Nature Faerie

Update

Kara — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:22:10 +0000

So, I haven’t written in a couple of days-it has been a busy few days for me. I went to work at Sylvan Wed. afternoon and they told me that they had forgotten I was coming in and there wasn’t any observing for me to do, so I got to come home. Any other day I might have been disappointed because I didn’t get the money that day, but I was really exhausted, so I decided to come on home. Thursday I had a good but busy day at work, then I went to Opti-fast for my meeting. I lost 3.8 lbs, and better than that, my blood pressure went down from 126/86 to 114/74! That is so awesome. I am doing this for multiple reasons, and one of them is definitely to get healthy so that I don’t have health problems in the future. I have started working out using my Wii Fit and I really enjoy it. It makes working out fun. At our meeting they talked to us about setting acheivable goals and not expecting too much, so I decided on three goals that I set for myself that are measurable and I’ll be able to know if I’ve followed those goals.

1) Drink 8 glasses of water a day.

2) Drink all 5 of my shakes at 3 hour intervals.

3) Exercise for 30 minutes at least four times a week.

So those are my three goals. I have been doing very well with them, too. I think that will give me the strength that I need to get through this mentally. It’s just hard to do it, and I need all of the small hurdles I can jump!

So anyway, Friday was supposed to be an easy, great day, but as usual, something happened to set me off. I came in and asked the Secretary if the Music Teacher had a sub. I knew that he wasn’t going to be there, and it was supposed to be my day off, so I was hoping that he would have a sub or that they would split the classes. When the PE Coach was absent and it was the Guidance Counselor’s day off, they split the Coach’s classes. Well nope, the Principal came out and said “Ms Davis, Mr. Maranto’s sub cancelled so I’m going to ask you to take his classes for the day.” I said, “Well last time when Coach was absent they split his classes between Maranto and myself so that Raven could still have her day off.” She said, “Well, that should’ve never happened. I can just tell you that’s what is happening today and from now on.” I said, “I knew this was going to happen.” And she said something else, but I don’t remember what it was. I said, “So do I get my day next week to make up for this day I am missing?” And she said, very irritably, “Ms. Davis, I would love to give people the time that they need, but it’s not going to happen.” I just walked out of the office. I was completely pissed. So anyway, I went in the library and was just fighting back tears. I don’t care if it sounds like I was being a baby or whatever. Do you ever just get that feeling that someone doesn’t really like you, on a personal level? Well, I don’t get that feeling from very many people, but I do get that feeling from my principal. I know that others might argue that she does like me, but I really, truly, don’t think she does. I think that I get on her nerves, for some reason. I mean, when I dibels tested the Guidance Counselor got to take 9 days off to make up for not getting her days. But the day that they take away from me, I don’t get to make it up. To add on to that, the Guidance Counselor got to sit in her office today while I had the 5th grade, and she should’ve been the one that had to take them. But I made lemonade out of these VERY sour lemons. I showed PK, K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th the Magic School bus video. I did my regular checkout with 2nd and 4th grade, then when 5th grade came I took them outside and Coach, Ryan and I all played a game of kickball. So the day wasn’t THAT stressful, but it was just irritating because I feel like this always happens to me. I truly am to the point where I am going to assess my job in a day by day method. If I have many days where I feel like I am not even acknowledged by my Principal, then I will really think about going to another school or even moving out of state. We don’t have children, and it would break my heart to move away from my family and friends, but I do wish that I still lived in Tennessee. It’s funny, I wish that I had certain people with me there, but I would not miss Baton Rouge. There is nothing about this place that makes it stand out. Of course, I would miss my family members and close friends, and I would miss many things about my work environment, but I can’t say that I wouldn’t be able to get a job that was just as great as the one I have. Anyway, it’s just something to think about, really. And that I have been doing.

So, I’m working this week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at Sylvan and get to tutor my own students! I am so excited, but really nervous too. I hope I do a good job. I have Monday and Tuesday off at work, unless something happens to make that not happen!!! It sucks. I know how much work to do, but I feel like I don’t want to get excited about a day off for fear that it will get taken away from me-it’s ridiculous! So anyway, next weekend we are going to Natchez to stay for the Balloon Race and hang with my family. My mom and I have been doing a lot of wedding planning and have narrowed down the photographers to three. We are going to be doing the Cake stuff coming up in the next month. We are taking the photos for our Save the Date invitations at the Balloon Race this weekend. I signed up for our Registry and made our website tonight. Here’s the link: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/pws.asp?id=RyanandKara4805158. You might have to cut and paste, but thought you might be interested and want to see.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for tonight. I’m going to watch the LSU game and veg on the couch!

