Diary

Today marks my first official day of summer.  My students and I spent our final morning together first, at an assembly and then just together.  We talked about lifting one another up as we step into the world together.  I reminded them to share who they really are, to share their love.  And there were tears.  With five minutes left and all of the Bamboozled jelly beans tested, my kids suddenly rushed me, gathered around my legs with tears in their eyes and I couldn’t help but join in.  Parting ways with my 2015-2016 class was especially heart-wrenching for some reason…  I am going to miss them terribly.  Bradley says that I say that every year, and I suppose that’s true, but it doesn’t change the acute sadness that accompanies saying goodbye to 25 little blessings every year…  But conversely, how lucky am I to get to know those 25 sweethearts every year?  Pretty dang lucky.  Anyhow, the dress they made for me turned out beautifully and I was proud to wear it to school and to the after school staff party.  🙂

Unfortunately, I got home from my last day of work, full of summertime vigor, and Bradley decided to go to the library.  On his way back, a lady ran a red light and hit him, probably totaling his car and leaving him with an injury in his hand- you know, the hand he uses to draw with, play the guitar with, play the piano with…  It’s a little unnerving.  We laid low today, took a walk and chased our tails in circles arranging insurance visits, seeing the doctor and all the other fun stuff that comes with an auto accident.  An old friend of mine (BFF circa ages 11-14) came by and it was incredible to sit with someone who knows me three decades deep.  It was like stepping into familiar shoes or smelling that unique home smell- natural, unforced and really pleasant; worth a repeat for sure.  We also made our plans for the summer with goals near and far.  If we follow this plan, there will be a no bummer summer indeed!  I’ve decided that the car wreck will be our one and only bummer of the season, ok universe?!!  Im really proud that each of my kids has a solid running goal- Jude wants to run a 5k and Gigi is training for the half marathon!  Personal goals of mine are also to smash book more often, run 3-5 times a week, train for the half marathon, weight lift, lose 8 pounds (maybe), hike locally a bunch, create and stock a teachers pay teachers account and spend time loving on my kids.  Sound reasonable?  😋

Today we broke our ‘not running’ streak with the first run since 5/30!  Yahoo!  In fact, this week I actually met all of my goals: I dialed back the stress level by taking care of my jobs as quickly as possible, I walked twice and ran once and I got my nutrition back into control.  Well, mostly.  Baby steps, right?  I have a tendency to move at a snail’s pace and do things slowly because I fear failure in this area so much, so I’ll definitely take a ‘getting there’ process week.  The hard work will come, again.  I’m giving myself until school is officially out before I return to my running and eating plans in earnest…  Which brings up something interesting: I went on a big ole bender including a relatively large share of ice cream and sour patch watermelon candies, no exercise and very few vegetables and only gained two pounds.  It’s a little frustrating to think about.  I bust my booty eating right and working out, trying to strengthen this machine I live in, and it’s odd that such a dietary and exercise shift to the negative didn’t have a greater impact on my weight.  To be clear, I’m not complaining, I just think it’s really weird.  

Moving forward, I have two and a half days of school left.  We have a somewhat normalish morning on Monday, but then it’s all an endgame from there with parties, read ins and fun stuff to close it out.  It will be a great ending.  I’ve finished report cards and put away most of my classroom.  I feel oddly still, this June, as I’m usually packing boxes full of my stuff as I’ve moved almost every year, except one, during the last five.  I’m actually saying goodbye to my kiddos, hugging them, playing with them, laughing, singing and doing all the stuff that kids remember.  It’s been fun.  

Yesterday my own two finished out their shared time in elementary school.  She’s off to junior high, next year, while he is no longer a primary students and stepped up to intermediate as a 3rd grader.  It was our last morning for a picture like this as separate schools also have separate start times and our mornings are about to get a little more complicated with a bus added into the mix.  I hate to be maudlin, but it’s one more measure of distance between us all as we continue to spread out further and further.  It’s incredible, the rate at which life flies by.  I feel lucky to live it with this much love…  But I do wish it would slow down just a tad.

