Nostalgia hits hard

I'm feeling homesick sorta and nostalgic. I can't wait to come home for a few days to see Chris and Mom and Dad.

I want to hire painters.

I really want to hire painters to finish the job I started (baseboards in our bedroom, as well as painting all the rooms a really nice, neutral color). Too bad that requires having a lot of extra money. We also want new flooring because our carpet gets more and more disgusting each week. We tried doing the Rug Doctor thing and it seemed to do the trick for a little while. The only bad thing is you have to keep the windows open to let the carpet dry out or it starts smelling kinda musty. I don't mind keeping the windows open if the temperature's just right though. I also want some crown moulding in the bedrooms. I think it would give the rooms a finished/polished look. Again, this all requires tons of money. :( Even if I had a job, we'd have to take all this one step at a time but it'd be a lot easier anyway.

*Random side note that's totally not related to this: I've set a goal for myself and my weight loss. I'm winding down the loss (been battling a plateau as of lately--a really rough one) and I've decided that my last weight loss goal is to lose 15 pounds by Christmas. I realize this is going to be a difficult task BUT I'm ready for it. Bring it on. That makes me losing about a pound each week (15 weeks from now until Christmas). This is a pretty realistic and healthy goal. Healthy weight loss is about a pound or two per week. I realize I'm gonna hit some challenges along the way but I'm ready to face them. I'm just ready to get the rest of this weight OFF!!!! I want to feel comfortable in all of my clothes. I have some pants that I bought earlier this summer because I was doing pretty good for a couple of weeks and dropped down in weight but the couple of pounds that I had lost came back on and so now those pants are kinda pushed to the back of my pant collection. I want to bring those up the front soon. :) I also want to feel comfortable during the holidays that I can indulge some without feeling like I'm going to pay for it later and hate myself and feel really huge. I don't want to feel like I'm constantly pushing the weight limit (according to the Weightwatchers goal weight I had set for myself). I hate stressing when I step on the scale at the meetings and freaking out if I go over the goal. Once I hit this new weight (and stay at it for awhile), I'm going to adjust the WW goal weight to a lower one but not too low so that I have a cushion for myself. Lately I've been doing really well with my eating and not feeling deprived. I usually include a lot of fiber in my diet and water. I think that's my trick. Fiber and water. I do get protein and veggies, as well. I also found a great tea that I can drink called Guayaki Yerba Mate. It's a caffeinated tea that helps motivate me and aids weight loss plans. Whenever I feel the uncontrollable munchy feeling, I brew some of that and have a couple of cups of tea to help refocus my brain. I also just keep a ton of fruit on hand so that if I still can't shake the munchies, I can eat that and not feel too bad. :)

That's my goal for myself so far. I know sometimes I'll stray. I probably won't hit exactly 15 pounds but as long as it's somewhere in the neighborhood, I'll be happy.

Zumba video, again.

http://www.youtube.com/user/zumbahilla (go to the one that is titled "It's Alright" by Pitbull, although it should be already cued up. I'm in the poiple tanktop in the back corner on the left of the screen.

Here is another video of me doing Zumba in another class. See, Aunt Judy?? There are older women that do this class so you don't have to feel like you're "the oldest" in the class. It's for all ages and ability levels. You just have to find the right instructor. :) I like the faster pace of Marcela's classes though.

Well, dagnabbit

I just got the rejection email from the GEAR UP people. It's a no-go. :( Still nothing from Idaho State though...

Well my subbing experiences started off with a bang. Let's just say that my first day back on the job was complete BEDLAM. It was a 7th grade lower level math class. I've never really had any problems with middle school subbing (I know that sounds strange-- middle school=chaos usually) but really, I haven't had much trouble in the past. This was quite a different outcome. HOLY COW. I wanted to drink margaritas the minute I got home. But I didn't. I just retreated into my bedroom, turned off all the lights and crawled under the covers and slept. I can't even begin to describe how crazy those kids were, except for the term: bedlam. Needless to say, I more than likely will NOT be subbing for that lady's class--EVER AGAIN.

The rest of the experiences were heaven so far compared to this one.