Lost 4.5 pounds!

Kara — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:36:02 +0000

Well first of all I lost another 4 and a half pounds! That puts me up to 9.7 over the course of 12 days. I’m so excited. That really makes all of this worth it, I tell you. So lots of stuff happened at school today. I had a great day today, and most of that is because it was one of my days off. I’m finally back to a normal schedule where I actually have days off and am able to get stuff done, and I’ll be able to look forward to that every three days. YAY! So Ryan did not come to work with me for the most part of the day because he did a lot of errands. So I got to work and did prayer group and was shocked that my principal actually came to it today! So anyway, I had 5th grade morning checkout today and everything with that went well. I had to use the phone to call and get a hair appointment and make another phone call, and then came back in and checked some e-mails, etc. and had a cup of coffee, then it was time to go to Reading Block. So I went and helped out Ms. Head. Came back in and got a call from Ryan about my ring and had about thirty minutes absorbed with me looking online for loose stones since the stone fell out of my ring and we have to replace it with one stone…they will not replace the smaller one because they said it would continue falling out. So we’re going to be buying a loose diamond, so I was looking for those and generally upset and not able to concentrate because of it. So then I had my lunch and got my materials ready for my 2nd grade class, which I had next and read my nonfiction Whales book to. I had fourth grade after that, and we finished our worksheet. After 2nd grade came I called and made arrangements for us to get voting booths for our Young Reader’s Choice awards. That will not happen until much later, but we had to get on a waiting list so that we’d get one. Then Ryan showed up, and I told him what I’d been doing all day. Then I cleaned up all of the area around me and got my desk ready and wrote my lesson plans for next week, then went and turned them in to my principal. I also labeled books that were young reader’s choice nominees last year with some stickers I had gotten. I will have another day off tomorrow and will spend most of that day shelving, putting in our new books, and organizing our book shelves. We’ve GOT to weed some books because we are just running out of room on our shelves, and I just ordered MORE new books. Anyway, when I got home I did the Wii Fit for 18 minutes. That’s pretty good for me considering it’s beginning activity for me. That’s when I found out I had lost 4.5 more pounds. I’m excited about that. The diet is paying off! I’m going to get my hair cut on Saturday and am getting quite a bit cut. I’m not sure HOW much, but I know I’m getting a good deal cut. I want something different and I want it to have a little bit more swing to it, you know? I think it’ll look good, but I’m nervous.

Anyway I’m blabbering. I’m going to relax. Will write more tomorrow.

Irritability

Kara — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:02:52 +0000

So, I’m feeling incredibly irritable this afternoon/evening for some reason. It has been going on like this all day, and I’m not sure why I feel this way, but it’s really bad. For one thing, just like yesterday I am HATING being on this diet. It’s funny, I don’t even care while I’m at work-I don’t even think about eating, really. But when I get home I want to eat eat eat! I want to just chew and enjoy the taste of something for dinner. And that is such a temporary gratification/satisfaction that it shouldn’t even really matter, but try going without that and you feel rotten.

My day went pretty well. I started out by finishing the organizing of the Fiction shelves that I’d been working on last week and yesterday. Then I shelved all of the Fiction books on the cart. Throughout the day I kept shelving the number books, and we are over halfway done with the cart, but I have to check in and unload the book cart tomorrow morning and then I’ll have a bunch more books to shelve. So that kinda sucks. But at least then it will be done. And LORDY HALLELUJAH after tomorrow I have three days off to get the shelving completely done. And then I’m going to work on organizing the shelves. I’m working on that all day during my off time on those three days. I’ve got to get these shelves in order-they are a nightmare. So I’m going to do that. Anyway, I digress. My first grade and second grade class watched a Magic School Bus video. I got a lot more time to shelve during that time. My fourth grade class that came in was fairly well behaved, and they usually aren’t. Yesterday we were not supposed to have a 5th grade group, as I’m sure you remember me saying, and then I ended up with one. Well coach went and talked to the 5th grade teacher and told her to not take out the class today, so we should’ve gone down to 2 classes. Well then our freaking Music teacher, who makes me want to punch him in his red face, decided he’d go brownnose to the principal and ask her about it. Well that is one thing about our principal. If you can make a decision without consulting her, by golly you should try. She is so overloaded that if you give her another decision to make, I guarantee it will not be a solution that is good for us. So of course she decided that we had to go back to all having one of the 5th grades every day. Then after school he decided he’d come up to me whining about how the 5th grade was all screwed up and he didn’t know who he was going to have and blah blah blah. I didn’t want to hear about that crap, really, since he was the one who got it all screwy in the first place. He really gets on my nerves.

