I have always struggled my whole life feeling like I am not one of the cool kids.  I am sure a lot of you, especially those of you who struggle with your weight have felt this too.  I am always doubting, and have been since I was a kid, if I fit in.  Now almost 15 years later I can look back and high school and go.....what was I worried about.  I had friends, good friends.  I had lots of acquaintances, I did lots of activities.  Hell I was class president and the friggin prom queen (I plus sized prom queen, but queen never the less).  Spending my life in high school I know you don't get to be class president or prom queen because you are a social outcast that everyone hates.  Yet, I always worried if so and so liked me (both boys and girls),  I still sometimes feel that way now.


I joke, but sadly it isn't a joke, my high school is like high school all over again.  The adults are very clique.  It is like there is a cool kids club.  Individually all of these people are amazing and wonderful people and would never in a moment every think to exclude people or make them feel left out....it is just something that naturally happens.  Then add to that someone who is ultra sensitive like me...it makes me feel like I am in fucking high school all over again.  For me this has been a struggle.  Since Chics don't do history.....with the exception of one girl my immediate 13 coworkers are all male.  So I get left out a lot of their activities (and i am being honest i have no desire to play golf, drink beer, or bowl....ever) but then there is another group.  A group in which I am friends with almost everyone individually, but never feel like an insider.  It isn't something malicious, it just happens.  I have a busy life, I have two kids, a husband who on occasion suffers from depression, and I am involved in a lot of school stuff.  Most days I don't care about not being included in inside jokes or missed invites.  Yet, other times I care a lot.  Recently something happened (nothing bad just a small thing) that made me feel like I wasn't a cool kid, that I was an outsider.  I hate that feeling and I know if the people I worked with every knew that their actions made me or anyone else feel bad they would be devastated....they are not mean people they are just the adults who were the cool kids in high school who never knew what it was like to be the outsider-they don't know what one small inside joke can make a person feel so left out.


I know I shouldn't feel this way because just as in high school I am well liked and have great friends at my job.  Some of these cool kids are in that group.  More than that I have my mommy friends.  My girl friends who are like me.....surfing on the outside of the cool kids not necessarily wanting to be part of the group, but not liking being left out either.  Maybe what I need to realize is what I did 15 years too late about high school.  I don't need to be part of the cool kid group...in fact those people aren't the ones I liked spending time with....the people I enjoyed are the other people standing around outside the cool kid group who are the best.  Those were my friends in high school and maybe I need to do what I never did in High school which is to say Fuck it-I don't ever need to fit in because none of those people who matter-who matters is my family and those friends who really know me and care-Those who I have inside jokes with, the ones I take swimming lessons with in the summer, those who call me to tell me about embarrassing moments at puppy class because I would understand.  Those are the folks that are important.  Those are who matter.....not the cool kids who in reality aren't as cool as I think they are!

Although I did better this week and managed to loose almost all the weight I put on during vacation, I am still stuck at 217/218 depending on if I went pee prior to getting on the scale.  I guess I should be happy with that but of course I am not.  I want to be 150 pounds yesterday!  It is hard though trying to figure out how to get healthy but not be obsessed.  I sort of have no middle ground.  I am either eating like a beast or going crazy over calories or points.  I guess I can say maybe I am in the middle ground...I have not counted a point or calorie in two months and have stayed at exactly the same weight.  I have been recording my food more which I think is important and have been trying to up the exercise. I realized that I need to stop using my kids or hubs as an excuse not to exercise when in all honest I could exercise if I really wanted to....hello DVD player!!  So there it is....my goal is still to be as close to 210 for the start of school in four weeks but still trying not to get too wrapped up in it and enjoy my vacation.  


On a good note though I got confirmation from the University of New England and somehow the professor never got my course but the University received it.  So...they took it via email and it should be graded by the end of the week so provided I get my ass in gear I should be all set to go for a salary advance which should help with my forever freak out about money!!  How is everyone else doing?  How are you fairing with weight loss or life in general?

Wee One 2-Looking for boats

Hello Mommy I see you-Notice they are backwards so she can see someone very small

Looking out at the lake

One of Wee One 1's legs...this is them looking good they were 5 times this size earlier in the day

Papa Hunt agreeing again to take another photo

Self portrait

Me and Papa Hunt at Chapel Pond

Chapel Pond

And she is spent!!!!

