Week 1

I did it! I got through my first week, alive, unscathed and upright.
Also…tired, more knowledgeable and a little overwhelmed! But… happy.
Which is a great feeling.

I am working in a great school, with lovely students and an even lovelier staff.
I had free access to coffee in the Tech studies office and have had some hearty laughs already with them. We are next door to each other – being the “Technology” subjects – so it is nice to have people to chat to, and to go to for support, who are close by.
I was offered delicious smelling donuts, which I do not eat, but was thankful of the offer.
I have a bag of folders in my school bag, that I need to look at soon and begin to do some more lesson planning.
I have a lot of free lessons at the end of the week to work on planning as well. And I am sure as the weeks march on I will have that time to do marking.
It’s going to be a much busier school term than I am used to – but I think I will be okay. I can do it.

Last night J and I went out together to cash in a ‘wine and a cheese platter’ voucher….and had a lovely evening just the two of us! So nice to to be able to talk without interuptions.

I walked for a full 35 minutes this morning without my achilles hurting at all! I even walked up a hill without noticing. So pleased it is on the mend.

So overall, yes I am happy.

Which is wonderful.

 

Graduated and then Employed.

My family are very busy as the moment. We are in the final stages of the Scout Performing Arts Gang Show we are heavily involved in – and once it is all done and dusted, in a mere 4 weeks, the month of May will be over.
My friend commented that soon after that we will talking about it being half way through the year. Huh.

Back in March – a mere 30 days ago… I graduated University!

I NEVER thought I would get to wear that gown and mortar board. But with some incredible persistence, I did.
It  was such a great day, I had my hair done, a new outfit, a lovely celebratory drink at a cool wine bar and a delicious dinner with my family – it certainly was a day to remember forever.
My only regret is that I wish I felt a bit better about myself, size wise. But with a heavy schedule of kids, working and volunteering I have to accept that there is often no time left for me to do the things I need to do to feel great. So therefore the results are more often not what I want. To get them I need to say ‘no’ more.

Soon after finishing my University subjects last year I began relief teaching. And then on the day of graduating I had a phone call asking if I would be interested in full time work for the rest of the year!!! Uh…. YES!
I have always said that part time work would be better for my family, but if a full time job came by {unlikely…but possible} I would definitely take it. So I took a deep breathe and said ‘Yes, I would love to come and work at your school’.
And so, tomorrow morning, the first day of Term 2 of 2017….I will be walking into a classroom of my own.

breathe in. breathe out.

I guess I will report back sometime soon to say how it is all going…..

Wading through concrete.

Gosh, I am so sad at the moment. The smallest things are so hard to do. Making myself do the list of jobs I have is like dragging myself through concrete. I only have to ring the physio and the hairdresser…but the thought of having to actually call, talk to real humans is difficult.

I have been having trouble remembering to do things too. Appointments, school forms, dinner.
I have forgotten more appointments in the last 6mths than I have ever done. I have paid for more missed appointment fee’s in that time too – than I have ever done. Calling the business is almost embarrassing now… as I’ve forgotten each appointment I’ve booked, Scrambling to cover my shame, writing the time on my hand, in my phone, setting reminders… and it still does not stay in my mind. Poooooof… it’s gone.
I have another {missed and re-booked} appointment at 9:45am today, which I need to leave for in 5 mins. I HAVE to leave in 5 mins.

I need to get out and put my CV and information around to schools to see if I can get work. But I can’t. Emotionally, physically. Just can’t. What if I am no good? What if no-one asks me to work ever? What if I go to a school, and they don’t ask me back? What if the last 6 years is all a total waste of time, energy and money?
I don’t put my CV out there…. cos then I will never be rejected. Easy.
But then my mind plays awful games with me. over and over. all day.
The same words are said several times a day to me…
I have shitty hair, overweight, ugly dresser, unfit, unhealthy, bad parent, a fool.

And now I need to leave this post, hit submit and go and get in the my car and drive to that appointment. If I miss this one, I will hang my head in shame and not return to that clinic.

 

 

 

Feb 1 – a month down.

Wowsers – a month gone in the year already… days slide by so fast that you really need to be careful to be attentive and enjoy each and every one!

There are two people in my life at the moment teetering on the very edge of health and life – as one of them has so aptly said ‘I am in the finale’. This comment is especially  poignant as he was the producer for many years of the scout gang show I am involved in – our lives spent in and around a theatre, youth and performances.
The other, is my good friends mum.

