So my weight loss is going nowhere! I've been bouncing back and forth for what seems like forever now, between 188 and 194 pounds. I'm so sick of it. Completely sick of it. But whatever. Right now my life is really picking up, and with Boyfriend/Fiance having the job change, we're still working on getting caught up on everything. So my weight right now is on the back burner. I'm still being conscious of what I eat, and I've been making a concentrated effort to spend more time on my exercise bike, but I'm through killing myself just to get no progress. I will be making an appointment soon with my doctor to revisit the thyroid topic, and if she doesn't listen to me and really hear me out, I think it'll be time for a new doctor. I shouldn't have been having to pay $30 a month for speed for the past year when I could have been paying $10 or so for hormone replacement that would cover a lot of other symptoms that I've got anyway. I'm totally pissed about it, but whatever. I just don't have time for that right now, so like I said, it's on the back burner.
I've been able to keep my place with the Head Start Policy Council in spite of the job change, too, which is so cool. It's kind of like the next step up from the Head Start Parent Committee (glory name for PTA, I suppose), and the Council is where we decide what to do with Head Start money and stuff like that. It's not just for my school either, it's making decisions for the whole Knox County Head Start Program. I like it that I'm able to be that involved with my daughter's schooling, that I know what's going on not just with her, but also with those around her. On top of the Policy Council, I ran for and was accepted into the Personnel Committee, which decides who gets hired and fired at Head Start, and why. I like that too, and it's really infrequent so it's not like it takes a lot of time right now.
Which is good, because I also was voted onto the Knoxville CAC Board. The meetings for that are monthly, and a little more formal than any others I've ever been too. We sit around this huge table, and there's a luncheon, but we also have a formal dress code, and there's usually someone there from the mayor's office or something. At the last meeting (which was my first), Mayor Mike Haslam was in, talking about education and stuff. It was very enlightening, and I loved it! Plus, it's an important board in my city because we also went over some budgeting stuff that's city-wide, like repair requests for old city buildings, funding for city-wide programs and stuff like that. It's cool for me though, because I can really rally for education, and for Head Start since I'm the Head Start representative on the Board. They said next time they should have my name plaque ready so then I'll be officially introduced and stuff. It's really fun, and I've learned a lot about the inner workings of my city.
In the meantime, I've still been able to make it to all the parent meetings for Teenybop's school, been able to really be active there and I've even made some mom friends which is neat. Not sure about some of them though, and two of them are people that I have so much sympathy for. There's the one, we'll call him "LittleBoy", and his mom has sort of off-and-on abandoned him and his sister all their lives. She's there when she wants to be, and gone when she wants to be. So they live with a family friend, an older woman that I so admire for her willingness to do what she does for the kids. However, I hurt for her because the kids have some anger issues that are already bad. It can only get worse since the kids are 6 and 5, so I worry about her on the one hand, and I worry about the kids on the other. I am so heartbroken for these two kids, especially LittleBoy because he is in my daughter's class so I am close enough to him to be able to see and talk to him almost daily. His suffering is so hard to watch, he's confused and afraid, he's got so much anger in him that he doesn't understand, and so much hurt. And then you put a little bit of abandonment issues on the top and the poor boy's a wreck.
The other mom friend? Well, she's got three little girls, and the oldest is a rape child. She's also a child that is bi-polar, add, odd, ocd, and maybe schizophrenic. This child has an imaginary "friend" that TRIES TO KILL HER. Seriously, the "friend" almost killed the little girl once, almost drowned her in the tub. I can't imagine being the mother of a child that is on constant suicide watch because of her hallucinations. Then there is the middle child who was taken by the father and the mother isn't allowed to see her for some reason. And the youngest, which is also in my daughter's class. And coincidentally one of the children my daughter is most friendly with. This one might have some of the issues that the older one has ... she's got a "good" personality, a "bad" one, and a "silly" one. Most days, the "good" one stays at school and the poor mother gets to bring home the "silly" one or the "bad" one ... or both. And to top it all off, her boyfriend works out of the home, and often out of town. So she's alone with two kids that have serious issues, fighting to keep the oldest's "friend" from killing herself, or killing the youngest, and trying to keep track of all the other personalities in the house at once. Poor thing.
Some days I feel like someone running a dog pound ... or an orphanage. I seem to just attract the people with issues, the ones that are left behind, the ones that wish they were left behind, and the ones everyone else wants to run from. But why? I have always had the gifts of empathy and sympathy ... am I just meant to be counsel to people who suffer? Some days that's what I feel like I'm on this earth for.
And to top it all off, I'm starting a garden soon. It's a community garden let out by this place in the city that's there just to teach city dwellers that they can grow their own stuff in a small space. Everything with it is free. Most of my seeds were free except for those I went and bought voluntarily, the land is free, they got hoses and compost and tools. Most of all, they've got knowledge and experience, and that's free too. It's to spread the "green" I guess ...
And I noticed that there are re-usable bags being sold at my grocery store now, too. Cool. I'd like to go green, I think ... but it'd have to be slow. And I'm not sure I could give up my long showers, even if the planet depended solely on my ability to take a short one. But it'll be interesting to try, and I start my part by planting next week. Garden first, other "green" habits to come, I'm sure. Can't wait to pick and eat the first salad ... I'll be growing leaf lettuce, mixed greens, and spinach for my salad bowl, plus tomatos, cucumbers, and radishes. I'm growing peas, too, and a few other little things. I'm looking forward to finding out if I can make broccoli grow, they say it doesn't grow well in the summer, but I'm going to at least try. I'm growing beets for my mother, okra for myself, and peppers for Boyfriend/Fiance. Then I've planned out a whole chunk for strawberries for Teenybop, she's thrilled that I'm growing something just for her, and I'm thrilled to be trying even though I have no idea if I can pull this off.
I like my life lately, though. I mean, maybe I'm behind on some things, and maybe I'm still fighting the remaining hurts of some issues in my relationship, but my finances are slowly looking up, my relationship is improving in leaps and bounds, my daughter is finally behaving again, and I'm busy ...
Which is just how I like to be.