I do plan to do a proper post on our vacation some time this week but I have been a wee stressed lately. While on vacation my oldest somehow got attacked by killer mosquitoes and we had to go to see a doctor up in the wilderness which was a special treat...not to mention my wee guy was so sad.  Then the day we are leaving to go home I notice that my other wee one has what appears to be a viral rash.  So off to the doctor we go on Friday.  Nothing treatable just something viral.  Then starting last night she has the poops.  So sad which makes her a sad little panda.  Add to this I recently ordered my transcripts for a salary advance at my job...and noticed that one of my courses was listed as an F because I never turned the course in.  Well I hit the fucking panic switch not only had a paid 400 dollars to take the course, and spent a shit load of time doing it, I would not have to complete not two but three online courses this summer.  Holy shit.  Now I love the hubs but he is not one to say "Hey babe you have school work to do why don't you run off to start bucks or the library and I will watch the kids all day" not his bag.  So that means I am looking at three online graduate courses to complete during nap time and while the kids are in bed.  Awesome.  Needless to say my face has exploded and I am I may kill someone for a ho-ho.

Only kidding....sort of

As of today I am recommitting to journal and exercising (although going the gym with the baby with the shits isn't happening) I want to be under 210 pounds by the start of school.  That will take a lot of hard work but will also put my at my thinnest pre-baby number two.  I don't think I need to go crazy and start counting calories or weight watchers or things like that.  I just need to be more honest about my exercise, food consumption, and water.  I am also hoping to post a bit more.  I always want to post then go....oh it will take to long.  Hell this post only took me five minutes.  So that is where I am at...how is the bloggy world doing?

So for over a month now I have been broken up with weight watchers.  My weight has gone up a bit and down a bit but has stayed relatively the same.  I was so scared that if i stopped weight watchers if I stopped obsessing about calories, if I stopped being obsessed with my food in take and exercise that I would clearly balloon up 40 pounds instantly.  Am I happy that I haven't lost any weight in six weeks, well hells yes.  Yet, in the spirit of honest I am not really trying.  I am getting used to trusting myself.  Learning to be ok where I am.  At some level that is a lesson I need to learn.  That I am beautiful now at over 200 pounds just as I was when I was 160.  That I can't spend my life wishing I was a number on the scale or a size in clothes.  I know the truth, I wasn't happy when I was a size 10 and 160 pounds I wanted more-I know that the first step to really being happy is being happy as I am.  The next step is working on healthy.  For me that is eating cleaner (cutting the shit food out and focusing on healthy natural foods) and exercising on a regular basis.  I want to use the summer to create some better habits to head into this school year.  I had really wanted to be heading out of the 200 for when school starts, but if I can learn to enjoy my life as I am now, enjoy my time with my babies, and begin to set a great example for them...in reality that is more important them some stupid ass number on the scale.  I am not saying that 200+ pounds is healthy...its not.  But what is more unhealthy is always being obsessed with food and weight.  So here I am standing still and that is ok.  I did weight watchers, I did obsessive clean eating, I did counting calories and for August 1, 2011-to now I have gotten to about 7 pounds lighter than I am now...the difference I am not beating myself up with every "choice" I make.  Kelly over at http://www.curvyfitgirl.com/ mentioned what she was not willing to give up in her journey.  I said I could never give up coffee....but for me I have realized it is not what I won't give up as much as what I need to give up....What I need to give up is the obsession that has run my life for as long as I know.  The quest to be something other than what I am right now.  That needs to go...the weight that will come off in time.  I have to trust with modifying my eating habits slowly but surely, exercising regularly, and finding a happy balance in life will ultimately lead to a thinner me...but for now I need to be ok holding still.  

So summer has hit and that has allowed me to do much more reading.  I finally was able to pick up and read a book that has been on my to be read list for ages now.  Middlesex.  I have wanted to read this ever since Oprah picked it as her book club books years ago.  Also, one of things that I teach in Psychology at my school is about Gender, Gender Identity, and all the fascinating parts of transgender issue etc.  I can honestly say that this book was nothing like what I expected.  Instead of being about the life of a transgender person it was more about this their unique family history as well as their childhood memories before they knew that they were transgendered.  There was only maybe three chapters of the entire book that were dedicated to what his/her life was like as a transgender person (she/he found out in later adolescence).  So in my opinion the book was a let down in that capacity in that I was expecting to read more about the life of a person living a transgendered life etc.  Yet, the book did tell the fascinating family tale of this child's family.  In terms of writing, story telling, and characters this book was really good, in terms of what I was expecting not so much.  Then again perhaps that is the point of the book, that a person's life is not so much how they live their life as a transgender person but that first they are a person with a history just like everyone else.  I gave the book three and half stars (Three for what I thought its as about, four for great characters and good story).  

