Operation Skinny: Week 3

Another week is gone. Wow… They are just flying by right now.

So I ate an average of 1,578 calories per day. It’s the most I’ve eaten since starting Operation Skinny, but I’m ok with it considering I ate less than expected last week. I was pretty hungry early in the week.

I walked 21.5 miles. Wohoo! That’s awesome. I’m thrilled with that number. I think that is my max. 3 miles a day. Apparently one day I walked 3.5, but I really think 3 per day is going to be it for a while.

Here's the bummer. I gained .4 pounds again. Sigh. I know I didn't get fatter... look at those numbers! So I can only assume it's muscle. Hopefully that stops soon since I won't be walking any extra, just sticking to the 21 miles a week.

Totals:
Net weight loss: .8 pounds
Walked: 58 miles

Lost vacations

I am having the worst luck with vacation planning this semester. First off we decided on a week for our Disneyland vacation in December but it turns out I have a group project that week in one of my classes.

Let me take a moment here to explain my feelings about group projects. I hate them. I despise them. I loathe them. You see, I have a small control freak that lives deep within my heart and she goes whirring around at the mere mention of a group project. What's the point? To teach me how to work in a group? You just teach me Accounting... I'll work on my social skills by myself, thank you very much.

So take the fact that I have to rearrange my vacation and add in my hatred for group projects and the whole thing just turns my stomach. Bleck.

Unfortunately that was not the end of it. I also planned a trip to the Grand Canyon during Maddy's fall break. We have hotel rooms and everything. Then last night I realize that I have a Math test on the day we were planning on leaving. GRRR... So tonight I have to go beg for the chance to maybe take the test early. We'll see. But I'm not feeling good about the whole situation, I'm telling you that.

The boy in the tree

There is a boy at the bus stop that always sits off by himself. He kinda dorky, in a black socks with crocs kinda way. (Seriously, he really did wear that.) He never talks to any of the other kids that I can see. But you can also tell that it's not about shyness. This kid seems angry. It isn't just a "I wish someone would talk to me." kind of standing apart. It's more a "I know I'm not welcome over with the other kids and I don't care because I hate them all anyways." kind of separation. Does that make sense?

Anyways, he started climbing a tree at the bus stop and hanging out up there. I didn't like it. I know, boy in tree, what is the problem? But this tree isn't very big. The trunk is only about 6 inches in diameter and the branches really aren't big enough to support a boy. Besides, he doesn't just go up there and sit quietly. He breaks off every single branch he can. I really didn't like him being in the tree but hey, it's not my tree, it's not my kid, it's not my business. But when I was standing there watching branches come down and couldn't keep my mouth shut. I went over and said, "Please stop taking the tree apart. There's no reason for that!" And he stopped. The next day he didn't climb the tree and I thought we were past it. Pretty relieved actually. So then today I went outside and he was up there again. I tried to ignore it. But then I saw the branches down at the bottom. Big branches. So I go over there.

"Please come out of the tree."
"Why?"
"Because you are killing the tree by doing that."
"I'm pruning it."
"No, you're killing it."
"So what?"
"Get down, please."
no response.
"Get down."
no response.
"Get down!"
He comes down one branch. Now the other kids are starting to mill around and see all the broken branches and are actually upset about it.
"Get! Down!" I said firmly.
And he finally does.

Then the bus came and all the kids were still talking about how terrible it is to take a tree apart like that. I actually felt kinda bad. I know this kid already isn't liked and then they are kinda going after him for this. They weren't being mean about it. Just talking amongst themselves saying things like "Who would try to kill a tree?" "Why would someone do that?" But he definitely heard them.

Hopefully we are past it. Hopefully tomorrow when I go outside that tree is boyless.

But I really want to know this boy's story. Something is up. Someone is being mean to him somewhere, probably at home. Which sucks. That's one of the reasons I let the tree thing go for as long as I could possibly stand it. That, and the fact that I knew it wasn't going to be a simple "please stop doing that." kind of thing. There was going to be arguments, disrespect, speaking to parents.

Maybe I'll talk to him tomorrow. If he is sitting by himself I'll go say hi. I'll ask him what his story is, and he will openly tell me everything that is bothering him. And then I will offer some words of wisdom that turn his life around. Yeah, that's how it will go, just like that.

3's make me happy. A mid-term progress report.

We got Maddy's mid term progress report during the week and I'm happy to report she is doing wonderfully. They still don't grade with letter grades. It's a 1,2, 3 thing. 3 being best. So of course she is getting all 3's. :) In fact, out of 20 or 30 assignments she got a 100% on all but 2 of them. She spelled her name wrong on the name writing test. Which I call shenanigans on because they made her write Madison when she has never practiced that before. She has always written Maddy, I've never taught her how to spell Madison. I've honestly never even considered it. No one ever calls her that. Anyways, she spelled it Madisno. Which I teased her about for the rest of the night. Calling her Madisno. Don't worry.... she thought it was funny. As did I.