So my 3rd grade class was good in the beginning but turned to worse afterwards. It actually surprised me because they are usually good when I teach lessons, but they seemed to be easily sidetracked. Then my 5th grade group came in, and though they are usually the roughest 5th grade group, they were the best for me. They did their work and we actually had time to go over it together! I was shocked! I have decided that I’m going to start alternating doing checkout, an information resource lesson, checkout, then reading from a YRCA book. So I can at least get in some reading to them as often as possible. I know that my principal insists that I do Information Resources, but I hate not being able to ever read to them. It sucks.

So then I had Pre-K and Kindergarten and they were fine. I have to say the only thing that ticks me off is that my principal keeps our teachers late, and the K teacher was actually fifteen minutes late picking her class up, and they are only in there for thirty minutes, so I had two classes in there for a while! And that is no fun!

Then after work I went to Sylvan and watched some more tutoring, which I really enjoyed. I came home and really just wanted to EAT off the plan but I ended up not doing it. I made some of the soup but didn’t have the spoon that I always use to stir it so it was very clumpy-so clumpy that I just threw it out, and drank a shake. I just don’t even want to think about eating anymore. It sucks. I just want to get past this. Add to that the long, boring conversation I had with my mom about how I should change my hair and the way I dress, and the boring gifts she wants me to give my bridesmaids, and the boring plain white china she wants me to get for my kitchen when we want something more colorful. It’s just been a craptastic day.

I’m ready to lay down and veg. I just wanted to write because I thought it’d help destress me. It kinda helped.

FRUS-TRA-TION

Kara — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:47:41 +0000

Ok, so I have to write this, or I am going to proceed into the kitchen and make whatever I can get my hands on and shove it down my throat……WITHOUT chewing or breathing or enjoying it, really. I am SO SO SO SO hungry right now. I was not good at getting my shakes in on a time schedule that was good today, and therefore here I sit, starving and really wanting to eat. I had a good day today. I taught my classes, and yes only 2 days til I get a WORK DAY. Now I thought I’d get the 5th grade period off because our 5th grade class lost a teacher and has been split into two classes. WRONG. When it came time for 5th grade, there they were, lined up outside and ready to come in. Totally threw me off, and I was not prepared with their papers. But I found them and all was fine. I even got the invitations put in the boxes of people at work, so I am starting to see who will get a formal invite, etc. I am really irritated because there’s this one lady who I work with that I do NOT want to invite, but everyone else is coming and she will know if I don’t invite her because I’m inviting the lady next door, but she is always such a BITCH (scuse the language) to me, and I don’t even want her there to eat our free good food. GRR. So anyway I went through my day as normal, then brought Ryan home and went to my new job at Sylvan. It went VERY well. I really am going to enjoy it, I think. I trained a little bit with my supervisor, then observed one of the tutors doing Academic Reading and another child was being tutored in Writing. I’m excited. I’m going again tomorrow, then don’t have to go again until Saturday. So I’ll get some time in this week, but not TOO many hours. Also, I came home and changed our reservations for Disney (again!) We are trying to make sure we’re being realistic about the price. We also needed to add a package instead of just hotel reservations. So that’s what I did. Now I’m sitting here and am honestly just miserable. Why the hell do I have to go through this to lose weight? Why did I have to be given this stupid body that gains weight no matter if I put a single freaking bite of food in my mouth. I am so frustrated by all of it. I’m having a really rough time wanting to stick to the diet-I actually got home from tutoring and went in the kitchen and pulled out something to eat, then said Nope, I’m not going to do that-and got a shake. I am proud of myself for doing that but that doesn’t mean I’m not sitting here right now debating eating my freaking heart out. It is so hard, and it’s not going to get any easier. It is depressing and aggravating and I just can’t believe I am pushing myself throught it, but at the same time, this is the last straw for me. I wasn’t losing weight from anything else. So I will stick to it. I know I will go off of it on my birthday, so I’m going to stick to it until then (the 27th of October) and see how much I can lose. Then after my birthday it’s back on plan til Thanksgiving, then Christmas, etc. So at least once a month I get a “cheat” time. So I can look forward to that, but it’s not making tonight any easier. STUPID DIET.

