Sistah Pat

Down 1/2 pound this morning to 184. Hey! I like that!

Finals are driving me crazy. Andrew and Steven are now facing final exams all week. Since our school uses block scheduling, that means 7 finals. They both worked hard this weekend. Andrew worked like a dog and didn’t get finished. Steven worked like a dog “for him” and is claiming to be sick this morning. He let a bunch of last minute work pile up on him and although he worked all weekend, I suspect he didn’t have time to get ready for his geometry final today. I’ve hassled him and he’s sticking to his guns. He is too sick to go to school. I finally relented although I have some misgivings. Andrew’s U.S. History teacher gave him a study guide for the final that’s composed of 80 questions that require short essay type answers. Completing it is worth 80 points and he can use it on the final itself. So, with that much at stake, he worked like a dog but still wasn’t able to get it all finished. He’s going to get out of his 2nd block class today and come to the library to try to get it finished. Second block is an elective and he’s already taken that final. If it’s this hard on the parents, what must it be like for the kids? In order to improve attendance during the last week of school, all classes are supposed to give rigorous final exams everyday this week alternating so that each day, the student has one or two finals. Poor kids…I remember when we were in school and the last week or so was so relaxed. It was like we had finished everything and could finally relax and do some fun stuff the last few days. Of course, that was almost 40 years ago.

12:40 - Lunchtime!  It’s been crazy this morning with everyone trying to get everything done.  I also discovered that Steven’s portfolio entry for science is not what he was supposed to do so I guess I’ll spend the evening standing over him as if he were 7 instead of 17 to get it done the right way.  There’s no school tomorrow (which is crazy at this point in the year) because of elections but I guess I’m going to be cracking the whip all day on Steven.

Even though there are “NO PARTIES ALLOWED” this week, there seem to be a lot of goodies floating around.  I’ve been offered pizza, cake, and cookies today.  I’ve been good!
Mostly because I know if I eat a piece of pizza, I’m dead, I don’t like store-bought sheet cake, and the cookies are not homemade.  If it was some kind of exotic homemade cake like Red Velvet or something, I wouldn’t have a chance.  Ditto for homemade chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies.

4:30 - Home again.  I’ve been helping Steven with his science lab report/portfolio piece for the last hour.  I don’t think he had a clue about what he needed to do but he steadfastly refused my help for the past week on getting it done.  Once I sat him down and said, “Don’t even think about moving until this is done.  I’m going to help you whether you want me to or not.” he seemed to show an interest in taking care of business.  I realized very quickly that he didn’t have any idea how to get started and I pushed him through the first couple of sections.  Now he’s sitting on the other side of the table working away.

7:15
So there I am, blogging away and Steven’s working and I’m kind of munching on some rice cakes (I think I’m overdoing the rice cakes) and Crystal Light and DH says “Aren’t you going to exercise this afternoon?”  Well, duh!  I forgot about that.  How can I exercise everyday and then just forget?  Anyway, I shot upstairs and did my treadmill thing.  I’ve noticed that I’m getting a lot stronger and have a lot more stamina but I never wrote anything down in the beginning so I decided to start keeping track of it every now and then.  Because I’ve had a long day and it was NOT fun tonight, I only did an hour.  I kept wanting to quit but I decided I would write down what I did tonight and knowing that I’d be posting it kept me going for an hour.  Thanks, Amigos!  If I hadn’t known someone was watching, I might not have gotten through it.  I’ve noticed that my ankle is much better.  Don’t get me wrong, it hurts about the middle 30 minutes of my workout but I know it’ll ease up if I can just work through the first 40 minutes or so and I can tell that I’m getting a lot more flexibility and strength in it.

 As soon as I said we were having veggie burgers for dinner, everyone vanished.  Donnie decided he wanted some leftovers and Andrew and Steven wanted to fix a frozen pizza.  Darryl asked Holly if she’d like to go to McDonalds and they took off.  I guess it’s just me and George Foreman.  Maybe I should tell them we’re having veggie burgers more often.

9:30 I’m hungry!  I just totaled up my calories for the day and I’m at 970.  That’s about what I’ve been eating.  Why am I so hungry?  Let me see what I can find.

10:15 - Weird!  All of a sudden I got really hungry, cold, and sleepy.  I put a frozen entree in the microwave, went out and sat in the spa while it nuked.  Now I’m warm and full and going to bed.