I look back on the month I have had and wonder if I have done enough? Done enough to begin the changes I so desperately need and want. I think I have… well….I have made a start, and that is better than doing nothing. But I know I can do more. I definitely want the outcomes of doing more… and so I must do more to achieve them.

~~~~

Feb 12th:

I began that post and never got back to it. And in that time both of these people have now passed on, and we have {and will} celebrate their lives at their respective funerals {one is next week}.
My very good friend, who now lives interstate, has been “home” caring for her suddenly very sick mum {see above}, was there when she passed away – and there to hold her hand <3, and stayed on for her funeral.
So having this friend home for a few weeks has been bittersweet for all of us.

So due to this our little family have had a busy week. There have been many dinners, lunches and dishes done! But it has been so lovely to catch up with the people we love the most, to spend some hours chatting and drinking wine, laughing till we were shrieking – and there have been tears when we toasted to good friends, lovely mums and our appreciation of friends so very dear to us {ahhh I’m teary now recalling it…}.

All this certainly aligns with my paragraph above…. have I done enough? Then I was meaning health and fitness – now I know that I have done enough… I showed the people that mean the most to me how much I adore them.
But if this week has shown me anything…. I still need to do more on my health and fitness…and that is mainly so I can be healthy and strong to live as long as I can – and to achieve all the things I wish to do.

So today. Onwards towards fitness, health, happiness and strength!

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 of the New Year

I just read another ladies blog, outlining her difficult week maintaining her commitment to a healthy life. And I feel like it echo’s my week.
I could hide away and ignore how disappointed I am in myself – but in the interest of this saying…

I won’t.

Yes my week has not gone to plan. And I hate that this continues to happen. BUT it does continue to happen – so perhaps I had better get used to it and work out a way around it.
I need to see the good in what I am doing, rather than beating myself up over ‘failure’ to be 100%.
My life is pretty hectic – I am busy. I can’t say no. My husband works shift-work. I make excuses.
So this is how my week went.

Friday:
Up early today to get the kids off to a 24 hr trip to the Riverland with their granny. Yippee.  I planned to spend the day writing a document for teaching jobs.  I struggled with this ALL.DAY. I probably wrote the same 200 words and deleted them 10x over. Which lead to  emotional eating of all the crap in the pantry.
I didn’t walk, as I thought I would/could go later {wrong plan}.
We then went out for an impromptu dinner with friends to a Thai restaurant. I made good choices, and felt good about eating out.

Saturday:

We ended up staying at our friends place due the lateness of the dinner and how far away we live from them, and even better we were able to get up and go to the beach!
But first I weighed in at WW for the first time since 12/11…. ouch! that I wasted so much time & money. I am a dick. And I had a gain of 3.3kg. Although, I felt was not all that bad for a 3 week holiday, chrissy and get-togethers over the new year.
J and I went for a 20 min walk {ouch my achilles} and then for a swim – so good!
By this time it was 10am, and I was starving, so we shared a pasty. Yum.
We did some birthday present shopping for our almost 10yr old – and also got a Bakers Delight Pizza. Sigh.

Sunday:

My family came over to do some shed sorting from recent flooding. Sausage rolls, pizza bread, cheese, bbq and birthday cake were on the menu. Ugh.
I did 10,000 steps and sweated a bucket load.

Monday:

I started out well, a 15 min walk, a good breakfast.
I didn’t track the rest of the day. I think it was that J went to work late in the day and I was over the it all. I got the sulks on.

Tuesday:

We had builders at our house all day today fixing up from the flooding in October. I also had my niece and nephew over. But I managed to walk, track and eat well.
Sadly, I gorged myself on lollies late at night while making lolly bags. I cannot be trusted around lollies!

Wednesday:

My daughters 10th Birthday – we took 5 kids to the local pools. I planned out my day, took my own food and snacked on a few hot chips, potato chips and a drink of fanta. Yum.
No walking today, but I did swim most of the day, making sure I was treading water and moving about.
I then raced around dropping them all home, drove bus home and left the kids with a half cooked meal to finish off while I raced out to a meeting.
By the time I got home I was STARVING – and munched on the girls leftovers.

Thursday (today):

I woke at 5am with a  shocker of a migraine. UGH. I managed to push down some cornflakes – but only so I could take some pain-killers and went back to bed. 3 hrs later I had J make me some toast with butter. More pain-killers – More sleep. Then I had toast again at 2pm when I finally felt well enough to get up.
I hate that I slept most of the day away, but it is nice to feel good again.I find the nausea is the worst, I wish I could just vomit and move on. I really dislike that I get migraines. They ruin a good day of life.

I did managed to eat a good dinner – eggplant and spinach curry with a steamed potato. Delicious.
The good thing about this week is that finally! my fridge and pantry is cleaned out. There is no more crappy food to eat in there. And the stuff we do have is hidden away, either just out of sight or actually hidden from me {read lollies – can.not.be.trusted!}
So tomorrow I have planned to do a weekly menu – something I used to do religiously. So back to it I go – I need to get more routine in my day, as lunch is my tough time and a plan of what to eat would really help.

So my week… laid out in its ugliness. But with some good points each day. I just need to make the balance better – more good then ugly each day and I will be right.
In one year I will have succeeded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days later I actually begin…

Yep, my ‘new me’ was a bit of a false start.
Or perhaps I could call it an ‘ease in’ rather than a ‘cold turkey’ start.

I began well, but as the day wore on it got harder, and while I didn’t eat the amount crappy food like I would have in days of old {looking at you Dec 2016}…. I did mindlessly munch on some chips, had a few extra lolly snakes and a handful of shapes, all which I certainly did not plan to eat.