Ok, enough pity party from me. That’s all I have to say-i’m just trying to distract myself and keep my mind off eating. I’m going to do wedding stuff-I’ve got to get my addresses done for my mom.

Will write more later.

First weigh in!

Kara — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:53:05 +0000

So, I weighed in today. I lost 5.2 lbs.! That’s supposed to be great, right? I’m supposed to be elated and ecstatic about losing that much weight since SUNDAY, but instead, I feel terrible. I feel sad and deflated. I for some crazy unhealthy reason was disappointed with that five pounds that I lost. I have stuck with my diet all week long, and just thought I’d lose more, but that attitude is REALLY unhealthy. I should be excited about my weight loss, but instead all I can think about is how long this process is going to be and wondering if I’ll ever even get there. I had a good day at work today-actually a great day. I got a lot accomplished, but was very busy all day. I drank all of my shakes, which I neglected to get done at work yesterday and had to make up for it when I got home. So today I did it. I was so pumped about the weigh in, but then I got there and weighed in and it was like someone punched me in the stomach. I don’t know what happened. So then I sat in the room waiting for the Nurse Practitioner and I felt like crying the whole time. I refrained, of course, but when she came in I told her how I was feeling and she said that 5.2 lbs. was a lot, and that last time I did the diet, was I exercising? No. I started out not exercising and at a lower weight than I am now…so why did I lose less in 5 days? Who knows. She suggested that I might be PMSing or something, but yeah, haven’t had a cycle since January because I’m trying to work myself off of the pill and get regular naturally, but that isn’t working. Am hesitant to go to a doctor because the last one I went to made me feel terrible about myself, so I’m waiting until I get some of this weight off to go to the doctor and get something to regulate myself that isn’t the pill. I’ve done research on it, but I haven’t found out anything except just trying to not stress and lose weight and my body might pick back up by itself. Anyway, so PMS wasn’t it. So then I talked to her and went in to the meeting, where I didn’t know anyone and felt like a complete outsider with all of those people. They had a click because they’d started together, and I have no one that I started with, and I feel like I’m just a ghost in there. It was weird. Anybody that knew me would be shocked at how I am when I’m around people that I don’t know and i don’t know ANYBODY in the room. It’s unnerving for me. So I sat through the meeting, which truly felt like a waste of time for me. I had heard just about everything they’d talked about during my Welcome session, so it was just borrrring. Then it was time to come home. I called my mom and she helped me feel better. She suggested that I go talk to someone about my unreasonable expectations on myself, because she thinks that it’s my perfectionism coming into play, and that if I don’t get a handle on it I might sabotage myself. She also said that she was really proud of me, which means a lot to me. Ryan and I are going to Natchez the weekend of October 9th to see the Balloon Race, so we talked about that some. I’m looking forward to spending some time with my family and seeing everyone ,and I think that Ryan and I will have a great time watching the actual balloons-they are SO gorgeous. And we are going to have a hotel room so we’ll have our own area, which is nice too. So that’s about all I know for today. Now I’m home, feeling down and trying not to, but not having much success. :( Hope I feel better tomorrow.

