Yeah, it was lame, but one of my better lame attempts. "TGIF! Time for ABCD!" just about says it all for me.

Weight change this week -- 0. Almost a total flat line again. Oh well, I am down 3-4 since school started and only 6 from goals so I'm ok with that.

Kathleen, glad to have you. We have open house on Monday. I may use your homework schedule for the parents I see.

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

at Beth and her fellow coworkers. I will have to share this one.

Welcome Kathleen! I love your assignment list also. Having put 5 children through school, this is what my house looked like. We also had the 5 minute before bedtimne, I have to have a piece of poster board for school tomorrow. I do not miss those days .

Beth, I think spec. ed has had a bad rep in the pass. I know when I was first teaching, I subbed in some classes where the kids worked in their workbooks in the AM and played games after lunch, or napped. In our middle school, we have 2 teachers who watch TV just about all day. This was so funny. 2 years ago for a short period of time, I had to float between buildings. One day, the pricipal asked me if I had so & so in my class for a day. I replied no. He told me somehow this boy ended up in the wrong classroom and went home and told his father all he did in class was watch TV. I let the pric. know that my TV had not been on all year and if I had a strange face in class I would know it. It seems neither of the 2 teachers ever owned up to it, but we all knew it was one of them.

Judy, my weight has stayed the same this week and I am not 6 pounds from goal. You will get there! You are doing great!

Well, I am off to clean my house .

have a great weekend!

Susan ( AKA Northwest)
207/177.5/160

Susan, dreamsicle fudge basically tastes like the ice cream. My students love it.

I haven't done much this weekend. I went to work Friday and made a few tests for this week and next and then attended a faculty meeting that lasted an hour and a half. Then my parents came to visit me on Saturday. And we went around town, shopped and did a few things. I had to buy a new vaccum cleaner, and my dad did the vaccuming for me today. That was good. But, I had to do all of the dishes after they left.

Tomorrow is the start of our sixth week. That means two weeks till fall break. YEAH!! And I only have to teach one class tomorrow, and give a test.

Guess, I should go grade a few papers for tomorrow. Have a great week!!

Grading papers .....it's a constant no matter whether you teach Pre-K or college. They just get more complicated. I totally believe there is a special place in Heaven for English teasher. You could just go ahead and shoot me if I had to teach English. Thank heavens I don't have an excess of essays to grade. I'd retire.

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

We had a meeting after school tonight and the guest speaker brought loads of candy with her. Of course she set the bowls all around the table. I was really tempted to eat a Bit-O-Honey since I rarely see these, but I resisted temptation and did not eat any~~patting myself on the back here.

It is just a good thing I did not have this meeting on Monday or Tuesday. I was REALLY stressed those days. My 5th graders are taking Sanford Nine tests all this week and Mon. was reading, with math yesterday. I read all of the test questions to them and they were so frustrated. I just find it hard to believe that people who are suppose to be experts on kids come up with these crazy testing ideas. I think they should be tested on their ability level, not grade level. OK, I am through venting!!!

Hope everyone had a great Hump day. Only 2 more days to ABCD .

Susan ( AKA Northwest)
207/177.5/160

Only one more day to ABCD!!! Woohoo!!!

This has been a very trying week. I can't even make myself rehash it all again. I'm at the point of trying to find a way to gracefully make it through the rest of this school year so I can move on to greener pastures. I'm also conciously trying to focus on putting a positive spin on things as my attitude cannot handle any more of this *****ing and whining and complaining that I've found myself doing on a daily basis. I cannot do anything to change my circumstances at the moment, and it is making it harder on myself by constantly getting and staying angry. And I'm sure my students pick up on it. I know my friends and hubby have. Who wants to hang out with someone who's having a bad day seemingly every single day? Not me. So I have to practice not becoming that. From now on there is going to be lots of positive "self-talk" going on in my brain. I used to love my job. I have to find a way back to that.

I hope the rest of you are having a great and glorious week. As always, the offer to stop by to help us celebrate ABCD is open tomorrow evening. I think it will be a large gathering this time. See you then!!!

Beth (aka Fuelmanswife)
http://www.marykay.com/bethsimmons

ABCD and I'm so tired I don't even care. Another teacher and I had to leave this morning at 5:00 for a 9:00 meeting at a school just under 200 miles away. Thanks heavens we were ahead of most of Dallas-Ft.Worth morning rush hour traffic. We finished the meeting and were home --- another 3 hour drive by 4:30. Now that's a quick turn around trip. As expected, food was sub sandwiches and cookies. I picked the meat and cheese and avoided everything else. I did have an Atkins Morning Start Bar for emergency. The Cinnamon bun bar @ a cost of $1.00 was really good.

Beth, I'm sorry your school year is off to such a rough start. It sounds like it's time to apply the door rule --- go in your room, shut the door and deal with only the kids. Avoid contact with the irritating offenders whenever possible. Send a kid to the office to pick up your mail, and get into "out of sight/out of mind" mode.

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

Beth, I stayed too long at your house for ABCD last night. I ended up drinking 4 whiskey & diet Cokes at dinner. When am I going to learn I cannot drink any more? My head aches, but I really needed the alcohol release after the week of testing.

