No Excuses

Wow! I actually had two good days in a row. It's very exciting to write 'good days' in my labels.
I can't believe how quickly I can change from feeling just horrible and humiliated and dejected to feeling pretty proud and confident. It's like - once I find that place where I get back on track (literally, I feel like a train that went off the track....and just got scooted back on for a smooth ride) I just snap out of it. I feel like, when I'm not on plan, there's this frantic energy...guilt, food obsession, saddness, humiliation, hopelessness, anxiety...all wrapped up in a depressing ball. When I manage to focus on the small decisions and just build my confidence back up - it's like that melts away...Good stuff!
Yesterday was rough - I was sooo exhausted, I got sidetracked several times, and I got upset by getting sent one of those obnoxious 'we say Merry CHRISTmas e-mails' at work**(see my rant below if you care to), but didn't use it as an excuse not to exercise or to get off plan. Today I was so sore from my workout yesterday. I felt like I had cramps and my arches of my feet were killing me. But I put in my old Step Reebok workout and did all 45 miserable minutes of it. (I DO like exercise, but it's freaking hard! Too many lunges!). I struggled and wanted to quit the whole time, and a few times I had to take a break to gulp water and stagger around the house gasping for air, but I got back on that darned step every time and felt great when it was over.
I didn't have many cravings today either. I ate an apple at breakfast, an Amy's tamale pie frozen thing (only 2 points!) at lunch, a Choco-walla Odwalla meal replacement bar for snack, Ryan's awesome shepherd's pie for dinner (fresh green beans, fresh corn, tofu, potatoes, asiago/parmesan/romano cheese blend baked on top). Yum! A chunk of raw red cabbage (I know, I'm weird - I could almost always eat red cabbage or broccoli...or chocolate). And then I had 1 1/2 Dove miniatures and a small square of Green and Black's dark chocolate for dessert. I recorded it all and wound up with .5 points left to spare :) I didn't even have to dip into my APs or WPs. Good, good day.

Oh! And! I just looked out the window and there's snow on the ground! Good because I love and miss snow. Good because I get a snow day to clean my house, do some reading, sleep and work out tomorrow. Not so good because I really wanted to finish some projects up with my kids at school. Not so good because some of the kids were supposed to get to go see a middle school production of The Nutcracker tomorrow. But...hey....I'm sure they're alright with the trade-off. I won't feel too bad for them :)


WARNING: VERY GROUCHY 'WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS'-EMAIL RANT...getting it off my chest....
**I just don't see that issue as being about faith - #1 - it's very divisive and confrontational, #2 - I kind of see there as being 2 Christmases - there's the religious Christmas and the commercial Christmas. They're not the same - lots of secular people 'celebrate' the commercial version just as an American cultural tradition, and the religious version means a lot to a lot of people...so I just think the whole argument about one corporation saying 'Merry Christmas' and another carrying stock for Kwanzaa and Hannukah and saying 'Happy Holidays' is less about religion than consumerism...and why (as this email said) does government not publicly favoring one religion over another 'take away our faith' (that's absurd! faith is personal...) and why do you feel that words like 'inclusive, sensitive and diversity' are "used to intimidate' you?! A lot of people dismiss those terms as PC b.s. but I take them very much to heart. As a teacher, the last thing I would ever want is any child to feel at all outcast or singled out because their personal, home-life/religion is not the majority and is therefore completely shunned. I think religion should be taught at home and at church and diversity taught at school. Schools shouldn't (and in my experiences, don't) prevent religious practice. Silent time is allowed for prayer...But, we shouldn't be seen as 'sponsoring' one group's faith. When I was in Chicago, I felt everyone was represented. Now, in the Bible Belt, it's all Santa and the music teacher even has a bulletin board up with a manger scene and a quote saying "Unto us a child is born". This would never fly if the school wasn't majority Christian. I really think it's inappropriate. We should cover holidays as cultural study and use the season as our focus. Everything doesn't have to be Santa and Christmas trees...there's so much we could do with just winter as a theme. For example, I have decorations up in my classroom - there's a Santa and reindeer window cling, and Christmas stocking garland, but there's also Hannukah garland and most of the stuff is neutral (snowflakes, snowmen, Nutcracker, penguin....kids love it...they don't need me to push religious content on them...I've seen Jehovas Witness children stay out of school around holidays like Halloween and Christmas because the schoolday is so overwhelmed with this stuff...it just makes me sad)
#3 WHY was I sent this in my work email? Talk about inappropriate. #4 - The person who sent this to me is a fellow ESL teacher - someone who should really take to heart the effects that subtle instances of hegemony can have on the psyche of minorities....anyway...this issue just pushes my buttons...just one of those things, I guess. Arg!