Day Four

Kara — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:16:25 +0000

OK, so Day Four is OVER. I swear, it’s like every day that goes by on this, I thank God that I’ve had the strength to get through it. It is SO hard not to eat. Today was a rough day for me in some ways, but a great day in others. I got to work today and after I did morning checkout I had a LOT to do, so I got to work. Ryan and I had to go fill out a Fixed Asset Disposal Form for the things that people just randomly put on the stage. So we did that. Then I had to go get the principal to sign off on it, so I went ahead and took her a piece of paper with some things I needed her to know: first of all, I needed her to decide on whether or not we were going to order the additional dictionaries that we needed for 3rd grade. After some indecisiveness, she finally agreed. Then I had to tell her about the keyboards that we still needed, so she told me that the secretary had to order those so that we’d get our discount, so I had to print that page out and give it to the secretary. I had to find out the price of the dictionaries with shipping because we have to send in a check for payment. Then I reminded her about the science workbooks that she has yet to give me a yes/no on to order. She decided that she did not want to order them, even though she had initially told me yes and I’d told the teachers that they were getting them. Well she decided it was too expensive, so she wants me to buy one per grade level so that they can make copies out of it, even though all of their copy numbers are about to run out. LOL. So anyway after I talked to her I had to come and add the science workbooks to the order we had already typed up for some other workbooks. So then it was time for me to go to reading block, so I went and that went by quickly. I helped a student who had been acting up a LOT the past week, but I have been helping him a lot when I go to her room, and I feel like he looks up to me now. He’s a good kid, I think he really needs his medication though, because days that he doesn’t have it he can just NOT focus. So after Reading block I had to go make phone calls about Blackboard, since some of our employees were having login problems, so I got them in BB. I went back in the room and it was time for my 1st graders. They were such a great group today. The finished watching their nonfiction story about Humphrey, then I asked them some questions about the video. In perspective, you should know that they were able to answer the questions and they saw the first half of the video WEEKS ago and still knew the answers, and the group I had yesterday watched it all YESTERDAY and couldn’t even answer ONE simple question about it. I don’t know what their deal was. Anyway, I continued reinforcing the nonfiction by reading them a book about whales. I was SO impressed with this one little girl. Last year she was a real problem for me, but this year she’s AWESOME. We were talking about the two types of whales, toothed and baleen, and I asked if anyone knew what baleen was, and she remembered that it was the stuff in their mouth! I was SO impressed. So anyway, I read some more of the book about whales and dolphins, and then it was time for them to go to lunch. It makes me feel good when they don’t want to leave the library because they are enjoying what we’re doing in there. They wanted to stay and keep listening to the book. So then it was time for lunch, and again I continued working through lunch so that it’d be easier on the diet…then I realized I hadn’t even EATEN. Whoops! So I drank my first shake of the day and took my vitamin. Then I had 2nd grade. They were pretty good but very noisy. I find that this particular class is always a bit noisy, I had to write in two behavior books. I haven’t had to do that all week. (Well actually I did, but that was different). Then 4th grade came in. I got to do the OPAC lesson with them, and they really absorbed it well. I had one student who came in with a rotten attitude, but he even got involved with the lesson and did a great job by the end of class. Then 3rd grade came in and my day went south. I had come up with a plan to pick two people to do checkout so that I could read aloud to them while they were doing their activity. That did NOT work well. With 3rd grade, the girls were great, but they were noisy, and with kids asking Ryan for help, it was just too noisy and it was hard for students to focus on what the heck I was reading. Plus, they get too excited about getting to check out books. So that was a BAD idea. It was even WORSE for 5th grade. First off, I had the worst 5th grade class that there is. I honestly think this is the worst group period. Well they were literally like wild people in there. The two that I chose to do checkout did a good job but they were so so noisy! They have such loud speaking voices that I could hear them across the library. There were other students that were so noisy finding their books, I don’t know it was just chaos. I kept thinking that if my boss walked in she’d have a friggin heart attach. So they got out of there and it was such a relief. I decided that I was going to once again change the policy. I decided that I was going to give them work to do while they sit at their desks. I think I’m also going to go back to ME doing checkout instead of the kids. If they still talk while I’m doing checkout, then I’ll go back to trying the kids checking out while they do work at their desks and I walk around and monitor students. But I don’t know, we’ll see how it works tomorrow with them doing work at their desks and me doing checkout. That should work. I’m also going to turn on the timer and be VERY strict about how long they get to get out there and check out books. That should help with the chaos too. So that was my day at work. Then I realized I had one shake all day long. So I came on home, and got a shake first thing. Ryan and I decided on the way home that we may be thinking about moving to the apartment upstairs. It just got new tile everywhere except the bedrooms. It’s also getting new cabinets and countertops in the kitchen, and it’s probably going to be repainted. Not to mention we’d have a porch and an upstairs area where we could put one of our fold out couches. I called the landlord and she said she was going to charge $75-$100 more than we pay in rent, which is NOT bad. We can’t afford to move into a house right now, and probably won’t be able to for quite a while after we get married, we are paying off some pre-marital debt that we accumulated. She told me that she’d call me back in the next couple of days because she had someone who was pretty interested in it, and she’d tell me if they were moving in. If not, we’re going to go up there and look at it and make our decision. I think that if it’s as nice as we think it is we’ll probably move. But for some reason I feel nervous because I don’t want to make the wrong decision. But I think I’m just in a weird mood because well, I’ve had a rough day. I am going to keep thinking on it and make my decision. I know that my family would think we shouldn’t move because we need to save for a house, but we do NOT want to live here in this apartment for two more years. There are things about the upstairs unit that we were looking for in a house, so it might be more up our alley.