I agree with Judy, avoid the problem people as much as possible. I have worked with 2 people who were total physcos. It is not fun!

Judy, I have had the Morning Start bars and they are pretty good. I keep the bars and candy at school in case of emergencies. I have ate the candy every day this week. It does not stall me and it has saved me from being tempted.

BTW, I have changed my sig weight.

Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend .

Susan ( AKA Northwest)
207/176/160

I guess I am really lucky. I don't seem to experience half the stuff you guys do. Of course, I am at the college level, so that makes it different.

I spend two days a week at an "extended campus" and two days at the main campus. So the president, deans, and all the big shots are on the main campus, and they are in a different building than I am in. On the other campus, there are two full time faculty (I'm one of them); several part time faculty who are only there long enough for their classes; one person who does recruiting, applications, well you name it she does it; one maintenance; and two student workers. I love that campus, it is so laid back and we have lots of fun there. We pretty much do and say what we want while there.

On Wednesday nights, I have a night class that is supposed to get out at 8:45, but we usually get out earlier than that. Then it takes me 30 minutes or so to get home. Well, this past Wed. I didn't get to leave campus until after 9, I actually had students still there at that time reviewing for their test next week. So, I didn't get home until 10. I was tired the next day.

On Monday, the President of the college and the system are going to be on all of the campuses. That means, I have to make sure that I am really dressed up that day. I am on the extended campus that day, and sometimes I wear jeans when I go over there.

Have a great weekend. And don't celebrate too much!

How many more days to ABCD??? I think my job is driving me to drink. It was another rough one. I did well for most of the day. Keeping the door shut really helps becaue the kids are not the problem. I also have several good friends who make it doable most of the time. But I do find myself wondering (almost daily) what kind of professional suicide it would be if I asked to be let out of my contract mid-year.

I had a great weekend. I went out with an old friend from HS Friday night along with another teacher from another school. We went shopping in Atlanta and then to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner (pretty over rated if you've never been to one). I cleaned house most of Saturday and then watched some college football. Sunday was mostly a church and socializing day. It was very fun and relaxing.

Diet and exercise basically suck right now. I'd like to think that my general grumpy mood is making it harder for me to make good choices. Maybe I'll get my DH to go walking with me tonight. It is a really nice fall day.

I hope you all are having a Marvelous Monday!!!

Susan - We enjoyed your wonderful company at ABCD Friday night! Hope you're all better now.

Beth (aka Fuelmanswife)
http://www.marykay.com/bethsimmons

I don't dare take an ABCD. I'm afraid that I'd just sink into the bottom of the bottle. I'm TIRED!! Yesterday morning DH left for two days to take his parents to a funeral. What did I do to celebrate being "single"? I worked 8+ hours on school stuff -- from after church to bed time essentially-- and about 5 of those hours at school. Today I didn't get home until 5:30. What am I doing on this computer. I still have hours of work to do to catch up! Arghhhhhhh.

Beth, keep practicing the closed door lesson plan. Eventually you will achieve the out of sight, out of mind state. If it doesn't get better, start looking for something else. If you can give them a month's notice, maybe you can get out by Christmas.

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

Hey Elyssa, I didn't mean to skip over you ---- glad to see you stop in. I've really considered moving on up to college. I have considered applying to supervise student teachers when I retire from actually teaching. I saw your journal a day or so ago......good luck in getting back on track. Get hold of things before they backfire on you.

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

Judy, I am definitely getting back on track. I see how too easy it is to let the weight come back on. Actually, it has been too much moose tracks ice cream, bars and shakes, and pb&j. I have just finished my third day of induction and so far 2 pounds gone. So, I am at 148 yet again.

I had just gotten lazy lately. Needing something that fixed quick, cause I usually waited until I was extremely hungry. Not now, I already have my lunch for tomorrow fixed. And I have all of my salad fixings ready to go, just have to throw them in a bowl together. I'm getting back to basics and it feels good.

I've never taught on the middle/high school levels. I'm not qualified to teach those levels actually. One my friends put it that I was too dumb to teach middle/high school and that my other friend was too smart to teach college (she teaches middle school). But, we do have all of the faculty meetings, committee meetings, statewide meetings, students at all hours, community service - internal and external, and all kinds of other stuff.

Beth, I'm with them. Keep the door closed. Sounds like this year isn't the greatest. Never noticed you venting quite like this before. Guess things have changed on you. Hopefully, it will get better. If not, are there other options you can look into? The stress can't be good for you.

Thanks so much to all of you for your support. Thanks for letting me have a place to vent.

Today went really well. I'm just doing my thing, keeping to mostly the kids, and it's working well for me.

Thanks again!

Beth (aka Fuelmanswife)
http://www.marykay.com/bethsimmons

Beth, glad your day went better. Venting is a good thing -- your family will appreciate it. Just keep to the kids and save adult conversation for those that have something to talk about other than the problems at school.

Elyssa, I truly believe that getting lazy is the biggest problem in staying with this WOL. Those big carbs are just too easy. So far, so good for me. I have been able to find easy and varied stuff to keep on plan. The closer I get to maintenance instead of loss, the more worried I become about letting up. I've been there before and don't want to ease up again. This time it's for good! ( This morning I was 143.)

Judy

180/144/138
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill