Episode 88: Cred

So, I went to a conference this weekend. It was pretty awesome. I learned a lot of educating stuff, and I got to hang out with and strengthen my relationship with some of the teachers around my district.  I would like to see my district, a quite large one, learn to use the information that we were given at the conference.  I would like to see deeper collaboration, time spent on learning, getting to know each other and having a good time doing it.  I think that is what a lot of my district has a problem with. There are so many bitter teachers that sit around and complain about how awful the district is and how we have no choice in the matter without actually wanting to do anything.  They need to change that attitude... and I guess, so do I.

Mostly I need to change my attitude about weight loss and getting healthier.  I admit, my attitude isn't the greatest.  I could be a lot better.  I complain that I hurt; I complain that I'm tired; I complain that I'm just not in the mood.  But when it comes down to it, I think there is a little bit of fear there as well.  While I'm not entirely comfortable in my body.. ok.. I'm not comfortable at all in my body, I have found that I'm sort of scared of the expectations of other people.  I think I had a blog post about this about a month or two ago. I haven't really been blogging and I'm tired of saying "oh, I'll get back to it" and then not, so I'm just going to do it. I was losing weight and being healthier when I blogged, and so I just need to do it.

I am finding that I blog more about what I think people should hear, or do things that people think that people expect me to do or say. I have great ideas, but I'm awful at enforcing them on myself, I guess.

So anyway, to today's topic.  (I did mention I ramble, didn't I?)

At my conference this weekend, they gave out these Google Badges, one for each level of learning.  If you went to certain sessions, you got the badges and you had a certain amount of.. well.. teacher cred.   I got all three badges from the conference, and I was able to brag to one of the administrators who had joined us.  And then AM and I were discussing weight loss and Weight Watchers and points and such. We use an app called Fooducate sometimes to tell us how healthy certain foods are.  These foods come with a certain point system.  Point systems just work sometimes, you know.  And badges. Which is why Weight Watchers sort of worked for me.  It was a definitive, easy to count amount of points, and you could earn little trinkets and badges and such.  You got weight loss cred.

Unfortunately, I have lost all of my cred. Excepting the 4 pounds I seem to keep losing and gaining back (and 4 pounds really isn't that much to me) I am at the heaviest weight I can remember being ever.  I need to get my cred back. Maybe the way I can do that is with stickers, or badges that I create. I could have a smallish one that is for each pound that I have lost. A bigger one for when I lose 5% of my body weight, a bigger one and a non-food item that I want when I've lost 10%... and keep going from there. I would often lose 10% of my body weight with Weight Watchers, but because that was the last bit that you could lose before they expected you to get your "lifetime" goal of whatever the BMI recommendations are (which for me are between 110 and 130), I would quit because I didn't have that reward system anymore.  I would have to lose half of myself and then half of that again almost to get down to that place, and that is intimidating.  Lost 30 pounds! Yay.. 10% of my weight, but then.. what after that. It is nearly 200 pounds without any sort of reward, just a massive slog and a lot of plateaus.

No, I won't go back on Weight Watchers, but I do need to start giving myself, or making myself badges.  If I could figure out how, I would post them to my blog, somewhere visible.  A whole stream of little stickery badges down the side, 230 of them for each pound I will lose. Give me some Cred.

Episode 15: Renaissance and Coffee :)

Sounds like an interesting book title, doesn't it?

So, first bit of news! I got my new Keurig!!  I got a serious bonus in overages this month and I earned a beautiful reward of a new Keurig coffee system.  It is amazing.  From the first sip of my cup of French Vanilla Roast to my last sip of the Hazelnut that I had today, the coffee is amazing. And! I can program it to make me a cup of coffee upon my waking up in the morning! How awesome is that!  But wow.. that liquid comes out hot!

So anyway... Yesterday was sort of a whirlwind and I had an amazing day with AH.  I woke up, took a bath, blow dried my hair (wouldn't want the extra water in my hair to weigh me down) and went to weigh in. I lost 7 pounds this week.  The outpouring of pride in me has been especially felt deep in my heart, and it makes me want to keep going... no matter how bumpy it's beginning to look on the outside...

So, I pack AH in the car and he sleeps on the way to the Northern California Renaissance Faire.  For some reason, I feel extremely at peace with this world.  As I enter the gates, I just become enveloped in the experience.  I nod my head to passersby; I politely bow my body to those in a higher position than I; I smile at fools and small children, and something inside me clicks.  It's like my heart settles and my mind sort of goes on autopilot.

The Ren Faire we go to is set up like a marketplace. There are a lot of shops and some stages, and games and more shops and gypsies and pirates and fairies and royalty and peasants and everything wonderful. There are bright vivid costumes, loud bustling talk as people haggle and negotiate and laugh. There are bawdy performances, there are street hockers, there are musicians wandering through the street playing their instruments.  This noisy, glorious, tumultuous experience is where I feel a deep sense of peacefulness.  I wander through the stores, glance at wares I am interested in (I got a lovely new leather bound journal for poems written by hand. The cotton paper drinks up the ink from my fountain pen, and AH got some pouches for his eventual garb. I even got a new silver barrette for my hair.)  I sit down to watch the Bold and Stupid Men show (though it is with different people, it is still amusing) and get a medallion stamped (This year's is a beautiful silver clad necklace with a claddagh on one side and the Green man on the other).  Everything put me at ease.  I felt that I belonged to this era of hand crafted books and cacophonous brilliance roaming through the streets of the dirt path that mapped out our way through the market.  It was wonderful!

We stopped by In-N-Out on the way home and I got to eat anything I wanted, as I still had all of my weekly points remaining, and I was glad that I wasn't eating the turkey legs and roasted skewered vegetables that were the fare of the faire.

We had a lovely time, and came home happy. He fell asleep on the couch, exhausted from an oveworked week, and I went to some poetry reading and spent time with great friends.  Altogether, a wonderful Sunday.

I am to bed.. It is time.

I love you all and hope that you keep safe and happy!

Tory