I did take my girls to the Movies {SING… it was excellent!}, and thankfully/ luckily I did not have to deal with the popcorn issue – as my 12yr old has braces and popcorn is a no-go due to the unsightly teeth sticking properties.  I took along above mentioned lolly snakes and shapes… and for a while sat between the girls, passing the foods back and forth, pinching a bit each time – but my mind was saying repeatedly…. you don’t need these… so I gave  my willpower muscle a bit of a stretch and asked one to swap seats with me, stating that it would be easier for them to eat if I was not in the middle.
I grabbed my pre-planned apple and had that instead.
And I felt better for that small achievement. For that is what they are at the beginning of weight loss… small achievements that stack up. The tricky thing at the beginning is that there are only a few – so the strength of the small achievements for use in future prevention is low… but you have to keep on making them regardless. Although I know  that in a week there will be more and more that have added up to be strong – and these will carry you through easily to the next test. The building of willpower muscle.

Did I meet my daily goals that I set? Kinda, sorta.

• Clean out the fridge and pantry – get rid off/give away all the junk food, biscuits, chips, lollies, dips, cheeses and soft drink – partly, I threw out  and froze some things, but certainly not the level of having a garbage bag in the pantry and tossing stuff. 
• Eat none of the above – I ate some of the above….
• Eat good healthy foods – which includes vegetables, fruits and lean protein – yes, although could and will get better.
• Track on my WW app and stick to my daily points – again, partly, I think I stopped once I needed to add the ‘Shapes’ to it.Stupidly I got scared.
• Drink 2lt of water – YES
• Go for a 10 min walk – Nope.

Hmm… one fully completed goal – and lots of half done. I guess it was a definite ‘ease into it’ start.

Yesterday I got stuck into crochet early…new project!! and didn’t even hop on the computer for hours. But if I transferred all those daily goals to the next day… I did them all successfully bar the walk.
So good day all round. And one to keep building on.

Today I got up early and did the walk!!
Lying in bed at 6:10am wide awake, I mentally discussed with myself how stupid it was to be lying awake wondering if I should go for a walk… I wondered for over 17 mins….  I know I could have been thinking all this while I  WAS walking. So I got up, stumbled around find all my walking gear and set off.
My timer was set for 7 mins.
This was partly due to my really uncomfortable and sore achilles…. grrr…. and even more so due to the mindset that just getting out the door is the hardest part. I have written of this over and over again… pushing my butt out the door with only a minuscule time limit for a walk is enough to make it happen. What I know and try to keep secret from myself is that I will love it once I am out there and will keep going. I have proven that this works for me over and over again.
Here I wrote the very same thing….remind me again. and I am sure I could go through most of my previous blog entries and find it 100 more times.
It is something to remind myself of – something that works – something I need to continue to do to be successful.

Daily goals:

• Track on the WW app – stick to daily points/achieve that blue dot!
• Walk 10 mins – Happily I have already walked for 15mins
• Use my hand weights – start a new routine – found an easy one and did it as soon as I got back from my walk
• Drink 2.5lt water
• Do the pantry…
• Spend some time with the girls doing fun things…

Today is HOT here – 37deg. Glad I got my butt up and walked already 🙂 I can be smug all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m one of ‘those’

New Year – Start Over.

I’m beginning it all again – my weight loss journey.

I have officially reached that point… where I feel like total crap.
My body is not working in equilibrium, my feet hurt, I’m stiff and sore when I get up in the morning or up off the couch, my clothes do not fit, I hate photo’s of myself, the self-hate talk is getting stronger, I’m unfit, unhealthy and full of excuses.

I have been trying for some years now to reverse the slow gaining of weight, but my busy life is always an easy excuse for mindless eating, buying shitty food and eating too many lollies. I have got to put a stop to it. I cannot keep gaining.

I have also stopped blogging about my weight loss or lack of… and I want to begin again. Personal accountability for literally the world to see.

So 2017 is the year.
And while I would have loved to have begun on Jan 1… well I used my busy life excuse once again – a house full of interstate guests and crappy food that was sitting on the table was too much to resist. My willpower muscle is weak at the moment.

But.. the guests left this morning. So today I am going to start with the small steps needed to begin to rebuild my willpower muscle and my desire to be a healthy me.

Daily Goals:

• Clean out the fridge and pantry – get rid off/give away all the junk food, biscuits, chips, lollies, dips, cheeses and soft drink.
• Eat none of the above.
• Eat good healthy foods – which includes vegetables, fruits and lean protein.
• Track on my WW app and stick to my daily points
• Drink 2lt of water.
• Go for a 10 min walk.

A good start. And achievable. SMART goals.

Right, I am off to begin the day.

It is a beautiful one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching – one week in.

So I got my registration approved & informed the school in the afternoon {that had been calling me twice weekly to see if it had arrived} and they called me at 6am the very next day to come in and work!

Eeeeek.

My first day as a teacher was last Wednesday and since then I have worked 5 days. I am slowly getting used to the rhythms of the school, the ways of students and the life of a teacher.
I have the great advantage of attending the school, supervising the students to work through the detailed instructions left by their regular teacher, making sure they all stay safe throughout their lesson and sending them on their way. I have no marking, no lesson planning, no reports to write – other than letting the teacher know how the lesson went.
It is a nice way to work, especially at the beginning of my career, but I can see why teachers love to have their own class – building a strong relationship between yourself and students certainly helps in behaviour, students approach to actively working on and completion of school work – and of course attitudes towards the teacher.
More than once I have experienced the ‘your not our teacher’ attitude and behaviour. I feel I am handling  it all okay, but have learnt so much in 5 days and as always have a lot more I can and will learn.

But so far, I feel like I am going okay. The school seems happy to have me each day, and I am booked for the next 3 days already.
And I won’t hide this fact – being paid to do this work is certainly a delightful part of it.

