Movin' on Up

We had the moving up ceremony for the girls yesterday, and for some reason, I'm in a grouchy mood. I just really don't like these types of things for a number of reasons - some logical, some personal, some just anti-social. Anyway, the gripes that are still sticking with me today:
1. Why is it we have a atheletics banquet to honor the athletes, but we don't want to give awards out for academic achievement? Heaven forbid someone feel good because they did well in school.

2. Why is it the queen bee/popular kids still get away with treating others like crap (or ignoring them completely)? It's just so ... I mean, haven't we learned anything? Why has stuff like this not changed? One brief aside, I was having a discussion with my daughter about how the cheerleader is never the hero in a teen movie - It's the outsider who's always the hero. Of course, I'm pretty sure it's because writers tend to be geeks.

3. If 27 out of 30 kids get the president's scroll for GPA, how much meaning does the scroll have? Are we living in Lake Wobegone (where all the children are above average)?

4. How can you give the top student award to the kid who decided not to take advanced math because they didn't want to work that hard?

Anyways ... weigh in sucked, now at XX9.8, which means a total whopping weight loss of 1.8. Still, so long as it's down, I'll take it. Particularly given how I ate yesterday (mmmmm, Brusters). At least I exercised.

The Downside of Private Schools

As I mentioned yesterday, the older girl is having some angst about who's coming back and who's not. Turns out things are not much better for the younger girl (she's the sack-racer pictured). She also looks like she's losing her 2 best friends as classmates (on the bright side, she's also losing a kid that has driven her nuts for the past year - we sang "Ding, Dong, the witch is ..." in celebration. Yeah, I'm an adult and good role model, why do you ask?). It's one of the downsides of going to the school we go to - there's a ton of turnover (particularly if the economy is bad). Add to that none of her friends live anywhere close to us, and it makes it tough for a kid. I remember growing up and all you had to do is go half a block and you'd pick up half a dozen kids. Not so many kids in our neighborhood, and even those that are here, she doesn't know too well (and yeah, it is probably our fault for not getting out more, but hey, I'm anti-social). That means every time she wants to get together with a friend it's a major undertaking (or at least involves driving her somewhere). I miss the community of where/how I grew up (which, by the way, I also learned to hate, but that's another rant) .

Anyway, weigh-in is XX8.4, which means 3.2 lbs of water weight (yeah, I have no confidence this is a real loss yet). Eating is pretty ok, though I did have a piece of cheesecake (it was small ... honest). Still need to get kicked into gear on the exercise thing. Hopefully tonight.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Quick post as a way of procrastinating cleaning the house. I had a long talk with my older daughter today, which brought back live and in color just how much high school (well, middle school actually, but the same idea) sucks. Nothing major, just the typical fears, but I have to say you couldn't pay me to go back to that era of my life. I don't care who you are, it just seems like it's destined to be an angst-filled dung heap (big concern is that two of her best friends probably won't be back next year). You always hope as a parent you can help your kids avoid the trauma you went through in school, but it's just part of growing up. You can see it coming, but there's not much you can do. They have to live through it all, just like you did.

Anyway, in re to my weigh in...

Currently at XX0, down 1.6 in water weight (but I'll take it). Good stuff is that I was at a picnic and didn't overeat (yay me). Bad stuff is that I didn't exercise and had a bag of cookies after 6pm. All-in-all, I'll take it. But dang, am I hungry right now.

Weighty Matters

All my life I've been ... large. Then, in my late 20's, I discovered biking. Riding 2 hours a night did wonders for my weight. After a summer of biking, I was, well, buff. Then life intervened, I stopped biking, and 2 kids and 15 years later, I'm bigger than I've ever been. Depressing stuff. Being an emotional eater, you can just imagine how helpful my response has been. Anyway, going to use the blog to try something different. On the advise of Deadspin (yeah, the sports web page), I'm going to use this to try to embarrass myself into better behavior.

Beginning Weight: XX1.6 (hey, I'm not THAT into public humiliation - see Pride entry)
Current Weight: XX1.6 (Duh, I just started today)
Good Stuff I've done:
Bad Stuff I've done:

We'll see if this is any more successful than anything else I've tried.

Pride

I've been thinking a lot about Pride lately. It's always portrayed as a positive, but yet Pride (not Ego) is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. I always used to confuse the two growing up - ego was obviously bad. Ego meant being overly proud of yourself for something. But I'm starting to think that Pride might be worse, or at least mor insidious. I don't think it's an accident that Pride and not Ego is listed as a deadly sin. Think about it - Ego generally hurts only the person who has the big Ego. Pride, on the other hand, can be much more damaging. Generally speaking, it's based on something that is true about you, making it harder to dismiss out of hand. When I look at my life, it's at the root of most of the bitterness I experience ... why did so-and-so get this, they're not that good ... why not me ... why doesn't anyone seem to appreciate what I do ...Bottom line is that I think Pride is worse because it starts affecting our relationships with other people. It puts people in a position to have to take sides. It treats life as a zero-sum game (if X gets a promotion, then I won't/I'm less thought of/I'm less valuable). It can lead to jealousy, which affects not only the prideful/hurt person, but also the other person that has caused the perceived slight.

So often pride gets mixed in with self-esteem. But self-esteem is based on knowing that I do something well. That's fine. Everyone should have an evaluation of themselves as to what they do well and what they don't do as well. But it's when this evaluation looks for external validation - gets proud and wants/needs others to acknowledge it - that pride leads to sin.