Off-Day or Day Off

Jim has the basketball game on as I type this, and I am taking my first breather of the day. It has been a while since I had a weekday off. It is only my fault, as I figure school is almost over and it’s due to be a long summer.

What I don’t figure out is how tired I am.

They always say you can’t hit a moving target. I can see why, because I could have gotten hit a ton today, moving rather slowly. I have to admit though, I was constantly moving slow, as opposed to being off my feet. It has to be the lighter package I am carrying these days that is the answer. We came home from an early dinner tonight and I actually had some energy perking. The breeze felt good and I had a few plants that had to be repotted or put in the ground. I took care of a few chores that needed to be done and even tried to figure out my medication snafu with my prescription provider.

It’s good to feel good.**

**Except for this damn cough that is still lingering on, and now I have more things to try to treat it with.

Everything’s Archie

Being a child of the 60’s, I grew up with Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead and the rest of Riverdale high school.

So when the Duke and Duchess added to their family on Monday, which just happens to be Jim’s birthday, I was happy for them.

Really.

While I was at school today, someone announced that they named the baby. No one in school knew the name, but eventually we heard “Archie”. As most of us in the teachers’ lounge are of the same era, we simultaneously said,” as in Jughead.

Seriously?

I was always a follower of the royal family. When I heard ” Archie” as the name, I thought of Jean Stapleton in ” All in the Family”, calling out for her husband.

“Archie”

I notice there is no placement of Lord or Viscount in front of his name. Oh, I can’t help but wonder how this name will play out in his future.

As Meghan is from California, I was waiting for “Prince Moonbeam.”😂

Stay tuned.

Go A”weigh”,Mr.Cough

I had to make time to sit tonight and write this post out. Jeez, I have been busy.

Knowing it is May and the semester is almost over, I have been working pretty steadily, thank goodness. I actually subbed for a Spanish teacher and subbed a gym class. Who’d of ‘thunk” it? Eighteen and a half pounds lighter, they ask me to sub a gym class and I said,”why not!”

I find it amazing that I have found a little more confidence in myself that I’ve had of late. I am fortunate to be in a position where I am appreciated for working, my students call out to me in greeting which I never had in my previous position. It is truly a novel experience for me.

Incentive to keep losing the weight? You bet I have it. I would have never handled a forty minute gym period before. Now, I am in there with the kids, and they are cool with that.

The major problem? TIME!

I come home from school EXHAUSTED. Remember that I have gone from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade in no time flat. Kasia deserves her time out, and she needs to be fed. If I have nothing for Jim for work, I have to come up with something so he can eat at work the next day. If I am at school, I need a lunch for me and also something for dinner. As I type this, I have clothes in the washer, as Jim needs a clean uniform shirt and they only gave him two. I try to sit and discipline myself to write the blog, but I need a shower and dinner and bed.

It’s good being tired, but this lingering cough is making me miserable. I know I need to be in touch with my physician, but those of you who are in school know making a personal call is frowned upon. In the meantime, I have stocked up with sugar free cough drops. I know my lungs need to be clearer and this tree pollen is just making my wheeze more pronounced. Perhaps I can squeeze a call in on Thursday. I NEED to make that call on Thursday.

This cough has got to go a”weigh”.

“Weighting” for Spring?

Well, if you are, or were, here in the Mid-Atlantic states, you’ve missed it. The forecast has highs in the 70’s, so, in my opinion, you’ve missed spring. Perhaps you thought spring was a 50 degree day that happened a week or two ago. Maybe that’s why people of my age bracket can argue global warming. We remember spring. I think kids who grew up in the late 80’s-90’s never really got introduced to spring.

Larger people like me were never fans of summer. You looked lousy in a bathing suit, and you perspired ten times more than the percentage of humidity in the forecast. For me, it’ll be interesting this year, to see if there’s a correlation between losing weight and going through summer with minimal discomfort. After all, you know you really don’t like summer when you dream of an all terry-cloth clothing line, so only you would realize how much you perspire, and folks would just be checking out your terry cloth clothes. I mean, folks who are in shape look good in skimpy shorts and tees, and those of us of the larger persuasion who be limp from sweat.

Try to stay comfortable in the advancing temperatures. After all, October is around the corner….lol.

How Good You Feel…

…when you are working to try to get your body back on speaking terms with you, and are feeling good, until you get a good chunk of pollen in your lungs that ,according to your physician, has turned into an acute sinus infection.

Seriously?

I was chatting with my buddy Bonnie and said mentally I feel fantastic ,but physically I feel as though I was hit by a truck. My doctor decided that the only thing that would clear out the infection was Amoxicillin, and with my radiation history, well, let’s just say that I am staying close to the house.

Since the beginning of March, I have been counting the carbs and calories and honestly? It is becoming second nature to this point. I worked school this week for three days and I am sure that I probably shouldn’t have worked that last day, but I enjoy the interaction with the students. Now, today through Monday, I am going to dedicate to losing the “hit by a truck” feeling, and getting my body and mind on the same page.Part of me, though, feels as if this is a plot by my body to see if I’d willingly revert to my old ways. Hah!

I’ll let you know when I start feeling like myself.

Surprises? No”Weigh”

After a great day with my second graders yesterday, I had to dedicate today to the Parkway “shuttle”. That is, I had two appointments within 4 hours and it seems as if I spent today in the car.

The first appointment was with my physician. The awful cough, evidently, was a benchmark of a sinus infection. Now I am on the road to recovery from that lousy bug. Never mind that the pollen is so thick, and the physician admits that it is playing a role, but it’s my Philadelphia sinuses that are basically screwed up.