Curb Cup 2010

Last Sunday was a long afternoon of shakin' our booties. Curb Cup is an event that takes place all over downtown Boise. All the artists that ever existed come out to be seen. Marcela asked me a couple of weeks ago if I wanted to participate with her and I said sure!! So, this past Sunday we did just that in front of about 27,000 people in a period of about 2.5 hours. It was so much fun!! We had a snafu though because we got there and realized that we didn't have a big speaker to play the music from and all we ended up using was a cd boombox, which if you heard the noise level at that event, you'd know that the boombox probably wasn't going to quite cut it. But we used it anyway. I could hear it pretty good but it was a little difficult for some of the songs to hear a few of the cues to know when to do a different part of the routine. No worries though! We just made the best of it. There was this one point where Marcela and Vivi had walked off to go get some voting tokens for our exhibit and I got back first. Well, when I got back, there were people just standing in front of our exhibit waiting to see what we had to offer. Soooooo.....with some encouraging and some nudging, I turned on a song that I knew all the moves to and performed for the crowd. By myself. Crazy, huh? But the people loved watching the dancing! Oh, I was so embarrassed but it was a great time! :) I ended up dancing Zumba for 2.5 hours at that Curb Cup and then when it was all over, Marcela still had to teach Zumba at the gym at 4:30. Kyle and I had carpooled with them, so we had to go. I danced Zumba for another hour. Making me Zumba for about a total of 3.5-3.75 hours. 3263 calories burned. Whoa. Surprisingly, the next day I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be. However, today my knee isn't liking me too much because yesterday I added onto the intensity of my weekly workouts and did a Body Combat class (basically kickboxing) and a Corefit class (30 minutes straight of ab work--although that doesn't affect my knees). I don't think I'll be making it to Zumba tomorrow morning with Zumba at 10:30. I need to let my knee relax and not put any hard pressure on it for a little bit. I'll probably still go to the Sunday afternoon class still. I can't go a whole weekend and not do that. Otherwise, I feel all out of whack.

Anyway, just ya'll would like to see what I do with my newfound free time. ;) Could you see me as a future Zumba instructor? ;) Probably not because what they pay Zumba instructors doesn't nearly cover the cost of registration for a training program and the membership fees that you have to pay in order to become one. Oh well, for now, I'll just be an overly-enthusiastic student!

Correction

I made a mistake as for what GEAR UP is an acronym: Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. There...thought I'd clear that up for you. :)

I'm getting excited (probably way too prematurely) but I can't help it. This position would be awesome. The posting actually has a closing date--this Friday. At least I know to expect some kind of response either before or shortly after that. I think I'm qualified enough to at least be considered. :)

Another random job sighting.

The other day, I saw a job posting in my email for this listserv to which I belong. Usually when I see these postings, I give them a quick look-over and then promptly delete them. Well, this time, I spotted a silver lining. The position: Program Specialist for GEAR UP. What is that, you ask? Well, GEAR UP stands for Gaining Education and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or something of that nature. It's aimed at helping underprivileged students get ready to further their education past high school into any kind of undergraduate program at a college or university. This position requires the person to (I'm guessing here) follow the status of students, starting in seventh grade and on up into high school, making sure they're following their education plan and making sure they're up to par in their academic skills in order to pursue college. Pretty much. Well, after reading the qualifications and stuff, I figured that I had what it takes to pursue this position. I've turned in all my application materials and now we'll just have to wait and see. One positive note: I did see some activity from my submissions--got an email from the Human Resources office saying that I needed to submit one more thing--the actual application. Oops! Simple mistake. ;) Just a minor misunderstanding of where the application was to be found. I didn't quite see it in all the writing in the actual posting. Anyway, just finished that and sent it on its way through the electronic world. I figure it's a good sign to get that email because it means they were looking at my other materials. :)

The dumb and ridiculous thing I found out today? I need to order some transcripts from BSU and from UGA. Well, when I went on BSU's website to order, I found out they were charging $10... PER TRANSCRIPT!!!!!!!!!! What the heck?????? That's crazy. Absolutely crazy! UGA only costs $2 per transcript! I hate Boise State. I hope Virginia Tech gives them a good hiney whuppin' next weekend. It would serve them right. Ugh.

ps. Don't tell anyone but it seems as though my, um, prayers have been halfway answered, as in, more opportunities coming available...now the other half just have to be answered--such as a job interview and offer...yeah. I said it. Prayers. I know I said in an earlier post about throwing the word "pray" around but I felt my current situation has deserved a prayer or two. I've been feeling extremely restless and depressed and rejected (even though I know it's not personal--it's hard to not feel that way, though). It's been affecting me in bad ways--anger and some crying and lashing out at Kyle. I needed some quiet time and rest-assurance. So I did it. It made me feel better at that moment. And now, I guess I'm seeing those fruits. Now, those fruits need to fall off the tree so I can pick them up and eat them. Mmmmm....i'm hungry now. ;)