Today marks 10 days post-op and 3 weeks on Weight Watchers. So, big day! I got to bend at the waist, lift items heavier than 5 pounds and weigh in! And it is good news all around! I'm down another 2.2 pounds which makes just under 6 pounds total. I'm also breathing a bit easier. Tonight I am going to reintroduce a medication that I took a break from during recovery. It will, hopefully, help the last push of breathing so I can feel that much better.
We've had a productive weekend. Planting of herbs and tomatoes, refreshing of the containers out front and some sprucing up of one of the front beds. We still have some beds to clean, I anticipate that happening later this week as I feel better and better. It also helps that the cicadas are gone.
Only 77 more pages to read in the pre-class work for my class. The plan is to finish that by Thursday.
This Friday I will have surgery to help with allergies, sleep and other issues. This week I seemed to have been hit with a nesting bug to prepare for the downtime following surgery. The garage is cleaner; we've donated two vans worth of stuff to the church's garage sale.
To be perfectly honest I am a bit worried about the procedure and am not looking forward to the time when I cannot lift anything higher than 10 pounds and will have difficulty drying my hair (can't bend at the waist).
Luckily, I have a sweet husband to care for me in my incapacity. Pray for him!
Procrastination. Typing the word twice helped me delay actually writing about this....
Seriously, why do I procrastinate? It is, in my opinion, one of my biggest flaws, er.... growing edges. Today, I'm avoiding doing my homework. Homework that is technically not due until Sunday but due to my surgery on Friday I'm trying to get a jump on it. Really, it is a simply annotation of a chapter. It should, ultimately, only take two hours max, but here I am blogging about it instead of doing it. This is just the latest in a long line of activities I've done today to avoid the work. They include:
-- walking with my husband
-- cleaning the garage
-- sorting through donations
-- taking donations to church
-- wrapping up Girl Scout paperwork (thank God that ring is closed for now)
-- sending my mom a link to a house she should buy
-- updating my status on Facebook 4 times
-- dorking around on the Weight Watchers eTools
-- planting succulents in a really cool planter
And a few other things that involve personal grooming and yelling at kids....
So, my procrastination (today) has been, at least, productive in some counts but still isn't what I really need to be doing.
Now, if you'll excuse me I need to plan and execute dinner and then think about homework some more.
The first week back on the wagon that is Weight Watchers ended with a loss of 3.4 pounds. I'm feeling really great about this! I haven't felt terribly deprived and so hopefully this time it will stick around longer than a year.
It has been interesting to relearn all elements of the program (PointsPlus is new since I lost all of the weight the first time). I think it has helped in monitoring and thinking about what I'm eating rather than just doing it by the former rote method.
Here's to another great week!
As a modern mom, I have several rings in the circus of my life.
First, is the ring of family life where I wrangle the beasts through their tricks and shows.
The second ring is where I do that thing God made me to do: counsel teens through life in high school.
Ring number three is the creative and spiritual arena, the place where I develop and nurture myself. Usually this is filled with reading, quilting and quiet time just for me. This ring is often eerily dark and underused.
This summer I'm adding a fourth ring: my doctoral studies. I'm in the thick of the preparatory reading and will start classes in July. If everything goes as planned I'll be called Doc in three years.
As if this isn't enough there are several other rings that involve friendships, extended family and church.
And, just because I can't seem to get enough, I'm adding (really taking it out of retirement) the ring of weight loss. Several years ago, before I met
Pangea Man, I lost over 50 pounds. In the last four I've managed to gain most of it back. So, yesterday I started
Weight Watchers again. It worked well last time and with the newly revamped program I can't play the, "I-already-know-this-and-shouldn't-pay-attention" game. That game sucks and doesn't help me reach goals.
So, there you have it: the rings of my circus.
Last night, Youngest was exclaiming.... "Look at me! Staying up late on a Sunday because I don't have school tomorrow and can sleep in!" He then put himself to bed at 9:30 and woke this morning with the chickens. Apparently we need to work on this whole slacking off thing if he is ever going to be a "typical" American boy. He turns 8 in a few days; maybe his internal clock will change over time.
We've started summer off with sleeping in, chores, playing outside, journaling as a family. Now we've settled into an afternoon of reading. Should be a nice break!
This evening marks a big milestone for my Middle and for me. She's officially part of the church youth group. How in the world did I get to this place where I have two daughters old enough to be in youth group? Even more than that: one in middle and one in senior high?
Originally, Middle didn't want to go, she already had one party and she just didn't want to go. Older, you'll notice, didn't try to convince or badger. We've all learned that Middle does better when she comes to things on. her. own. thank. you. very. much. !!!
So, when it came time for the Momma Taxi to make the drop off at youth, Middle says, "I really want to stay!" Awesome. Hopefully she won't wonder how she got there...
We just might make it through the summer of transition after all.
As I find myself at the beginning of another educational adventure while simultaneously helping one of the kids transition to her next level I am thinking a lot about what it means to study in an organized way.
A hallmark of the scholar is a method for organizing your study. Me, I'm a post-it girl and out liner. I'm also HUGE with the color-coding. I have little flags for each of the following categories in my reading: definitions, quotable, examples, personal connections and action items. My middle, she's more likely to ascribe to the chaos theory of organization. She's convinced she knows where everything is in her room, notebook and/or backpack. This "stresses" us both out.
This summer I am hopeful that she'll observe how I "do" school so that when we work on her organization this next school year she won't be so anxious about making middle school work.
In a related strain, what fun to both start something new in the educational realm so we can share our fears and triumphs!