~~~

Health:

I am still on ‘light duties’ with my achilles tendinitis  – it is getting so much better – as in I can walk to school and back and it does not bother me. I have been going to see a physio every two weeks and been doing some strengthening exercises every 3-4 hours {or when it is possible to do so}.

 

 

 

I am.

I am a teacher.

I have received my registration, and I am cleared to work.

As a teacher.

Wow.

I think I need a moment to let that sink in.

 

I hate shopping.

Today went a lot better than yesterday. Thank goodness for that!

I did miss a few of my goals – such as drinking less water than I wanted –  and not doing 3 x 10 mins walking.
Instead I took my two girls clothes shopping – there was plenty of walking round and round and round. And then back and forth to the change rooms -> clothes racks for different sizes.
I did do 10,000 steps – most of them at the shops.
I actually hate clothes shopping – or any shopping. I am not a buyer of ‘things’. So taking the girls today is a big thing for me.

On a side note – I have one daughter who wants bikini’s, flowy tops, pastels and lace… and the other wants camo shorts, tops with slogans such as ‘yeah nah’ and tiger socks. Such a huge difference between the two of them. Both unique characters.

I also tracked all day. Keeping within my WW SP range, and only eating one biscuit, a milk coffee, instead of going nuts with the sugars. I feel much better for dropping the amount of sugar.