Anyway, that’s about all I know for now. Just wanted to write and fill in on the somewhat stressful day that I’d had, and hoping that it gets better. I do go to my meeting tomorrow night and get to weigh in. Hope I did well my first week!!!

Day three!

Kara — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:42:32 +0000

So, today was Day three for me of my diet. Things went much better for me as far as the physical symptoms go. I had a great day, honestly. My classes were all well behaved, didn’t have to write in one single behavior book (yay!) and I didn’t get hungry hungry hungry. I started out my day knowing that I needed to finish up cataloging some books and getting them put into the system for kids to check out. I went ahead and started on that, so I got about 40 new books put in the system. I found out that I had to go to Reading block at a different time than usual, so I ended up going at 9:30 just like I had, but I left at 10:00, which gave me a lot more time to come back and do stuff in the library before I had my 1st grade class to come in. I was really disappointed in their group. They listened to the video we were watching, but when I asked them recall questions about the video (we are studying non-fiction literature and watched a Reading Rainbow video about ocean animals, specificially whales) they looked at me like I was a complete moron. Not one single child knew the name of the whale from the book. I have to say that is my FIRST CLASS in three days that has not known the answer to that question–it was like–what the hell have y’all been doing the whole time?????? They weren’t even talking or cutting up!!! LOL Then I had my lunch break, and I continued to work through lunch getting books ready for teachers that needed additional reading books. So then my 2nd graders came in, and I didn’t have enough time to ask them any questions about the story, unfortunately. It’s a 28 minute video and we only have 30 minutes, so I end up running out of time. But I’ll make sure to ask recall questions next time they come in, which will be Monday. After 2nd grade, my 4th, 3rd, and 5th graders came in. They were really great. We continued doing the OPAC lesson and they are all so good at participating and learning, it really makes me happy. Tomorrow 3rd and 5th are done with the lesson so they’ll start checking out books. I am really tired of them getting wild like they do when we check out books, so I’ve decided that I’m going to start something new. I’m going to pick two students from the class (only 3-5) who can check out books FOR me. I’m going to train them how to do it. I made printouts of the barcodes for each student and organized them by class. So when the class comes in, I’ll turn to that page and the kid will be able to find the person’s name checking out books, then scan the books and stamp them. I’ll have two up there so that they can work on doing that together. Ryan will be helping them with any problems they may have. I want to take that time to read to them. I never get time to read aloud to my older kids, and since I have to start on Information Resources soon during their lesson periods, I need time to read aloud. So while they check out books, I’m going to continue reading The Lightning Thief. I read that book and the others in the series this summer, and I am hooked. The sub I had last Thursday read it to my group and they loved it so much they were wanting to check it out when they came in the library, so my goal is to read it with them and then allow them to check it out for themselves. So that’s that. Then I had my little ones. I even got time to work on my lesson plans so I could figure out what I’d be doing with them next week. I’m excited about it being so concrete this year-I felt like I was never organized last year, and this year is already off to a much better start. I have so much less problems with behavior because they’ve got stuff that they’re responsible for, and that makes me happy.

So anyway, I got home and tried to lay down but the phone kept ringing, so I ended up calling my mom. We’re going to go wedding shopping this weekend-I’m SO SO excited. We are going to this place called Gabrielle’s to look at dresses, and I have a feeling I might be able to find the dress while I’m there. I intended on doing something with Amber this weekend because well, she is a great friend and is my MAID OF HONOR-LOL. But since my mom is coming in town, I might have to once again postpone. Eventually we’ll have to get together and hang out. I know she may be reading this, but I just have to put it out there. I hope she doesn’t feel awkward being my maid of honor since we haven’t hung out much lately, and I hope that if she didn’t want to do it anymore, she’d tell me. I don’t want to put her in an awkward position, but the truth is, I still consider her just as close of a friend.