The only other thing she didn't get a 100% on was her spelling test. Remember how I said they give you 5 words to practice and then the spelling test is 10 words? Well she did perfectly fine on all that, even the mystery words. Apparently they work on the mystery words during class. I didn't know that. But then they had to write sentences too. She missed one of the words in the sentences. She didn't spell it wrong... she just forgot it. I think the sentence was something like "Ben had a big quiz." and Maddy wrote "Ben had a quiz." Ok, a point off.... I can live with that.

I don't want to leave this post talking mostly about the two tiny things that Maddy got points off for in school.... so I would like to remind you again that she got 100% on about 25 other assignments. I couldn't be more proud of her. She's doing better in school than I am! :)

Operation Skinny: Week 2

Alrighty, week 2 is finished. I would say it was another big success. I ate an average of 1,374 calories per day, which is less than last week. I was still aiming for 1,500 so it is actually a little lower than I was expecting. I didn’t go hungry though. I don’t know what the deal is with that. I’ve been super busy, maybe I was just distracted.

I walked a total of 18 miles. Pretty good. Up from last week. So I’m excited about that. I think I might be able to squeeze another mile a day in but that is going to be the most I think I can do. Going twice a day actually makes it easier. For one thing, each shift only takes half the time so it’s easier to motivate. You also get less tired, since you aren’t walking as far all at once. But more than anything when I’m feeling lazy in the morning I make myself go because I don’t want to have to walk twice as far at night. And then at night I don’t want to ruin the good start I have going from the morning. AND the best news ever… I have two friends that are walking with me in the morning. Which is awesome. It makes the morning walk go so fast.

Ok, ok, but this wasn’t all for nothing. I lost 1.6 pounds. Wohoo! We’re on our way!

Grand Totals:
Lost: 1.2 pounds
Walked: 36.5 miles

Where does the day go?

Here is what I did yesterday

7:00 Woke up, threw something on, made bed, woke up Maddy, got Connor out of bed
7:15 Fought with Connor about getting dressed and went downstairs. Made kids breakfast and Maddy's lunch for school.
7:45 Went out to bus stop
8:00 Waved good bye to bus, went for walk.
8:30 Computer time!
9:30 Shower, get dressed.
10:00 Cleaned all the floors, dusted, picked up
10:45 Went out to lunch
12:00 Put Connor down for a nap, hung out with Larry (he stayed home from work)
1:00 Started school work
2:00 Got Connor up, finished school work
3:30 Maddy got home.
4:00 Started cooking dinner
5:00 Ate dinner
5:30 Cleaned up dinner
5:50 Took kids to the park
6:30 Baths
7:30 Put kids to bed
8:15 Another walk
9:00 Bed for me

Phew... And I'll do it all again, and again, and again.

Pumpkin painting

We painted pumpkins yesterday. I know it's not exactly Halloween time yet, but it's pretty close and I want to do it every year and I always put it off til I just don't care anymore. So this year, I just did it. I'm a rebel like that.

Connor was hilarious. Apparently he's never painted before. I didn't realize that. We all sat down at the kitchen table and I put a pumpkin on a paper plate in front of everyone. Connor thought we were going to eat them. He kept saying "Don't want pumpkin, Momma" "Momma. Don't want pumpkin!" lol. So we talk him into putting some paint on it. He put a big glob of yellow paint on his pumpkin and then leaned forward and licked it. lol. Totally gross. He didn't like that very much. But it finally convinced him that it's not for eating. Once we were over that hurdle everything went pretty well. After it was all done Maddy said, "I should have just painted it orange." LOL... that would have been pretty funny.

I made the kids take off their shirts cause I figured they would both be covered in paint. The kids came out clean as a whistle, but me and Larry both got paint on our shirts. Go figure. Topless painting around here from now on. It's a family rule. lol.

Oh! and Maddy has her first test today. A spelling test. They do it weird. The test is on 10 words but they only give them five to study. So five of the words are words they've never seen before. It's supposed to see if they picked up on the pattern and can figure out how to spell the others. Ok, I can see that I guess. I thought the words would be like "cat" "bat" "sat" and then the mystery words would be like "mat" or something, you know an obvious pattern. No. The spelling words they sent home were "the" "a" "of" "to" and "and". Ummm... where's the pattern in that? Seriously? So I'm curious to see how that is going to work out. Here's my secret hope: That this new program fails horribly and they go back to the old fashioned way of actually letting the kids study their spelling words. But I guess I'm just "old school". Literally.