Debbie Downer

I have good news to start this post off with, but the rest is going to be all Debbie Downer.  Sorry.

Good news first...I have lost a total of 22 pounds!  I had been hovering at the same number, that for some reason I didn't mind posting on IG but can't bring myself to post here, for what seems like months now.  I felt like I was stuck in a revolving door.  Playing the ol' "one step forward, two steps back", but instead it was "one pound lost, two pounds gained".  It was frustrating and depressing and I finally just said to hell with the scale.  Well for about a week.  And then I couldn't take it anymore.  And honestly, I expected to see a gain.  I've been working out, but not as hardcore as I had been, and my eating while it hasn't been awful, hasn't been great either.  So needless to say I was shocked and excited when I was down 4 pounds and finally in a new set of numbers.  Definitely a much needed boost.

Now, onto the blah stuff.  If you follow me on FB or IG, you already know that one of my cousins committed suicide yesterday.  He was younger than me, and not someone that I saw often, but it doesn't make the blow any less painful.  He was still a part of my life.  A part of my family.  And something was so terribly wrong that he felt his only option was to end his life.

I have never been able to understand the hows and whys of suicide.  I just don't get it.  I can't imagine getting to a point where I felt so helpless, so desperate, so alone, that I could actually kill myself.  I know he did not have the best childhood.  His father went to prison when he was a little boy.  His mom, my aunt, did not take care of herself and basically ate herself into who knows how many illnesses, eventually sucumbing to them all.  Leaving poor Jeffery an orphan.  People in my family stepped up and took him in, and he eventually settled in with an older cousin of ours who raised him and got him graduated from HS.  I don't know a lot of details about his life after graduation.  I know he was in and out of college, in and out of jobs, in and out of jail, but that's about it.  He was a sweet kid and I always hated hearing about his struggles.



However, I never imagined that his struggles would lead him to eventually walk outside of his home, and hang himself from a tree.  Who does that?  How can you do that?  I get sick to my stomach thinking about what could have possibly been going through his mind as he took the steps he did to end his life.  I don't know how long he was there.  I don't know who found him.  I don't know if he was on drugs or if he left a note.  I don't know why he did it.



I do know that I am sad, and I am angry.  I'm sad because he was my family, our family has been facing many trials and tribulations lately, and this just completely rocked us again.  I'm sad that my 87 year old Meemaw has to attend a service for yet another member of her family that she has now outlived.  I'm angry because it was selfish.  I'm angry because last week innocent people, people who wanted to live, lost their lives in a bombing and in an explosion.  Angry because there are people dying with cancer and other terrible diseases, that want to live, that are fighting to live.  People who would love to have the air in his lungs and his beating heart.  And he just ended it like it was nothing.  It's not my place to judge him.  It's not my job to figure all of this out.  But I damn sure wish I could.



I love my family dearly, but sometimes they exhaust me.  Before this even happened with him, the shit had hit the fan and I honestly was thinking that some of my aunts/uncles have just gone batshit crazy.  And now this has happened and I have a feeling things are only going to get worse.  I'm hoping and praying they don't, but that doesn't seem likely.  Anyway, I just needed to vent today.  I always have to be the strong one.  I am always everyone else's rock.  And right now I just don't want to be.  So today, I'm going to be sad.  And weak.  And mopey.  And tomorrow I'll try to pull it together and get my armor back on so I can do what needs to be done for my family.



Well, it's not really.  But it will be.

Transformation Tuesday

Yesterday, we had a random "teacher inservice day". I dread these days. I would rather have a classroom full of monkeys than sit in meetings all day. However, I have no choice in the matter, so I did what I had to do. The plus side to inservice days is that we get to leave for a long lunch and usually get to leave an hour early in the afternoon, holla! Since I live four streets over from the school where I work, and Christopher works at the bank that is located on the street we live on, we met up for lunch. I hadn't had breakfast and I was starving. Ok starving is a bit dramatic, but my stomach was doing some serious grumbling.