Well, I am about to go watch some of my recorded shows on Tivo. I’m pumped that I have a TWO HOUR Heroes and a CSI Miami to watch! And tonight I have at least two more shows that are recording-I love fall TV!

Day 2 of my new diet

Kara — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:57:46 +0000

So today is Day 2 of doing the Optifast program. I am not having any problems resisting food, though I am having problems with some side effects. I had to go to work today, which made it a little harder because my energy out was definitely more than what I put in. I had my first shake around 8:45, and I took my multivitamin and started feeling very sick. I think my body was just not ready to have the multivitamin, so I know that after a while my body will get used to it. I went to reading block at 9:30 and helped the teacher in there, then came back and had another shake at 10:30. I started teaching at 11:00 and was fine. Got some work done that I needed to get done. I continued that through lunch so that I wouldn’t have to sit there and watch everyone eat. I had my 2nd grade class, then I had another shake at 1:00. My classes were GREAT today, except for my 3rd grade class. I am teaching 3-5 about using the Library Catalog, and all of my classes have been so receptive, quiet, and participating. It really makes me happy and proud to see them learning this so quickly. This 3rd grade class is definitely the exception. Some of them didn’t even follow along with us. They will have to do the work on their own before they can check out a book next week, and I have a feeling one of the kids will throw a tantrum. His mom is a volunteer at our school and he seems to feel like he is entitled to things that he isn’t entitled to. I wrote in quite a few of their behavior books. And now that I think of it, those are the only books i had to write in ALL day. Anyway, I started having the cramps in my muscles like they said I would, and was just feeling very tired. I decided that instead of starting my new job at Sylvan like i had initially planned, I called and spoke with my new boss and talked to her about how I was feeling. She couldn’t work with me any other day this week, so I agreed to go in a week from today to start my training. That makes me so happy because I feel like I’ll be adjusted to this program by then and I can jump in my tutoring training and really understand what they are telling me. So I came home from work, drank another shake, then I had to lay down. I had the biggest headache. I just wanted to close my eyes initially, but I ended up falling asleep for about 3-4 hours. When I woke up I felt MUCH better and the headache was gone (knock on wood). I heated up the soup that I’m allowed to have (tomato) and had a bar and some water. I am feeling great about making it through the day again today! I know that after about a week it gets much easier, so I’m 2 days down, 5 to go before that deadline.

You know how it is when you lose something important??? Well I lost a 3 subject notebook that I use to write my to-do lists in. I haven’t been able to find it and I’m worried that I’m forgetting about something that is in there that I’m supposed to be doing-hahaha. I will just have to assume that if there is something I need to do, it’ll make itself clear to me. I am glad that I made time today during my classes to barcode and check out our brand new thesauruses and dictionaries for our 3-5 grade students. Ryan and I passed those out. So now that I have those four boxes out of my way, and I plan on doing a box of new books that I have tomorrow. I need to shelve, too…it’s getting overwhelming. They check in so many books a day that I can’t keep up with the shelving. I’d be able to do it if I didn’t have to spend an hour in reading block every day. I don’t think having library helpers this year will even be necessary because we only do checkout for about 15 minutes in the morning. So anyway, enough random ranting…I’m going to read my book. I’ll write more later!!!

Oh yeah, I’m super excited because my mom and I are going wedding dress shopping this weekend!!! Yay!!! I can’t wait!

