you out there that are Scentsy fans or clients, please be reminded that Scentsy is 10% off through August, so let me know if you want something!

Now, I'm off to continue with the quest for a cleaner more organized house, since I wasn't able to go in to school today. Laundry calls. Loudly.

Back Again - and Back to School

Once again, a mini blog drought. Sorry about that.

Well, the quick update is roughly this. We had a successful trip to Kentucky/West Virginia and back. We took a quick detour through Brentwood TN on the way back home to visit Financial Peace Plaza, the home of the Dave Ramsey Show and affiliated offices. Dave was on vacation, so we didn't get to meet him, but it was fun to go anyway.

After getting home, we've had a few fairly lazy days, done quite a bit of laundry... nothing too major.

I've also managed to get off track again with regard to exercise... food has still been on track, but I haven't been on a treadmill since Monday, at MawMaw's house in West Virginia. Oopsie.

Today was church - Andrew taught Sunday School and it was an excellent lesson if I do say so myself. After church, I took a big nap. We watched the Rangers game (another win!) and did our standard Sunday night dinner at Andrew's parents' house.

Tomorrow: inservice begins.

I'm laying out my jogging clothes before bed. Here's hopin'.

On the Road

Oopsie, forgot to update for a few days there.

Well, San Antonio and TCDA was a good time - it's always good to have an opportunity to see my colleagues, especially in the choir world where each of us is the only person (or possibly one of two people) on the entire campus who teaches this particular subject area. So, the opportunity to conference, pick the brains of other people, etc. isn't really a daily occurrence unless one seeks it out.

Anyway, I got home Saturday evening, did the church thing Sunday morning, which was my last Sunday serving as the interim youth choir director. I enjoyed my time of service but am relieved that (a) it wrapped up before school started again and (b) that I therefore had a couple of weeks of true summer no-obligations-on-the-calendar freedom. All that being said, I have of course already found something to take up my Sunday afternoons: starting September 12th I will be reprising my role as Financial Peace University facilitator at church. It's been a year or maybe a little longer since I last led the class, so it will be good to be back! Personal finance is one of those things that I never knew I'd be "passionate" about, but now that I am, I'm glad there's a way for me to share that with other people.

Monday was a day of unpacking, doing laundry, and re-packing.

Tuesday, yesterday, we hit the road to squander our two weeks of true summer no-obligations-on-the-calendar freedom: we're headed to Kentucky and West Virginia to spend a little time with my side of the family.

The drive from Plano to Louisville is something that I've prided myself on doing in one day multiple times before. The good people of mapquest claim that it's a 13 hour drive, which of course feels like 14 hours when one heads east and loses an hour. So, in theory our 8am departure time yesterday would have led to an 11pm arrival last night.

Instead, we hit traffic in Memphis that obliterated a little less than two hours of our lives, stopped for dinner just east of Memphis and decided to wimp out and get a hotel room. A bed, wifi and cable TV sounded a LOT better than another 5-6 hours on the road. Also, for the first time in ever, a fitness center or other gym-like situation sounded really appealing to me. Who have I become?

So, we spent the night in the Quality Inn of Jackson, Tennessee. As luck wold have it, the hotel has a deal with a local gym by which hotel patrons can be gym patrons at no additional cost. So, last night I drove over to Jackson Sports and Fitness and spent a little time on a treadmill.

They had fancy schmancy treadmills with the attached TV so that you can watch whatever you want and hear it through your headphones without forcing other patrons to do the same. I have not used one of these before, but it was FABULOUS! I got there right as the Rachel Zoe Project was starting on Bravo, and I resolved to jog through the actual show and walk during commercials. As I got warmed up a bit, a believe there was a mid-show commercial break that I continued to jog through. Regardless, when all was said and done, I spent 62 minutes on a treadmill and did about 4 miles in that time. I was very very tired afterwards and have since gotten a great night's sleep.

Within the next 30 minutes or so, we plan to hit the road again and hopefully be in Louisville right around lunch time. Yay!

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.