{Meet our newest family member: Queen Freddie Sparkles Zool Littlejohn}

This summer we are determined to strengthen our familial bonds.  We are headed to my parent’s to pick up our new little puppy family member, a good visit an some lake time, first,  followed by a road trip to Northern California.  I’m so excited to hike the Redwoods as a capable, fit and healthy person for the first time.  Bradley and I haven’t been since we were 26 & 27 years old and I was easily 290 pounds.  I remember he wanted to hike the Avenue of the Giants and it just seemed like too much for me at the time.  Not anymore!  Finally, miracle of miracles, we’ll close out our summer with a trip to Hogwarts and Disneyland.  We weren’t sure we were going to go, but then the combination of an amazing deal coupled with the acute awareness that our daughter is rapidly coming into all kinds of adult information about the mythical and magical beings whom we invite into our homes, keeping the magic alive in our family seemed important.  We went from a staycation summer to a summer full of adventure!  I’m so excited!!!

Vegetarian Times Magazine has a monthly segment in which they hand out carrots and sticks- a carrot for a job well done for animal advocacy and a stick to the people who make unkind choices when it comes to animals.  When I break from blogging it is always daunting to pick it back up without writing a novella about events that passed by, so this time I decided to choose two events: a carrot and a stick…

(Having nothing to do with animals except that none were eaten by me during this time!😂😜)

A Carrot Goes to…  The Oak Heights Staff & PTSA!

This is definitely prompted by an award I received today.  At our annual volunteer assembly I was honored with the Educator of the Year award from our PTSA complete with a framed certificate, apple trophy and golden apple pin.  As our PTSA president read the laundry list of reasons why I was chosen, I was flattered to realize that the extra spin I put on my job to make it a bit shinier and sparklier for my students is noticed.  I take the academics I have to teach and attempt to twist them into something fun, engaging and intrinsic for the kids (with varying degrees of success, it must be noted).  Sometimes I question whether it’s worth it and I think it’s safe to say that yes, it definitely is appreciated!  On my way across the courtyard, trophy in hand, a small group of my fellow teachers applauded me and told me how I brought spirit with me to Oak Heights.  They shared that they appreciate my friendship as well as my teaching.  I was speechless and so appreciative.  Any doubts are officially evaporated.

But then, on the way home, on the freeway, I started thinking about the amazing staff I get to work with.  I thought about how much I didn’t want to leave my last school and about how right it was that I had to move.  I thought about how from the moment I landed at OHE I felt acceptance, friendship and, dare I say, love.  I felt community.  I felt curiosity and a sense that I had something to share.  I realized I had joined a team of people who love students, every day.  People who believe in children, respect them, honor who they are.  I became a part of a community of educators with character, which I believe is so important.  Looking forward, I’m spinning with joy.  You know Snoopy, when he dances on his tiptoes with his nose in the air?  That’s me.  Not only do I already work with an amazing team, my principal has hired three teachers who have kind of a celebrity status to me and I’m all nervous, blushing excited to work with them.  Just…  Gush.  I love my job, my school, my students, my colleagues, just WOW.  I feel so lucky tonight.  It’s a good way to end the year!

A Stick Goes To…  Cap’n Not-Awesome and the Great Candy Caper

I’ve been on a bender.  I’ve already decided to forgive myself and not beat myself up.  While I’d rather if I hadn’t broken my  mostly pretty clean, four-year-running, self controlled eating streak, I have to cut myself some slack.  It took me this long to get here and there was definitely a trigger.

It all started with my last race.  After the Brooks Trailhead 5k I was pretty worn out so I decided to take maybe a two week break.  After the two weeks, my family confessed to me that life is better when the spector of my obsessive running isn’t breathing down our collective necks, so I decided to intuitively run.  There’s a reason I never tried this practice before- if I were made to intuitively run I would have done it before.  You know.  When I was gaining 150 pounds.  So as my exercise dwindled away to nothing, so did my self control.  At first I was like WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!?!  Why can I seemingly NOT STOP putting things in my mouth?  Food I never eat- like Sour Patch Kids and crap like that.  Admission: I ate an entire can of Lays Sour Cream and Onion Stacks on Monday during work.  I still haven’t brought myself to looking at the calorie content- because yikes, but it doesn’t matter now, anyhow…  I realized that when I stopped running, Zumba dancing, ellipticalling, weight lifting and walking that I also gave up my coping tools.  And guess what my favorite, all time best coping tool has always been?  If you guessed food, you are right.  

At this point, the scale mocks me from the corner of my bedroom so I am naive at the damage done, but I’m proud to say that once I recognized the problem (no coping tool for stress prompting an unhealthy reliance on food) I’ve been able to begin the process of steering myself back onto the road.  Thank goodness.