The second appointment was the dietician. After two months, I am down eighteen and a half pounds. It’s coming off slow and steady, which, I know, is how it should be. Jim has also lost about the same amount as me. We had participated in a health fair on Saturday and both of our cholesterol levels are down, reflecting the change in out diet. As Jim would do anything to avoid medication, he was elated with the results.

So for now? We are going to keep on keeping on. Stay tuned to how the sixty and over crowd make out with getting some health on the right track and shedding the pounds

Damn Pollen

Don’t get me wrong.

I love flowers, even more than the next guy.

This pollen, however, is making me nuts.

I worked today with second grade, and made sure I tool all my usual medication to make sure I would not be sounding terrible with the students. Hah! Guess again. I have a cough that seemed to grab me right at the top of the windpipe and strangle me for some seconds. Long story short? A physician’s appointment tomorrow will make sure it’s not pneumonia.

Counting calories, feeling well emotionally and overall, physically is a good thing, but this pollen seems to haunt me. The appointment puts me up within striking range of the dietician, with who I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. I guess I will go from how sick am I to how much thinner am I. Welcome to life in the retired lane. I am thankful I have the medical coverage from my former employer that allows me to see the physicians as needed.

The second graders kept me hopping today: it was nice to be with younger students who need you. It was rough with sixth graders, who “know” it all. I had my lunch in the classroom and surprisingly, didn’t get a chance to finish all of it, which is a first for me. I had cottage cheese with peaches and grapes. I intend to finish my grapes as a desert for my dinner tonight.

I am due to return to school on Wednesday.

I am just hoping I won’t sound like I smoke a pack of Camels a day!

In the Wee Small Hours…

That is one of my favorite Sinatra songs,”In the wee small hours of the morning”.

Well, I am up. It is, indeed, in the wee small hours of the morning.

I hate it when I can’t sleep. While working on this behavior modification, usually I am pretty shot and sleep well. Tonight, er, rather, this morning, well, it is a different story.

I am usually pretty good and stopping caffeine at a decent hour so it doesn’t keep me up. I also like to exercise early enough so I am not trying to fall asleep with my physical and mental engines running. Today just doesn’t seem to want me to sleep. After a while of staring at the ceiling, I check my watch out and figure that I might as well get up.

The newest glitch is that the pollen is starting. I am starting to get a cough that just makes me nuts. I always used to pride myself in knowing my sinus post-nasal drip cough, but this new cough makes me sound like I smoke a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes daily. The wheeze is terrible. My physician says to go the Claritin D-Mucinex route, but it really is not working for this night-time cough. There is nothing like working to improve your physical state, but your entire body isn’t behind you 100 percent.

Well, I’ll stay up for now, and recruit Kasia, aka, my personal trainer, to walk just a wee bit further to make her Mom more tired. Perhaps that’s what’s needed. It’ll be good just to get a few hours of decent sleep.

Tricking My Metabolism

It is Thursday and it has been nice being home with Jim and not being two ships, passing in the midday, as it were. We got a bit accomplished, and with the fiasco of last night’s dinner out as the exception, it’s been pretty good.

I have found the time to tweak my foods this week. By that I mean slipping a nonfat yogurt in when I think my body was looking for carbs. It has been a week for more salad, and I am surprised at how easily my body is adapting to it.

Kasia has been keeping me on my toes also. It’s incredible that the longer walk has her looking for it, that is, walking more frequently. That has been a plus for the both of us.

Of course, to spite my Claritin -D and Mucinex input, I always get to appreciate the new things in bloom that are gorgeous. How the lilacs bring me back to Mays past. It is also a reminder that Jim’s birthday is coming up, along with Mother’s Day.

I made it through Easter pretty well, and if I keep mixing up my walking, with biking and the like, I should hopefully be ok in May. Actually, I’ll find out on Tuesday, which is the next dietician’s appointment.

No”Weigh”to Serve

A lot of times I’ll hold off on writing the blog post for the day, and I really don’t know why.

Is it because I’m tired?

Is it because I have nothing to say?

Is it because I don’t know WHAT I am going to say?

Hmmmm…today’s reason is that I felt a blog post coming. and it came from going out to our usual spot, Crest Tavern, Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. Did I mention we went out to dinner tonight? Let me rephrase that: we went there, walked out, and went to a different restaurant for dinner who treated us well, gave us wonderful service, and our dinner was good.

We headed for the Crest tavern because we like the food there. as a rule. We had a problem once before with a salad I had ordered where they had the nerve to put “white” looking iceberg in the salad, claimed it was romaine, but either was you slice it, it was “white”.

Tonight’s issue was the girl normally in the front to seat you wasn’t there. We waited, and waited, and saw there was an open booth, so we went to sit there. A waitress, who I was told by another that her name was Marie, decided to come over and try to chew us out. We are regulars. You are chewing WHO out? For someone who deals with customers, she sure had no” customer service” skills. We were told that we HAD to get up, the table HAD to get fixed, and that there was a long wait. Long wait? There was a couple with two kids and we saw with our own eyes that there were two vacant tables. We were really disgusted with her attitude. After we had left, I got on the phone and called the restaurant and asked to speak to the manager. I got a guy named Tim, and he sounded like he couldn’t give a rats’ butt what we experienced. Thus, my blog post for today, which is going to go via social network around to where people who visit the Wildwoods will see it. Never mind that we are the people that visit them off-season because WE LIVE HERE. Obviously, it doesn’t seem to matter.

We went a little deeper into the city, found Owen’s Pub, and enjoyed a comparable dinner with servers who were smiling, attentive and quick to help.

This was strike two with the Crest Tavern. Will we be back? We’ll see…..