Christmas Break!

The kids begin Christmas break tomorrow! I felt really bad for Dylan. He said last night his stomach felt weird. He was looking forward to the classroom party today and my heart sank when I called home at 7am and heard Dylan had the "poops". :-( I bought some medicine to help ease that along with the usual jello, crackers, and sprite. I also bought him some sharp cheddar cheese. I slept on the sofa while he watched tv most of the day. Thankfully by the time Charlie got home around 2:00 he was feeling better. Of course now he says he "so hungry". I'm glad it was short lived. Sick kids on holidays or school breaks is unfair! I remember a Christmas about 3 years that we all got sick, and it was a wicked sick, beat the crap out of you sick! It started with Dylan on the 23rd and went thru everyone, including my visiting parents. I got my round on Christmas Eve- lots of fun trying to cook a nice meal for everyone else that year! Yuck!! Now I have nearly 3 dozen cookies since Dylan was unable to take them to his teachers- I guess I'll take some to work. The kids have a 16 day vacation because both Christmas and New Years fall on days that add a weekend to the break. It'll be a nice break for them. They both got some very nice things for Christmas that they really wanted, so hopefully boredum won't set in too soon. Charlie's big items were new parts for his Vex robotics set. It's quite the robot. Myth Busters did an episode where they tested different robot systems, and they thought the Vex system would be a joke but they were very impressed with it. It's the system that high school and college robotics clubs use. His remote is programmed via code! It's over my head! LOL! Dylan big item is a mountain bike so he can ride easier on the grass etc. We did better with Christmas this year. I think it's the first year ever that we did not use plastic for gifts!

I work Christmas Day night, but the store closes at 6pm on the 24th, so there's no night shift Christmas Eve. So that's not too bad. Being a newbie, (not quite 9 months) I did not even bother to put in for days off around Christmas, I haven't "earned" that, imo. Rodney, one of my asst. managers told me last night that I need to be a department manager. I would enjoy that job I believe. I know I have that checked on my career preferences, but I'm not sure if I have it checked as current or future interest. Barry is going to show me how to set a geographical profile. I would like to stay at the Franklin store, but I'm willing move- to certain cities. Some cities- like Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk etc I would not go to. But I would go to Suffolk or Petersburg/Colonial Heights. Dept. manager is a pretty typical route to being an assistant manager (if that's in your future plans). Who would have thought that I enjoy working enough that I'm thinking of making this a permanent change. I'm thankful I work at a place that recognizes associates that work hard and show potential for moving on. I know when I went from break packs/GM stocker that Rodney was bummed to see me go, but he understood I was ideal for the new overnight In Stock position. It will be similar when the time comes that I leave the In Stock position. I know many other employers will simply hold back their employees because they are so good at their current position. This has happened to my brother who works for a mid-west store that is similar to Lowe's and Home Depot. Ben probably has about 10 more years left in the Navy and how great it would be for me to have a decent paying job for those 10 years. I still want to be a farmer "when I grow up", but that isn't in the cards until the kids are out of school and Ben is done, or nearly done with his Navy career. In 10 years we won't even be 50!

I'm not much of book reader, mostly because I don't really know what I want to read- what I get into. The movie, Twilight looked very cool and I heard the book was better than the movie so I picked it up at work one night. I'm really liking it and I'm turning the pages pretty quickly. I get so darn sleepy when I read... I'm about half done. Yesterday Ben brought home the 2nd book, New Moon for me. Now I really wanna finish the first one. I'm not going to see the movie until I'm done with the book. I like Vampire story lines, with their forbidden love etc... Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer were thoroughly watched in our house! We own every season of each show. I had a pup named Angelus. ;-) Another favorite, although it's not about Vampires is Supernatural. It's a really cool show about 2 brothers that are demon hunters. I don't get to watch much primetime tv, so Ben always buys the season dvds for me and I watch them on my kitchen tv while I'm cooking or cleaning in the kitchen. It doesn't take me long to burn through a season!

I'm having a hard time getting our family membership taken care of at the Y. Apparently it's a grant type of thing and they have not done one like this, so I just keep stopping in to see what's up. We get a free membership because Ben's duty station does not have a gym. I drive past the Y everyday to and from work. I'm doing my floor exercises at home, but I'd like to add some things. I'm starting to get some nice definition in my arms, shoulders, and back. My abs are about 90% of what I want. My thighs have greatly improved, but it's still area that needs the most work. I still really like my Bean and Iron Gym. The pushups on that iron gym are absolutely killer, but they are clearly producing results! I do sit ups and leg lifts with the Bean. When I ordered the Bean I also ordered the resistant band set and it works great for my arms, shoulders, and back. And really, when you use good form, it works your abs too. I haven't used the the iron gym as a pull up bar yet, but I think I'm almost strong enough to start doing that. With 45lb. weight loss, (I'm 5'2") I'm no longer going by weight. Now I'm simply looking for "form"- for lack of a better word. I lost almost 30% of my peak body weight. Amazing, as I never really "felt" as heavy as I'd obviously gotten. I also don't really know when or how I let that happen. I'm now back to the same dress size my nearly 15 year old wedding dress is. People at work continue to comment and ask how. I did nothing fancy or impossible. I cut back hugely and did some very doable exercise. (of course working as physically hard as I do from 10pm-7am is an added "bonus"- I no longer have much, if any, sit on my butt time) I've made myself very aware of the calories I take in and try to only eat calories that are going to do something for me- in other words very little, if any snack kind of foods. For a good while I wrote down what I ate, and that helped- seeing it in print. That was 2 fold as it helped me at a point when I got pretty obsessed and was close to over doing the cutting back. I would write down what I ate and would notice I hadn't eaten sometimes in 20-24 hours... You don't do well on that, your body simply goes into storage mode, but I had gotten to a point where I wanted nothing to do with food... I guess it was a stage. What I've done for myself is not a diet, it's a whole new way of looking at food and how I look. I am so happy to once again look like how I feel. :-) Well, it's 8:05, so I have just enough time to do a few exercises, take a quick shower, turn dogs out- put them back up and then head to work.