This weekend we traveled up to New Hampshire (an 8 hr round trip from our home in CT) to lay to rest my husband's grandfather.  This was an awkward trip for me because I was torn.  I was torn between my husband's history and feelings of his grandfather and his cousin's feelings for him.  See Papa Hunt did not have that storybook grandparent relationship with his paternal grandparents....he quiet honestly did not have a relationship with them.  There are a thousand reasons why...no of which are really mine to tell...but they are valid reasons.  On the other hand my hubby's female cousins did have a storybook relationship with their grandfather.  For him, the sun rose and set on his granddaughters and he cherished them with love, affection, and praise.  He was the kind of grandfather that I had...the kind I miss every day when I see my dad with my kids and think about how much my grandfather would have loved my kids.  I am getting emotional just thinking about it.  


For my husband, his grandfathers death has been hard because he isn't really grieving for the relationship and love that is lost....but really for what was never there.  Add to that he hears his cousins discussing what a great and loving man he was to them, how he stepped up and took the male role in their lives when their own father died when they were younger.  For him it is hard to wrap his mind around how they loved him so much and had an amazing relationship with his grandfather that he and his brother didn't. So this weekend was more of a familial obligation for him and his brother...and to be there for their father who was close to his dad.  For them there wasn't sadness for anything more than what could have been.  My hubs does not understand why I cried like a baby at the burial...during taps and watching the honor guard fold his flag.  He doesn't get why I whisper words of comfort and give huge hugs to his cousins...well at some level he does but he sees it as me being fake because I obviously did not have a relationship with his grandfather.  


I am not being fake, I know what it is like to say goodbye to a grandparent like him...to never be as so loved by one person in your whole life.  It wasn't until I had kids that I felt so  loved as I did by my grandfather.  I am not being fake because the tears I cry are for my husband who has been so hurt by a lack of relationship with his grandparents that he couldn't see what I did.  I saw a man who always believed that men are men (strong manly men who don't show affection and who take care of their women).  I saw a man who knew his granddaughters needed doting on, but whose true pride came from his grandsons.  When he would introduce his grandchildren his granddaughters were introduced as pretty or beautiful or nice...his grandsons were introduced by their colleges and later by their careers.  He was clearly proud of his grandsons but in typical old school man fashion he never spoke about his pride in them or his love for them.  


So when I cried at his burial this weekend it wasn't fake it was tears for his cousins for what they lost, tears for my hubby and what he never was able to have with his grandfather, but more than than it was tears for all the I love you's and all the I am proud of you's that were never said and could have made a world of difference in two boys lives...because I know what it means to have a grandparent tell you those things every day.  It was bliss.  And for that is what I was mourning for....for his cousins who now must live without that bliss and for my husband and his brother who never knew it.   

Yes you read that correctly, I am jealous over summer school.  My husband's that is.  I love going to school, I always have, I always will.  Over the years I have earned one Master's degree, the credit equivalent of a second one (CT recognizes 30 credits in an area related to your content area as a masters degree) with almost an additional 15 credits beyond that.  I hope to by the end of next school year have 30 additional credits beyond my second masters (which had a done a program I would get to put PhD after my name).
Most of these classes have been online and not exactly what I would call academically challenging.  They were a lot of work and a lot of time (most of my classes required 40 page papers with them) yet it wasn't a "real" program.  Well Papa Hunt got offered a deal he couldn't refuse.  A master's program run out of his high school by an amazingly good University in CT and we think most of it will be forgiven under a loan forgiveness program.  This degree would allow him to advance both in his career as well as on the pay scale.  I am so happy for him, so proud of the work he is doing.  But insanely jealous.  I want to be the one to go back to school!! I want to take these great classes!! Yet, I took the easy way out of online courses to move up on the salary scale as fast as a could to help our family.  I don't ever regret that choice because it was the right choice at the right time for me and my family-Yet those who know me know that one of my great goals in life is to earn a PhD and teach at the collegiate level perhaps once I retire from HS teaching.  I know that my someday will come to go back to school (maybe even once I am retired) but it is still hard not to be jealous.  I also know that jealousy isn't good for a marriage so once I whine about it here, in my safe place I will let this go.  That is what has to happen because I can only be a little bitch about this for so long.  My hubs got lucky!  Also, in reality my kids need there Momma-They need me to be home doing the mom gig in the summers, not slowly plugging away at a third masters or PhD.  They need me to do all the things that I can't do when I am working.  So I promise folks, I will stop giving the hubs the stink eye as he leaves for class this upcoming week and know that someday (even if I am 57-which is when I can retire) I will go back to school the way I want to!  Hell lets be honest when I have 57 and retired I most likely won't give a shit about that PhD and just want to sit my ass on vacation and enjoy retirement.  We shall see.

Me giving the stink eye and pouting about not going to school!