We went to a place called, "Mama's Kitchen" which serves up exactly what you would think. Home cooked meals your mama would make. At least the kind of meals we make here in Texas. I made bad choices yall. Chicken fried steak, potatoes, green beans. It was so good, but also so bad. After I ate myself miserable and got back to work, I got sleepy. I was in a food coma and started thinking about how badly I didn't want to go home and work out. I tried to think of excuses, none came to mind that were legit. And then I decided to give myself a reality check. I went to our school's website to look at the faculty pictures that we took back in August right before school started. I remembered that I hated my picture, but didn't remember how bad it was. Until I saw it again. And I cried. You know it's bad when you see a picture of youself and you cry. I didn't even recognize the girl in the picture. The one with the bloated face, no neck, double chin, and fake smile.

Who was that girl? How did she get to that point? Excuses and bad, unhealthy decisions, that's how. And then I looked at a picture I had taken earlier in the morning (becase you know, IG needed to see my mug early on a Monday morning). And again, I was crying. But instead of sad, shameful tears, they were happy tears. Tears that represented the hard work I have put in to make the changes that I was seeing in front of me. The scale has not been kind to me lately. I feel like I have been gaining and losing the same 3 pounds for months. I have felt defeated so many times because of a stupid number. In reality though, I should be focusing on the changes that I feel, and now that I see. I hear people talking about "breaking up" with their scale, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do. It's not helping me in any way, and instead of feeling triumphant because of the progress I have made, I feel overwhelmed at how much farther I have to go because of the number goal I had set for myself.

I will get there, eventually. There is no quick fix to the damage I did to myself. My lifestyle and habits are changing, and will continue to change as I truck through this journey. I'm so very thankful to all of my friends and family who encourage me and support me day in, and day out. Yesterday when I did the side by side picture comparison, I sent it to Christopher. I imagined that he saw the same fat girl I saw during that time. His reply was, "I like them both." It never dawned on me that he's going to love me no matter how fat or skinny I get. Does he like the changes he sees in me? Yes, I think so. He tells me often when he notices things that are changing on my body. Would he still love me if I was that fat girl in the picture? Yes, he would. And I know this, because he did. The past year and a half as I packed on the pounds and was lazy and miserable, he never stopped loving me. When I cried all summer and complained about being fat and unhappy and dreading putting on a swimsuit, he never stopped loving me. That makes me love him even more that he accepts me for me, no matter my size. But that doesn't mean I'm ok with being fat and complacent. He deserves someone who is happy and healthy. And I am doing my best to be both of those things these days.

P.S. I would pay a large sum to the person in charge of our school's website to take that mothereffing picture off of there. I should send her an e-mail right now...

Happy Tuesday!

Here chicky chicky...

Welp, it's that time of day again. The time when I get to put the litte monsters babes down for nap and have some "quiet time". Well, it should be quiet time. But it's not really. I've got kids snoring. Talking in their sleep. Oh and baby chicks chirping (or as one of my kids said, "barking like a chicken" hmm...) so loudly my ears are ringing. Seriously, this shit was cute the first two days, now I'm over it. Whose idea was it to do this anyway? Oh wait, it was mine. I digress.

Our behbehs.

"No pictures please."

This morning I said (without meaning to), "Those chicks need to pipe down!" Now, that may sound bad, but at least I didn't say "Pipe the fuck down" like I was thinking. I know for sure at least one of the kids heard me say it because during centers, when the chicks were challenging the kids to see who could be the loudest, he went over to them and said, "Pipe it down birdie!" Hopefully they won't go home and repeat that to their parents. But hey, like the saying goes, "Don't believe everything your child tells you happens at school, and I won't believe everything he says happens at home." Win win situation if you ask me.

This made my day! I know at least one of them is listening.

Moving along...today I mailed out three sets of goodies to some unsuspecting ladies. If you haven't jumped on the mail wagon with me, you absolutely should. I love getting REAL mail, not bills, or flyers to attend a church revival, or an appointment reminder from the dentist. I enjoy doing "Random Acts Of Kindness". It's good for the soul :) So, e-mail me at thataggiegirl09(at)yahoo(dot)com with your name, mailing address, and birthday if you want to join in on the fun. You never know when someone might just make your day!

