My Weekend: the Good, the Bad, the Unfortunate, and the Awesome

First off, I would like to thank everyone who actually read my last post, and especially those who commented! I know it was a beast, and not anything to do with my usual topics, but I really enjoyed writing it out, and it thrills me to know that some people enjoyed it. 🙂

Now, it’s back to the norm. I could’ve titled this post Calorie Counting: Week 6, but I was getting sick of having the same post title over and over. :p Plus, we had a pretty eventful weekend!

In a nutshell, it was Halloween, and I’m pretty sure everyone knows that I don’t really like Halloween. :p I hate the never-ending stream of candy, because I have a hard time resisting chocolate, especially when it’s free and abundant. I also hate that my normally-well-behaved children become little demanding monsters at Halloween. :/ Suddenly, it’s all about having This Exact Costume, going out with their friends, and getting as much candy as they can. And mom’s schedule, bank account, and desires have no bearing on any of that, apparently!

Both kids decided that they wanted to go their separate ways this year. Since they are four years apart, their friends are in different age groups and therefore have different priorities. Jamie was more about hanging out with his friends and being cool, while JJ wanted to hang out with one good friend who lives in a subdivision (we live in the country, and there is no trick-or-treating near us ) and just get as much candy as possible.  OK, fine. But then, I somehow ended up volunteering myself to be the person who took JJ and his friend around the neighborhood for candy.  And then it became JJ, the friend, the friend’s brother, AND another kid. I still haven’t figured out how I roped myself into taking four kids around for an hour and a half in the cold rain?? :p But it turned out fine; the kids had a good time, and I did get to see a lot of cool costumes. JJ’s friend and his brother were actually among the coolest, as evidenced by the many comments they received as they went around.

Do you recognize their costumes? I didn’t, because I’ve never seen the movie, but a lot of people did, and they were quite a hit! JJ obviously took the easy route, because he knows how much I dislike having to stress over Halloween costumes, and went as a hockey player. 😉

Jamie, meanwhile, was adamant that he and his two buddies had to dress alike. They’ve done this the last several years, and actually, this costume wasn’t too hard. It only required one trip to the Salvation Army, and my mother was happy to help me out in that respect. So $3.99 later, we have…

Yes, I know they look like the Secret Service, but they are actually Men in Black. I must admit, their outfits and their attitudes did make me laugh.  He had everything he needed but the sport coat, and it was a bargain at $3.99.  My mother joked that some deceased person was probably laid out in it. (My mom has a sick sense of humor.)

What was less funny was when Jamie came to me on Thursday night and informed me that he was spending the night at his friend’s house. Um, news to me! Weeks ago, I had signed Jamie up to be an acolyte at church on Sunday morning, November 1 (All Saints Day, kind of a big deal!). I told him no, he couldn’t spend the night, and he insisted that I had agreed to it a week ago. We went round and round about it, and I finally gave in and told him that he could spend the night, but he had to be ready for me to pick him up at 8 AM. He was not the most alert acolyte, but he made it work. 😉

After church, it was Sunday school, and then it was the open house for the high school that both my boys will be attending. It’s a chance for the kids and the parents to walk around and introduce themselves to the teachers, learn about the curriculum, and, most importantly, by attending, each kid has a chance to win a tuition voucher. 😉  We’ve attended this open house many times in the last eight years, and we’ve never actually won anything, except for one year we won a $20 gift certificate to the spirit wear store. Not quite the same as a discount on tuition. :p But the kids enjoy going and playing the games, and it’s always good to talk to the teachers and learn about the programs. Since Jamie will actually be a freshman next year, I felt like it was important to make it this year…if for no other reason than I wanted to have that one last slim chance of winning the $2000 tuition voucher. 😉

The challenge this particular year was that both boys had hockey Sunday afternoon, with JJ in St. Clair Shores, and Jamie in Dearborn. It was tight, and we didn’t have a chance to see much, but we did make an appearance, including my husband for the first time, and we enjoyed being able to meet all the teachers and get serious about Jamie attending high school. 😮 We especially enjoyed our time at the hockey table, because we know many of the hockey families from playing with them over the years. Because they are a small school, they are as excited to have Jamie as we are for him to play there. 🙂 We learned that Jamie will actually be able to play with the high school team in the spring, which was great news…that means my days of tryouts are officially over!!! (For more background as to why I’m so happy about this, check out my posts from May and June.)

We left the open house right at noon, and I headed straight out to St. Clair Shores for JJ’s game. Poor JJ’s team has struggled this season, and they have yet to win a game. 🙁 It’s really pretty shocking to me, because they’re not a bad team. They have really solid talent, but they just can’t seem to figure out the whole “teamwork” thing yet. They lost on Sunday again, which was a total bummer, but they sure did try.

Unfortunately, even worse than the loss was the very unfortunate incident that happened at the game. For some stupid reason, the St. Clair Shores rink has an iron railing around the boards by the stands, and while I was taking pictures, I went to hoist my camera on my shoulder so that I could take a moment to warm up my hands, and as I was doing so, my zoom lens hit the railing. 😮 I had a sick feeling in my stomach as soon as it happened, and sure enough, the lens stopped working at that point. *sob*

To say I was miserable for the rest the day was an understatement. I took it to the repair place the very next day, and I suppose it’s good to know that it will only cost me $179 to get it fixed, because it could’ve been a lot worse. (The lens itself cost me about $600.)

So, you’ve heard some of the bad and the unfortunate for sure, but now we can talk about the good: although I did have a lot of candy over the weekend, I tracked it all, and thanks to my eight-mile run on Saturday (a couple extra miles to account for the candy I knew I would be eating), I was able to pretty much stay the same this week.

That’s actually a gain of .2, but, whatever. What’s more important is how I feel, and I feel really great. In fact, Sunday morning was our first morning at church in over a month, thanks to the hockey schedule.  That meant it was the first time I’ve worn dress clothes in over a month, and on a whim, I decided to pull out my size 6 brown pants that I really love.  I’d tried my size sixes on in the spring, and they were tight.  🙁  Well, guess what? On Sunday, they fit, and they fit comfortably!! While the kids were in Sunday school, I tried to get a picture of myself with my phone using the self timer, but it was rather challenging. I did like this one, which isn’t all that helpful, but it has a cool effect thanks to the sun.

This one turned out a little better.

It’s a little far away, but you get the point. I was so happy to fit comfortably into these pants! It made me realize that I’m actually really close to where I want to be. Sure, I’d still like to get to 120 or just under, but that’s probably more mental than anything else. At this point, I’m feeling really good, and I think the fit of my clothes reflects that fact that six weeks of calorie counting, and paying attention to other things, like sugar and sodium intake, have had a positive impact on my body.

So, now you’ve seen the good, the bad, and the unfortunate, and you’re probably wondering what the awesome is.  Well…

Guess who won the $2000 tuition voucher??? 🙂

I am still in shock that, out of ALL the kids that came and participated in the random QR code “treasure hunt,” my son was the lucky one whose code turned out to be the big winner. It certainly won’t come close to covering the cost of his first year’s tuition, but it’ll definitely make a dent. 🙂  It was actually a pretty big deal–every Catholic school family in the county knows that they give away ONE $2000 tuition voucher at this school’s open house, and we had our 15 seconds of fame for winning it.  They even put our picture on the school Facebook page, ha ha! I had a lot of friends who were happy-but-not-really-happy for us, if you know what I mean. 😉

And that was our weekend! Thanks for reading!