Within the stick there’s a carrot, though.  Never once during my bender did I think it was ok.  Never once did I feel comfortable consuming food of that quality  in that quantity.  Never once did I think I was going to slide down that slippery slope to the dark side.  I have the confidence now to know it’s short term.  I’ve got it and when it’s time I’ll turn it around.  Now that the binge/bender had its season, my inner fat girl is almost stashed back in her closet and I’m getting back to it.  Bradley and I have a running date this weekend that I have every intention of keeping.

Today I ran the Brooks Trailhead 15k.  It’s funny, when I paid for all these races back in January I remember thinking about how fun this was going to be.  How motivating.  How exciting.  I assure you it was all of those things, but I am glad the season is over!  Wahoo!  No more hour long drives to and from Seattle the day before the race to pick up the runners’ packet!  No more stress about how I’m going to drive to the event, park and get to the start line on time!  No more race route mystery!  No more trying to figure out if I should wear a heavier jacket because it might rain!  For now, it’s just the road, the sunshine (or rain), me and a friend from time to time!  That feels good.  Going forward, I’m excited to continue to train with Guinevere for the Beat the Blerch half marathon in September, but that’s months away…

 
I’m discovering what I really like and don’t like about race events:

• First and foremost, I love races that are seriously fun.  Seriously fun races are made for runners who are interested in making a personal record, interested in authentic athleticism and who really love running, but who also like a schmear of fun frosting over the top.  For example, the Beat the Blerch is one giant potshot at ourselves.  We mock running, laugh about how ridiculous we might be perceiving ourselves, celebrate by taking pictures of ourselves with Nutella and then go out and run at least six miles if not 26.2, thereby negating the loser status that we joked about while prepping for said race.  I like silly.
• I don’t like 5ks very much anymore.  While they are a great starting point for beginning runners and a great speed race for accomplished ones, I find that many 5ks are full of inexperienced racers who walk, which is fine, but they walk while blocking the entire path.  Aiyiyi.  MOVE!  I feel like if I’m the odd one being annoyed then it’s my job to find a more suitable race.
• I find that color runs, bubble runs and runs like those attract the most inexperienced and slow racers but they also attract my kids.  I love these races for that reason!  If my kids want to run through clouds of colored powder, go for it.  I’ll even run/walk with them because I don’t give a fig about my time. 😋
• I like races with longer distances.  These races are great because the runners spread out by the third mile in and you finally have space to breathe.  I like finding the pace with the people around me and supporting one another as we go.  
• But not too long.  Longer than 11 miles gives my brain hives and worry!
• Races that have a separation point (like, 10k go to the right, 15k racers go straight) are marvelous.  When I see that moment I realize it’s the extra challenge I offered myself and I always love proving up to myself!
• Seattle city runs have been my absolute favorite.  I run and hike through nature all the time.  It’s a rare day that I run across the Freemont Bridge, around Lake Union, across the University Bridge, past Pike Place Market, to the top of the Space Needle, across the Aurora Bridge, through freeway tunnels, past marinas- seeing my gorgeous city on my sneakers is just marvelous.  HOLLA SEATTLE!  It’s so special and makes me connect to my roots in an entirely unexpected and special way.  I literally cry sometimes when I drive past the Space Needle anymore (or My Needle, as I call it now).😂*
• Well attended races are nice because it alleviates ‘last place’ worry for me. 🙂
• I don’t like races where strollers or dogs are allowed.  If it’s a pet or baby run, fine, but those things really cause a hazard when you’re focused and running.
• Races show me possibilities.  Not only can I run all the way around Lake Union, now, which is ridiculous in and of itself, I also ran an extra 5k on top of that for badassery (to make the distance a full 15k).  I can run around Lake Union?  What witchery is this, I ask of you?!  Running that far doesn’t seem like it should be in my purview.  😋

