Haven’t done this in a while!

I’ve been thinking about writing for some time, but I haven’t been sure what I wanted to say. What direction do I want this to take? Do I want to talk about teaching? Do I want  to talk about my family? Do I want to talk about my weight loss journey? Do I just want to make snarky comments about life in general?

Decisions, decisions.

So maybe we’ll start with a little bit of each and ease back into this blogging thing.

Teaching: I’m on the downward slope of my 18th year of being a secondary English teacher, and I have to say, I finally found my way back to my love of this job. I don’t know if it is the school I work at, the people I work with, or medication, but whatever it is, it’s workin’ for me! I have a renewed sense of purpose, and I’m actually writing my own curriculum again. It’s been such a long time since I could muster up the interest in my subject to create a lesson for my students. Call it burnout, call it laziness, call it whatever you want, I’m just glad it’s finally gone. Like a cloud lifting. I even started implementing flexible, alternative seating options in my classroom thanks to generous donations from the parents of my students and my husband’s ability to fix anything. My classroom looks amazing, and I can’t wait until we move out of the portables and into the main building next year!

My family: My husband is AWESOME, and we are going to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary this summer. He has had to travel quite a bit for work lately, but hopefully that will settle down soon enough. Our girls are 17 and 13, so we always have teenage girl drama at the house, but both make good grades, and are generally OK people to hang out with, so we feel like we haven’t completely messed them up. The oldest will be a senior next year, and she hates any mention of anything having to do with or resembling adulting. She hates driving as well. Apparently this is a common thing with kids her age. Weird. I couldn’t wait to get my license! The 13 year old will be trying out for the high school dance team at the end of this month, so pray for us all.

Weight loss: On May 9th on last year, I decided to cut carbs in my diet. I have hypoglycemia, so carbs make me super tired anyway. I wanted to see if I could manage my low energy levels and tendency toward depression by changing my diet. I will tell you, I have tried EVERYTHING and the kitchen sink to lose weight in the past, but this time I was doing it for something else, and the weight loss was just a nice side effect. What a difference! When I started looking at the food as either fuel or poison, it finally clicked in my brain that I could eat whatever I wanted, but that didn’t mean I should. To date, I have lost 40 pounds, and I am thinner than I’ve been since before I had children, and I think thinner than I was in high school. It’s very cool to be able to buy new, smaller clothes, but it’s even better to feel good and awake at the end of the day.

I’m in such a good mood that I don’t have any snarky comments, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something soon, and I’ll be sure to share. 🙂