A life in progress

About a year ago, I was a hot mess.  That is a clinical term.  I'm pretty sure they use it in the American Medical Association Journals.  I was incredibly overweight and amazingly out of shape - embarrassingly so.  And to make things worse, I was in kind of a downhill spiral of bad habits.  Since I was out of shape, I didn't exercise, which just made things worse.  My clothes didn't fit, I had zero motivation to look attractive. One night, I believe it was Bastille Day (French Independence Day), my husband and I got into an argument.  I won't get into the details, but let's just say, some not-so-kind words were said by both parties.  And while it was incredibly hurtful (and I was no angel), there was also more truth to it than I cared to face at the time.  And on that day, I said "enough".  I need to take control of my life back. It was a few more weeks before we got back to the States (for those that don't know, I was actually IN...

I have just finished my second week student-lawyering at the county PD office.  A lot of people have been asking me what it's like, or if I still want to be a lawyer (like this would be the best time to decide I didn't).  Since the past few days have been particularly emotional for me, I'll give a general overview of the experience. In some ways, working for the PD has some of the same elements as working in a behavior school.  I come in constant contact with the criminal element that's brilliant enough to get caught for some reason or another.  Most of the people I see are arrested or cited on rather minor charges -- possession of drugs, solicitation of prostitution, petty theft (shoplifting), and other relatively minor charges.  Part of me is amazed that this is what our local law enforcement focuses their time and energy on.  Are drugs and prostitution illegal?  Yes.  Is it worth thousands of dollars to arrest, prosecute, and jail each ind...

I have not done any blogging lately, because as most teachers will tell you, May is terrible. Most of May is a lot like that purple one.  As a teacher, especially as a teacher in an alternative school, you become frazzled and exhausted.  I have literally come home and napped for hours at a time out of sheer exhaustion.  Students are panicking because they haven't completed any of their work for the past 6 weeks and suddenly they need enough points to get course credit for the semester.  They are needy and desperate.  I do my best to be helpful and supportive, but it is wearing.   I mostly finished what is essentially my last academic semester in law school in late April, so I've been able to focus on my students and their needs, but now law school is picking up again, so I will once again have divided interests.  Part of me will need to focus on my students, while the rest of me will focus on my studies. Despite all of this crazy, Mike a...

After watching Fed Up, which I outlined in my last post, Mike and I decided to do a 30 day clean eating challenge.  Part of which is Dr. Mark Hymann's  10 Day Blood Sugar Detox . Essentially, this is a slightly more severe version of the first week - there seems to be less fruit involved - which makes me sad because I like fruit.  I'll outline the basics for you in case you're interested at all. Breakfast:  Protein shake.  He offers a few recipes, but a lot of them include bananas, which I'm allergic to.  Also, I use Shakeology, which I'm pretty sure is the healthiest substance on the planet.  The idea is to have a filling, nutrient dense, low-glycemic index breakfast that will get you through until lunch. Lunch:  Salad (He gives a big list of mix and match stuff and says eat whatever you want, as long as its on these lists), or if you get tired of salad, there are some soup and grilled meat recipes to use to mix it up. Dinner:  Meat,...

Last week, Mike had some dental work, which resulted in an extraction, which resulted in some nerve damage and some terrible pain.  He's anxiously awaiting a root canal, which I believe is happening sometime next week.  He had a rough time scheduling with his endontist.  In the meantime, while he was trying out different combinations of pain killers and antibiotics, he had a number of sleepless nights. On one of those sleepless nights, he stayed up watching various Netflix documentaries, including " Fed Up ".  This is a documentary outlining the physical and mental issues that stem from eating processed foods, and specifically foods with processed sugars.  The movie is fairly long (about 1 hour 40 minutes) and deals with a number of different issues, so I won't go into everything.  However, in the end, it does challenge individuals to try a 30 day "cleanse" or "detox".  I'm always very hesitant to use both of these words because it makes...

This picture has made Mike and I internet famous - in a HUGE way.  I'm not exactly sure how or when it started, but someone linked this photo from my Facebook page to a "weird wedding photos" contest.  The website actually emailed me to ask if they could use it and got my explanation of the photo.  I mean, look at it -- it's a weird picture. And the internet seems to agree with us.  Every few months it seems to pop up on a list of  21 Wedding Photos that went Hilariously Wrong  or something equally weird.  We even made  Buzzfeed , which is kind of awesome, because I love Buzzfeed.  We are also on  The Daily Mail . However, there's a problem.  I realized today, after the latest round of internet weirdness - this time on   twentytwowords.com  - that somewhere along the way, someone in Poland decided they would claim the rights to this photo - and went so far as to put a watermark on it claiming ownership.  THAT p...

Like I ATTEMPT to do most Thursdays, I'm linking up with Jen from  Ramblings of a Suburban Mom  for Thursday Thoughts. This Thursday is a little different because I'm in China. That's us in the Forbidden City.   Blogging from China is a lot more difficult than blogging from France was - for a number of reasons.  (A few people have asked me if I'm travel blogging while I'm here, because I haven't really posted anything) First -- China has filtered internet access.  Which means I can't always visit the sites I want.  They even have a filtered version of Google -- and since Google hosts my blog, it's kind of a pain the neck to deal with working around the Chinese filters just to get to my blog.   Secondly, we have been running ourselves ragged while we are here!  We had 22 or 23 days in France.  We didn't feel desperate to see everything in the first couple of days.  But we only have 6 total days in Beijing, so we are ...