Today’s race met a lot of the qualifiers for ‘good race’.  Well attended, at Gasworks Park, all over Seattle and fun stuff like silly signs, JP Patches statues, Ghostbusters…  But the best part was that I had a rarity: In general, I drive myself to and from my events.  I just don’t like to bother my family with excessive driving around at 6:00AM on a Sunday morning!  So usually I run across the finish line alone, to no one.  It’s not a hard thing to be alone, it is lonely, but not hard.  However, today Bradley and Jude came along because I thought parking would be a nightmare.  It wasn’t, but que sera, sera, the bonus was that I had people at the finish line!  It was so motivating to run toward that hug, that kiss, my boys…  The last mile was totally ran on daddy dust and my finish line was the sweetest one ever.  Even if the announcer did announce my age to the entire audience (and then said I looked 28-sweet man)!  My time stunk- 1:42 with 11:42 average splits.  One of my splits was actually in the 12’s and only one was in the tens, but I ran it all and only walked when I drank the Nuun, so it’s an accomplishment, no matter what (running and drinking means I get bubbles, burpy and sick so I walk if I drink on run).  Because I thought the race was next weekend, I wasn’t as trained up as I should have been, but I’m okay with that.  🙂  
*This season- not just on this race!

This week kind of slapped me upside the head and hollered WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?  I made lofty goals to start HIIT training, a run or two, some walks and if I felt like it, some weight work.  On top of that, I was supposed to keep my nutrition on point and start dabbling in macros.  😂👍👏 Yeah- the joke’s on me.

  I ended the week simply confused.  This morning I looked back on my week with a bit of shock.  First off, on Monday I realized that I had a 15k THIS Sunday, not NEXT weekend like I originally thought.  That put my running schedule on compromise, so I ended up not running once this week.  I only took a few walks…  I also just plain got busy.  During this time of year, school hits fever pitch with end of the year assessments/ projects/ celebrations/ assemblies and I totally got caught up in it.  As its the end of the year, the kids are also whipping up into their pre-summer frenzy and I’m just mentally impacted with the amount of projects and second-grader-ness.  I came home just drained every day.  We also had track practice, a track meet, variety show practice, and, you now, life to live at home and it just ended up being one of those weeks.  And those weeks usually end with me with an entirely skewed perspective of who I am, how I’m doing and the control I have over my health.

This week I ate when I was hungry.  Mostly I ate what I wanted so it was more carbohydrate- rich diet than usual.  I ate pasta one night.  I ate ice cream two nights.  I had one binge night where I ate some bites  ice cream, a bag of pop chips and a pudding- all appropriate serving sizes, but still, not terribly healthy.  This is week number two of being off track, so that’s frustrating.  However, I have not lighten up a little and allow for craziness and realize that thought crime and smelling nummy things is not going to impact my actual outcome.  I’m ok!

That said, having all of my habits out of whack also means that I feel fat one minute and svelte the next.  I feel hideous one moment and gorgeous the second.  I feel like I’ve got this eating healthy thing down, and then I shrink in horror at some of the choices I make.  I’m not sure if I’m coming or going right now, truth be told.  It’s weird and discomforting.  I feel exhausted from being too vigilant all the time.  I was looking at a picture of my family and me the other day and I missed myself from then.  When I thought about it, I missed the carefree way that I approached life. I missed not thinking and rethinking every choice I make to insure it’s the best one.  You see, these days making a choice to watch tv means missing an opportunity to play with my kids, hang with my husband, work out, research healthy living, write my blog…  I have a bajillion other chores that over complicate my life, most glaring is my health shift and I’m intent on staying on track, but I’m tired!

Anyhow, rant over.  It’s just weird, lately.  And guess who realized reading glasses are heavenly?  Moi!  That’s some soothing balm- I’ve wanted glasses since I realized what glasses were and looked longingly at my big brother’s pair that I wasn’t allowed to touch.  Now I have my very own.  Yay?

  

Last night I ran the Spring Beats 10k.  Yes- that’s right.  I said night.  It was really weird to participate in an official race at night.  All day long I was very aware that I had a race to run later that night, so I didn’t eat a lot, drank in moderation, stretched a lot…  And truth be told, I ended up running a pretty great race!  My goal was to run all my miles in less than 11 minutes and I am pleased to say that I met/creamed that goal!  As I was cruising along, the voice from Map My Run that announces how far you’ve gone and what your pace is told me I was running faster than usual and I decided to just keep that pace.  But I’d been running mostly uphill at that point and as the trail started sloping down, unbeknownst to me, my pace picked up!  When I realized u ran the next mile at 9:34, I decided to keep that pace…  And did so for one more mile.  From there I stayed in the mid-tens, but I’m so proud!  According to my tracking devices, I made my new 10k PR of 1:04!  I felt really proud!  Unfortunately, the 10k route was more like 10k with an extra half mile, because my tracker also told me that I ran 6.7 miles, not 6.2.  Races usually aren’t spot-on, but this one was a lot longer than most and resulted in the recorded time being 1:10.  That may sound silly, but I checked two different devices against it and both of them reported the same extra half mile irregularity.  I would be curious about what happened with other people, as well.  Regardless, it was a lot of fun!  If you’re a data nerd like me, then this is for you:

 

I was really looking forward to the after party.  I don’t usually do those kinds of things, so it was definitely stepping outside of my comfort zone to commit to a beer party after I ran six miles.  When I first read about it, I thought it was a bottomless beer garden for ten bucks.  I got a little excited at the prospect of partying, something I’ve not done since my early 20’s, so I bought the beer garden ticket!  I imagined me and several of my running buddies getting loose lipped until the wee hours around a cheap table in a pub tent.  The details came out a few days ago, though: my ten bucks bought two beers and you’d better be finished with ’em by 10:00 cuz it’s lights out.  Seriously different.  Cut to last night where we stood around in a tight circle, shimmying to Prince songs, chatting and getting plenty cold and full of beer as to be home by 9:30.  Was it different than I thought?  Yes.  But I had a lot of fun, actually, hanging out with Jessica and the Nicoles for the after party and I’d do it again.

  
Now today?  I have no idea what’s up except that my lunch is up.  So is my breakfast.  It’s not so good times for this lady today as I’ve been throwing up all day.  Don’t tell me it was the beer.  😛 I hate being sick so MUCH!  Especially stomach flu sick.  Just, no thank you.  Ugh.  Back to happier times…

 
{Jude and me at his Mother’s Day luncheon.  So stinking cute!  And has nothing to do with this post!}

My relationship with food has been changing so much lately and I’m starting to feel confused about things.  Food has always been my frenemy.  I loooove food.  First, it’s delicious.  Of course.  It is marvelous used to distract me from things as flavors burst in my mouth, giving a tiny, brief, yet powerful mini-break from whatever is lurking in my immediate future.  Food also happens to be one of my favorite hobbies.  I love to cook.  It’s a meaningful and necessary means of entertainment.  When I was a kid I wanted to have a bakery and I spent hours upon hours in the kitchen trying out cookie recipes.  As an adult, when a Saturday isn’t full of events, I like to spend the afternoon in the kitchen making a stick-to-your-ribs, comfort-food kind of meal, heavy with potatoes, cheese and slow cooking hours.

But food has also been my greatest struggle.  I have overused it for a distraction against stress and as self-love during my whole life as it developed into a series binging episodes and food hoarding behaviors that ended with me in a very dangourous position from a health standpoint.  I never thought I was an emotional eater until one night I was stressing about not eating everything in sight and I spied a bottle of diet coke.  I grabbed it,  guzzled it down and as it did it filled my stomach, then the carbonation hit and filled it out even more giving the feeling of being stuffed full of food.  It was like a switch hit in my brain ‘stuffed full’ and finally my need to keep eating finished off.  I realized that I didn’t just like the taste of food, I was also chasing the ‘hug’ my too-full stomach gave once I reached capacity and felt stuffed.  I immediately felt all kinds of embarrassment at the realization that I was one of those kinds of girls.  The ones who eat their feelings.  Ugh.  

Obviously food made me really unhealthy.   My relationship with it was an emotional one so food grew to mean much more than nutrition to me- it was reliable, emotional security.  So I ate a lot of it and I hated it.  I knew that each bite of ice cream, each extra slice of pizza, each time I justified nachos as a ‘meal’ that I was making myself fatter, unhealthier and the mountain top was becoming just that much harder to reach.  While eating, having and being fat isn’t a bad thing, for me it was an unhealthy thing.  Immobilizing thing.  As much as I wanted to eat all the yummy foods, another part of me wanted to never eat again.  I didn’t want to make healthy or unhealthy food choices, I didn’t want to think about portion sizes, I didn’t want to constantly battle temptations.  I just wanted food to be easy and easy looked like making black and white decisions: bread, BAD!  French fries: BAD!  Celery: GOOD!  But in doing so I often ended up making things harder for myself as cutting myself off from ice cream and full fat sour cream makes me crazy and then flips me right back into a binge cycle.  It’s vicious.