Have a fabulous Friday friends!

So What Wednesday

It's Wednesday and you know what that means...

So What...

*If I'm about to make an awesome construction paper chain to countdown to the last day of school. It's 36 days b-t-dub.

*If Sunday I almost lost my shit in a convenience store parking lot because my ex "lost track of time" (aka slept in even though he knew what time we were meeting, hello alarm?), making the boys late for baseball practice. Oh and I had to feed them because at 11:45 they had had NOTHING to eat. And Father Of The Year goes to...

*If I am super sad that one of my most challenging students, who turned into the cutest and sweetest, up and moved, and I didn't get to say good-bye. He had made so much progress academically, had matured tremendously, and had stolen my heart with each, "Me love you Ms. Robot!"

*If the new student I got that started the first week off by screaming, at the top of her lungs, "Haaaaaayyyyyyy hayyyyyyyyyyy!!!!" for hours on end, has now gotten comfortable with me and found her "happy place" is in my lap, or my teacher chair, or wrapped around my legs.

*If there are two dozen baby chicks currently on their way to hatching in my classroom as I type this. That's totally  normal, right?

*If one of my students told me his daddy went to jail because he was smoking "that stuff that smells bad". Clearly he's not the recipient of the Father Of The Year award either.

*If here in the great state of Texas we have started the day at 75 degrees, and by the time I leave work it will be below 50. I have on flip flops, with a hoodie in mah bag. That's how we roll.

*If I am obsessed with the show New Girl, and was super disappointed with last night's episode. They're better than that!

*If my new bra is stabbing me in the side and armpits and everytime I move I fear the wire is going to slice through me. Clearly a man designed bras with wires. Bastards.

*If I'm out of so what's...

Happy Hump Day Yall!

It's Monday Again, And A Guest Post

Hey you guuuyyyyyss! It's been a while since I posted here in blog land. Life has been, well life lately, and I just haven't had the time. Between work, K&K's baseball practices and games, working out, and trying not to go crazy because of Texas' bipolar weather, there hasn't been much time to sit down and write! Today's not really any different, I'm just here to say hi! And to let you know that I did a guest post for Kate over at Not Your Typical Jersey Girl! It's just my cleanse update (because that's what was going on at the time she asked me to post) so if you haven't read it yet, go check it out! And check her out, she's a doll! Hopefully later today, or at least one day this week, I will have some free time where I can post somthing with a little more substance.  Until then, I leave you with a pic of the cutest 6 year olds around. Oh and their mama too.

Happy Monday!



The Click

Alright yall. I did it. I completed the 10 day cleanse. And no boyfriend or child was harmed. I'm going to tell you now that this is going to be the most bipolar post ever. I'm having mixed feelings about my results, as you are about to read. Don't say you weren't warned.

As of this morning, I am down 5 pounds. Now, I know that 5 pounds in 10 days is nothing to complain about. I am excited to have those 5 pesky pounds gone. And 5 pounds in 10 days is more than I have lost in a long, long time. However, as a human being, and more specifically a woman, who compares myself to others (even though I know I shouldn't), I had gotten my hopes up that I would lose 7+ pounds, because that's what everyone else was losing. Spare me the lecture, I know everyone's body is different and blah blah blah. But it sucked not to see more. End of whining.

While the number on the scale was not what I wanted to see, I am not disappointed due to lack of commitment to the cleanse. For once in my life, I actually followed the rules. Ok, that's not totally true. Saturday after the baseball game the boys had McDonald's and I ate a french fry. Yeah, AH fry. As in one. Uno. I consider the fact that I didn't scarf down both of their fries, Kutter's cheeseburger and Kason's nuggets, and their Dr. Peppers, a huge effing win. Usually when I get a whiff of McD's fries, I lose all my senses and indulge myself until I'm in a greasy salty coma. So, besides that one fry, I was good. And not only was my eating perfect, I was in the gym 8 out of the 10 days. For at least an hour each day, sometimes more. I've been doing the arm workout that Mama Laughlin posted, and I had started C25K a few weeks ago. There were a few days that I actually did the C25K TWICE. TWICE people.