The start of something new

Kara — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:25:32 +0000

So, I’m starting a new diet. And yes, I’m sure there are people who are sighing right now and going “Sure you are.” But you know what, I’ve got to step beyond those people and do this for myself. At this point in my life, it’s not about being thin anymore, it’s about being healthy. It’s about being at a BMI where I’m not considered obese. It’s about living more than 10 years in the future. It’s about being able to be healthy when Ryan and I have children, and that is SO important. So, I’ve done the drastic measure that I previously had decided not to do. About three years ago I lost 86 lbs. doing a liquid diet called Optifast. I did SO well on it, and I dropped the weight fast. The problem was that I did not go through the maintenance phase of the diet where you are taught to re-introduce foods to your diet that are healthy, eat portions, etc. It is like weight watchers at that point. Well instead I pretty much just went back to my old ways of eating and put the weight back on consistently over the next three years. Well, I have tried everything in the last six months-I’ve teetered up and down on different diets, as you very well know from this blog. I’ve done Suddenly Slim, Fat Smash Diet, and most recently, Weight Watchers. I’ve even done a little Nutrisystem. The only thing I’m NOT going to do is have bariatric surgery. But something needed to be done. So last weekend I was laying in bed and Ryan was sleeping and all of a sudden I had an overwhelming sense of urgency to get back on the liquid diet. I want to get the FOOD out of the equation for a while and just focus on self control. So I got up, talked to Ryan about it, and of course he was 100% in agreement, as he always is with anything I want to do that is healthy. I called Optifast from work on Monday morning and they told me that I’d have to come to the informational session at 5:30 on Tuesday afternoon. So I went to that after work, and it was generally the same thing I had heard three years ago, so I decided to go ahead and go for it. I schedule my two doctors appointments for blood work, EKG tests, metabolic tests, etc. for Thursday at 10:00 and 12:30. I went home that night and put in my absence. They do not do appointments after 12:30, so there was no choice in me missing work, which I HATE doing because they make you feel like you’ve done something horrible when you call out at my job. Anyway, I called out and on Thursday I went to the doctor and got all of it done and got my food. I am starting it first thing in the morning. I will be drinking 5 shakes a day and eating 1 bar. I will do it for at LEAST 12 weeks. I am sure that at my birthday, Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas, I will eat off the diet. But I know other than that I will maintain extreme dedication just like I did last time. This will be difficult for others that I know because social activities so often revolve around eating, but I know for at least the first month, as I did last time, I’m not going to want to go out and do anything with anyone. It makes you not have a lot of energy, and also it’s hard to be around any temptations. Last time my dad had a hard time with this part. He thought I was nuts. But I had to do this for ME. So I am excited to be doing this. I go to group every week on Thursdays, so that night I’ll write again and update on my weight loss for the first 4-5 days. Wish me luck!

Just have to get this off my chest

Kara — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:27:33 +0000

So, I can’t stop thinking about this, and I think if I write about it, it may not bother me so much. We had a hurricane this past week, for those of you who might not know-I’m smack dab in the path of where Gustav hit, and it left our city in shambles to some extent. I’ll write more about that later, but for right now I’ve got to write this out so I can get some sleep. OK, so usually my dad and my stepmom are the ones who are the most supportive of me, and they are VERY supportive-I love them both so much and I talk to them all the time. Ryan and I ALWAYS go over there and play board games, and I consider them my closest family. We talked every single day while the power was out during the hurricane and the aftermath, and sometimes we’d talk multiple times a day. Well, during this time some things were done that upset me. They weren’t there for me as much as my mom was, and that surprised/upset me. I ended up venting to my mom about it because I just needed someone to talk to. This happened on Friday. Well, Friday night I added a LSU ringback to my cell phone because I wanted it. Well when he called in he sounded so irritated that I had that-he hates LSU, but c’mon just get over it, really. So then he called me back because they had gone over to someone’s house to watch Ole miss on TV and when he got home he had power. That is the last I’ve heard from him. He told me to call him if I wanted to come over Sunday and use their shower because we were still without power. Well I called Sunday morning and told him that our power was back, and told him that he could call Ryan’s phone if need be because of the tiger ringback. Then I called later that evening because we had our phone service back at home and wanted to let him know he could call me there too. Well I have not heard from him, and that is very peculiar. So I’m not sure what is going on. I e-mailed him tonight and am anxious to get the response. I mean call me paranoid but I’m worried that my mom, in one of her moods, called him and chewed him out for not being more supportive. I really hope she wouldn’t do that, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Ryan doesn’t think that this happened. I really don’t want to think that it did, but it’s just really strange to me that I haven’t heard a peep from them since saturday and here it is almost the end of this week. So he is either still mad about the Tiger ringer or he found out that I was disappointed/upset about him not being supportive, which I wasn’t even that disappointed. I’m nervous that if she called, she blew it all out of proportion. And why should I be so upset when I said things that I honestly felt, you know? If he didn’t want to hear those things, should that be my fault? I think not. So that’s what I needed to get off my chest because I don’t know if my dad is mad at me, or if he’s just really busy. Who knows. I’ll update when I hear from him my e-mail, which I should tomorrow….