Cut to now, 149 pounds down and trying to figure out how to eat, and it’s hard.  My relationship with food is so convoluted and confusing.  For so long I’ve just loved or hated food.  I’ve controlled food by hiding it in my bedroom for future ’emergencies’ and I’ve also ‘cleaned my cupboards’ to protect myself from making bad choices. I control my calories.  I eat so flipping intentionally that it’s exhausting.  Now I’m trying to find the balance.  I don’t want to obsess over food anymore.  I am constantly walking the slippery slope of eating too much, not enough, too junky or ridiculously healthy.  This week I was really busy- like, I ate my lunch on my feet kind of busy.  The kind of ‘so busy’ that I returned home each day with a nearly full lunch sack, so I justified eating a little extra here and there as I cooked dinner to ‘make up’ for what I missed earlier.  I did a good job of not night eating, but I also did a good job of lying to myself a little bit because, while I didn’t eat after 7:30, I made sure to pre-eat enough so I felt like I got what I deserved when I missed eating my lunch.  Why couldn’t I have just moved on, eaten my dinner and been done with it?  Instead, I made sure to eat all of my allowed calories, even though I wasn’t even hungry.

Am I actually saying anything here as I’m rambling on and on about food?  I suppose I’ve just illustrated the point around me being confused about food as I’m trying to renegotiate my relationship with it.  I just want it to be easy.  I want to eat an apple and not congratulate myself that I made a healthy food choice and then continue to remark, in my head, over and over about how much “I really love apples, so sweet, crunchy and delicious- the perfect satisfying carb for a healthy eater like me!”  Just eat the damn apple.  I also don’t want to get my sour cream out and have to justify and obsess over how big of a spoonful to take because I really want to just get out the tortilla chips and eat the whole container, just like that.  (What IS it about sour cream, I ask of you?!?). I just want to eat it.  All of it.  Food dominates my life and I’m sick of it.

Maybe that’s why I’m looking into and trying to figure out macros now.  It seems like a formula.  While it does involve a high level of control with all the weighing and prepping and serving sizes, it also takes a lot of the active thinking about food out of the equation.  Suddenly, instead of good or bad foods I just have the thing there to grab.  No worries over serving sizes after I’ve prepped it all on Sunday, or attempts to convince myself of one thing or another, I will just be eating it because it’s the thing I’ve planned to eat.  I don’t know…  It’s a task that never seems complete, this whole getting fit and healthy thing.  😉  But as the bracelet I wear every day on my wrist says:  
  

  
It was interesting being a part of the accountability group this week.  It became really important to me to meet the goals I had set and I pushed myself a lot harder with the added peer pressure.  I ran on Wednesday and then actually (almost)  met my mileage goal of 15 miles, total, with two Zumba classes.  Today I needed to run nine miles to meet my mileage goal and, in my opinion, I definitely got close enough!

It made me really think about goals and how powerful they can be.  I have the meta goals in mind, all the time, and hope that those with guide me.  However, after returning to keeping the goals for the week in the forefront of my mind really drove me a lot harder.  I wasn’t as willing to let myself off the hook and did things I didn’t want to do just to meet the goals. 

When I started the group, I looked up guidance for goal asking and found an acronym to keep your goals ‘smart’:

Specific – Rather than “go running,” say “run ten miles this week.”

Measurable – Can you tell when you have achieved the goal? I know whether or not I make my mileage!

Attainable – The goal should be achievable (even if it’s a stretch). More than 30 miles becomes a time issue for me to do weekly.  

Relevant – Each small goal should relate to whatever your bigger goals are. I want to be healthy and live longer.

Time-bound – Be clear when you will complete each goal. I make my goals in weeklong increments, guided by bigger time markers like ‘end of the school year’, or ‘by Christmas.’

This made me realize that I was relying on habit and long distance goals to guide me.  I didn’t have quantifiable, measurable goals; they were too ambiguous.  I wasn’t holding myself accountable and, as a result, I haven’t been making progress in the fat loss area like I want to.  I’m more pleased than I thought I would be with the accountability group.  I really and truly think it’s making a positive difference in my life!  

This week my goal is dialed back in the running area.  I have a 15k on Saturday night so I want utmost healing to happen before then.  I am running just once or twice and I’ll also dance Zumba on Tuesday and Thursday.  In addition to the working out, I’m stopping night eating, drinking more water and trying to wean myself off of the diet coke even more.  I’m also off but I’ll confess to a two liter purchased for Mother’s Day!