Finally…I’m Back!

Did you miss me?  I missed being here…well, sort of. 😉  I didn’t miss all the work of doing posts, but I did miss the opportunities to give updates.  Thank you for not deserting me after my six-week hiatus!

I thought that after my three “big projects” were done, my life would slow down, but that was very naive on my part. 😛  Let me give you a quick recap of where I spent my last six weeks.

Historical Society

We had the first meeting of our brand new historical society on March 7, and it went great.  We had almost two dozen people in attendance, and everyone had a great time chatting and talking.  We had some displays available to help people learn more about our township history.

Some folks even brought items to share.  Here you can see some of the attendees looking over a detailed family tree brought by one of the long-time township residents.

Most importantly, though, we laid the foundation to actually get our society officially set up as a non-profit corporation.  My co-founder and I did a presentation that included a pretty awesome PowerPoint (if I do say so myself, ha ha!).  Jamie took all the pictures at the event (since I was doing a lot of the presenting), and for the most part, he did a great job.  I do need to teach him how to take pictures of people in event situations such that you try not to get pictures of them with their mouths open. 😉

We have had two people volunteer to become officers, so we have the four we need to actually files articles of incorporation–yay!  That’s the first step to becoming a non-profit, so that’s a big relief to us.  I’ve been doing a lot of networking within the community for the last few weeks, and I’ve found people are really excited about our new historical society.  We’ve had multiple donations of items and people who are looking for ways to help.  I’m excited to say that we have already scheduled our first community social event this summer.  So, all in all, this project is coming along wonderfully!  I could say lots more on this (my favorite topic, ha ha!), but that’s enough for now.

Lacrosse Team

After all the paperwork and hoops and red tape (and last-minute adds–we’re now up to 28 kids!!), we finally had our first practice on March 13–on a freezing cold, windy day!  And yet, I still had 28 kids show up. And more importantly–they came back two days later, ha ha!

The weather for our first two weeks of practice has been pretty rough (cold, snowy, windy), but I guess I should be glad that it hasn’t rained…yet.  But I’ve had parents email me, thanking me for all my efforts to get this team going and raving about how much their kids are loving it, and we already have our first games scheduled for next month, so I guess that means this project is going pretty well, too!

Auction

There is not much I can say about this project…because it did not happen.  Our auction was cancelled with less than three hours before our guests were set to arrive.  I don’t know whether to put a sad emoji, an angry emoji, or a confused emoji here, so I guess I just won’t put anything. I can tell you that it was a very difficult time for our school community and for me personally.  As dinner ticket chairperson, I had the unfortunate responsibility of contacting 300 guests just hours before they were expecting to attend and tell them it was cancelled.

If you’re wondering “why,” well let me assure you that you are not alone, and if I had answers, I would offer them, but I don’t.  We were not given any reason other than the official response from the “powers that be,” who said it was cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”   Our school has actually made the front page of the paper twice in the last two weeks, and I would not exactly say it was “positive press.”  This is actually what has kept me from posting in the last couple of weeks; trying to come to grips with what happened and being in charge of issuing all the refunds was…draining.

That’s about all I can say about that project, so instead of dwelling on it, I will give you a quick recap of my health and fitness. Since the last time I posted, I have run 5 days every week, so that’s a big positive!  I’ve really enjoy my long runs with my girlfriends on Saturdays (especially because they have cheerfully let me vent for the last two weeks!).  My eating, on the other hand, has been erratic.  And my weight has reflected that.  This was my first weigh-in after my last post:

If the big gain doesn’t give you pause, how about this:  that was the first time I have been over 130 pounds in six years. 😮 That definitely gave me pause.  Actually, it made me want to cry and stomp my feet in frustration.  But I knew that I had to make some changes, so I did.  I decided to do a few simple things. The first was to cut the amount of sugar in my morning coffee by half.  The second was to greatly reduce or eliminate the amount of pasta or starch I had with my dinner each night.  We are very much a meat and potatoes family in that there it is always expected that we will have a starch of some sort with dinner.  So I just started skipping it, or, instead of having a cup of rice or pasta or potatoes, I’d have 1/4 cup.

While I do think that some of the above gain was water weight, I also think my changes did help me to lose it fairly quickly.

Definitely an improvement, but still 6 pounds above my goal. :/  The week following that weigh-in was my “hell week” (in more ways than one), so I didn’t eat great.  (Especially Saturday night after making all those phone calls.)  My weigh-in the following week was:

It could have been worse, for sure.  Other than the habits I mentioned above, though, I haven’t really changed anything, so I guess this weeks’ weigh-in shouldn’t be a big shock either:

I know I’m kind of languishing, but I also know that I do feel better with less pasta and just reducing my sugar.  And the running definitely helps…it really is great therapy.

That’s all for this week.  I’ll get back to more regular posting from now on.  Thank you so much for sticking with me during my long break!