Step Away From the Cake

The first reference I can find to my ankle is this February. I know it was bothering me before that. It started bothering me towards the end of last year because I remember thinking it was cold. And I thought that for a long time. Then it wasn't cold anymore. But my ankle still hurt. Then it hurt really bad. And it was hot. Really. Hot. So I got to thinking that maybe something else was wrong and I even considered going to an orthopedist. But honestly, I'm kind of off doctors. I really didn't want to have to consider surgery or some such other nonsense. Then I saw an ad for the Good Feet Store. I decided to go yesterday just to see what they had to offer. Turns out they offer orthotics. I've had orthotics before and they worked miracles so I was open to them. They were really, really expensive. Like $1000....yikes. I was planning on spending a few hundred dollars but not 1000. But my feet were a mess.

I've always had good arches, but the imprint of my right foot w…

I've been working hard on this for a couple of weeks now. I find myself saying I'm fat or whatever, and I immediately follow that with 'that's okay.' I find I am no longer beating myself up for things like eating 1/2 a package of cookies. Yes, I ate 1/2 a package but I haven't had cookies in months. I would rather have a bunch at once then eat some every day.  I have taken to wearing 2 piece bathing suits when it's just me and Hubby. I'm very comfortable wearing them now. I haven't weighed myself in weeks. Weeks. And I'm okay with that. Self-love is not easy, especially when you've spent a lifetime hating your body. But I'm working on it and I'm definitely making progress.






Which leads to this. Since I am becoming more accepting of myself and not beating myself up so often, I find that the excuses are falling away. I find it easier to do the things that I need and want to do because I'm coming from a place of love and acceptance.…

a few weeks ago I came across a teacher's blog who talked about how she chose a word for the year. She gave a number of examples from past years but this one really spoke to me. It still does. I haven't really instituted any upgrades in my life yet because it was the last few weeks of summer and I had fallen into a pattern of lazy days. I did manage to go to the gym regularly, so that was definitely an upgrade. This week though, school starts. So I think it is time to upgrade my life and I just need to figure out what that looks like.

Upgrade my career: I really do love what I do. I know I complain and moan about the kids, but I really do enjoy teaching. It is fun, different every single day, and I am making a difference. So upgrading this looks like this:

No whining or complaining about anything, but especially the kids. Keeping my lesson plans up to date throughout the yearEntering grades every week, no matter what. Staying organized if it kills me Finding systems that work …

but not quite yet.

Next week is my last week of freedom. I have one more week left to get all the things done that I wanted to in the last 8. Ha.... I have actually accomplished quite a bit. Not near as much as I wanted to, but I think I overloaded myself, so I'm okay with that. The main point of summer is that I had a fabulous time. I rested. Relaxed. Swam. Ate. Drank. And partied. It was a freaking amazing summer.

So next week I will go into my classroom and start prepping it for the new year. I will also start to get things organized since I didn't get as much of that done as I would have hoped.

Then the following week I have the AP Biology class. I'm really looking forward to that, it should be good.

Then the week after that I return to work :( 6 days of teacher stuff and then the kids come back on Wednesday. Luckily we only have them for 2 days the first week. But then it's boom, back into it.

In non-school news, I have been working out regularly and alread…

I came across this idea last night and it really struck a chord with me. Choose a word for the year. In my case, I was looking for a word for the school year but it fits in all aspects of my life. The blogger who wrote about it quoted this passage from Norman Rush's book Mating:

“There was an opulent sunset. I was standing under an acacia in bloom and the words ‘shower of gold’ came into my mind, followed by a surge of feeling. I call it greed, but it was more a feeling of wanting a surplus in my life, wanting to have too much of something, for a change. I didn’t want to be a candidate anymore, not for a doctorate or anything else: I wanted to be at the next level, where things would come to me, accrue to me. It was acute.”
Now it is easy to read that and fall into the materialistic trap of thinking it's all about things, but that is not what it says to me. It says to take things to the next level. Realize that I have been in the same place in my life for almost 5 years now. …

I've decided to use this blog as what it was meant for, a health and fitness blog, I am just trying to decide how often to update. But I think I will leave that to chance. If I set too high an amount, like daily, and I don't meet it, I'll feel like a failure. But if I set to low a goal, like weekly, I might forget. So I think I'll just play it by ear and see how often I post. I know that I will need it more often in the beginning and that it will taper off as I get better, but I'll let it evolve by itself.

Okay, health and fitness it is. So I joined Plant Fitness about a month ago and went sporadically. In fact, I discovered that I have never done day 4 of my workout because I never went 4 days in one week. Lame. However, this week and all future weeks will be different. I will go 4 times a week, every week. So let's recap this week:

Monday: was feeling inspired to work out since I am feeling particularly fat lately. And working out felt good. I didn't pus…