I felt like I was floating, disconnected from the world of school today. It was very strange. other teachers felt it too.
Thanksgiving week was lots of fun! My parents, sister and her two kids came in last Sunday to Longview and stayed with us until Tuesday. It was a crowded apartment, but it worked. We had yummy dinners and took the kids to Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, where my parents were pleased to find they qualified for senior citizen discount--the movie theatre that is.
After a partial day Tuesday--at which I spent extra time getting grades done so I wouldn't have to think about them by today, and a hurried annual dr appt, we drove to Houston. Luckily, we stopped for gas and food in Livingston, and while we headed to find food, we noticed that our side of the highway had traffic backed up and continuing to get get farther back. Luckily, we had tried a new route from La Porte last trip and so we instead decided to take 146 down instead of our normal route. I think it actually saved us time--and the toll.
Wednesday we spent with my WHOLE family :-D of two brothers, two nephews, sister, parents, and us along with uncle and family and grandpa. We headed to Galveston and had a very yummy dinner and more yummy dessert at two fun restaurants. Some things are just more fun with little kids. My niece is quite the charmer. She's also a budding chocoholic, and really enjoyed the fish tanks at Rainforest Cafe. It's a pity my camera batteries were dead. Hopefully my mom will remember to send me her pix.
Thursday was lots of fun just lounging, chatting, laughing, and eating. I jumped around on the trampoline with my niece....not so good for my knees...especially as the weather was beginning to turn again. But, it was fun. My aunt had mastered my grandmothers favorite pumpkin crunch recipe, and the apple pie was really good. I hear tell all the stuffing was good, but I really hate stuffing. Probably goes back to memories of being forced to eat oyster stuffing even though I had told my father I don't like oysters. He made me try it and then made me eat all that was placed on my plate.
Friday, we followed my parents to Whitney where yet another set of relatives lives and had met together. It was quite a long drive....since we detoured past college station due to the game---after having been stuck for a bit of it's traffic going out houston for an hour... We had more good food, conversation, and fun there until josh and I headed back to Longview....that was a tough drive near the end for me. Sheer determination had me finish the last 20 minutes. Oh, and I added another warning to my collection. I think I'm up to 5.
It was really good to spend time with my family--especially my sister. I think I understand a bit more of the situation. Just keep praying she has the strength and wisdom to know what to do.
Saturday and Sunday were resting days.
Today I was back to work and I came home after working out and doing some grocery shopping and am now catching up laundry and dishes. We have this new nifty techy program at Curves that I started today. It records your workout intensity on the machines and tells you when you aren't working hard enough. It'll also track progress in the computer. I'm still recovering from one round of it.--we normally go two rounds. I also discovered that I had regained the two pounds I lost since my last weigh-in for keeping weight off during the holiday challenge. So, now I get to work on bringing it back down.
At the grocery store tonight I discovered Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper. OMG GOOD!!! (I am drinking the diet version by the way....since I want to LOSE the weight and save my occasional moderations for other things)
Well, I had some blood work done at school about a month ago as part of a cheap screening. Having some results that weren't quite normal, I took the opportunity to set up an appointment with a new doctor so that I could actually have a "primary care physician" who is familiar with my medical history.
The good news is that I found a really good doctor who is very nice and will explain anything to me and doesn't treat me as if I'm some whining worrying hypochondriac. He explained all the unusual results to me--mostly a "you probably were sick with some virus>' But then he also warned me that by some standards, I could had a slight "pre-diabetic" blood sugar level and that I really need to work on losing weight and eating low-fat and exercise more to lower my bad cholesterol. He said that if I were a normal healthy human, my slightly elevated numbers could be generally tolerated. However, as you are all aware of, I'm not a normal healthy human being. I'm in okay shape right now because I have excellent good cholesterol, but I have to bring down that bad cholesterol and triglycerides. Given what little bit I know of my family history, it's possible that this is hereditary--really, why should Josh have good cholesterol and mine be bad? We all know his diet is WAY worse than mine....(even though he IS diabetic--but it is under control as far as he can tell...)
Oh, and he recommended trying a different dosage on the Nexium for my reflux issues, prescribed some medicine for emergencies on the nausea, and happy meds for emergencies with migraines--I've been having troubles for the last two weeks with bad headaches and migraines. So we're going to see if this is just an allergy phase of migraines and he's going to try and understand more about my heart arrythmia before we try preventive medicine--especially because I usually don't get migraines often enough to really go down that road.
Good thing I'd already started on the whole diet and exercise thing. I've lost 13 pounds so far :-D and I'll invest some of the money earned into the next challenged "Hold it off during the holidays".