For real, I went up 3-5 pounds in each exercise of my arm circuit this week.


The first day that I finished my arm circuit, squats, and C25K, was drenched in sweat, and thought, "Hey, I'm not THAT tired, why not do this AGAIN?" was the moment that I felt/heard the "click". The click I've been waiting on for the majority of my adult life. The day I was sitting at work and instead of giving myself an anxiety attack thinking about everything I needed to do when I got off AND work out, and I made my plans to revolve AROUND working out, I heard that click again. Yesterday, when I turned down an invite to go have drinks and food at my favorite Mexican restaurant with my co-workers, so that I could work out and finish strong on the cleanse, that click damn near deafened me.  I've been at this weight loss thing for a while now, and while I've been thinking all along that it was important to me, I realize now that I wasn't making it a priority. I used to hate those signs that said "If it's important to you, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse." I hated them because I knew they were true, and I knew that I was still in "excuse" mode. I was able to juggle my job, my kids, and all of my other responsiblities, as well as working out, throughout the entire cleanse. There's no reason for me to stop now.



Some other non-scale victories are that...My clothes are fitting better. My tummy is getting flatter (if you consider rolls being less bulgy flatter). My arms are getting those fun little indentions we all love to see when we flex. My legs are getting stronger and have less jiggle and more muscle. I've learned the difference between eating when I'm hungry, and eating when I'm bored. I've learned how to eat until I'm satisfied, and not until I'm so full that I'm miserable. It doesn't matter what our parents used to say about starving children in Africa. It IS ok to have food still left on your plate at the end of your meal. Does this mean that I'm never going to snack again? Nope. Does this mean I  won't partake in a delicious meal and some delicious beverages when we go to Gruene this weekend? Absolutely not. But I'll be more aware of what I put in my mouth and how much twss. 




So, did I get everything I hoped for out of the cleanse? No. I got more. Even though I'm not thrilled with the amount that I lost, I am thrilled at the insight I gained and at the strength I found in myself. I plan on following as many of the cleanse "guidelines" as I can on a regular basis. And in a few months, I may do the cleanse again. So there you have it folks! P.S. As I type this, I'm wearing a medium t-shirt and a new pair of 9/10 capris and I feel amazing in them :) Holla!

So What Wednesday...

So what...

*If today is the last day of my 10 Day Advocare Cleanse, and I feel like at 12:01 a.m. I'm going to go devour everything in my refrigerator. Just because I can.  I kid, I kid. Sorta.

*If this is a 4 1/2 day week for me and I'm still bitching because it's only Wednesday. I'm ready for May people. Let's get this summer started.

*If last night I wanted to sucker punch some little kids while I was in the dugout at K&K's baseball game. I work with kids all day long, I don't have time to go be "Team Mom" to a bunch of boys who have zero home training. Talk back to me again child and you will feel my wrath!

*If the black and white chevron dress I ordered to (hopefully) wear this weekend came in, and it's not the material I thought it was, and is pretty much see-through on the white parts. Awesome. I'm sure Aaron Watson won't mind, right?

*If I'm not doing anything special for my kids for Easter because a) they will be with their dad this weekend and b) Mama's going out of town for the weekend and I'll be lucky to get us all packed and out the door Friday, much less have Easter crap ready.

*If I still haven't written that guest post that I'm supposed to send out by tomorrow...

*If I have a scab on my forehead because apparently I got a lil crazy with my flat iron and burned  myself...and didn't even realize it.

*If I'm rocking 3 day dirty ponytail hair. I see no point in fixing it in the a.m. when I'm going to eff it up in the afternoons during my workout. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. See: Lazy.

*If:

Happy Hump Day!