Bragging time. First off, Alex looked at his high school transcript this week and his community college classes have been added...the surprising thing was that his class standing is still 1 out of 242! He thought that since he didn't take any Honors or Advanced Placement classes last semester, his ranking would drop in comparison to his classmates. Maybe in May it will change because the other students will have been taking classes and Alex hasn't, but for now, he's still #1.
Alex had his Eagle board of review this week. On February 5th, he officially became an Eagle Scout! However, it will take 4-6 weeks to get the paperwork back, so his Eagle Court of Honor won't be happening yet. Congratulations, Alex! Counting Glen, we now have 5 Eagle Scouts in our family.
February 5th was also the Chinese New Year. The Year of the Pig/Boar is now upon us...and can I just say how weird I thought it was that our only 2 grocery stores, Walmart and Safeway, don't have fortune cookies? They weren't sold out...they just don't carry them (though I have gotten them in Walmart in the past). :( I was disappointed. (I did think about trying to get some at a Chinese restaurant, but I didn't bother to go out of my way to see if I could buy some from them).
BTW, Hannah is our only family member that was born in a year of the Pig. Kaellen and I were both born in a year of the Ox. Glen is a Rabbit. Andrew is our only Horse. Joy was born in the year of the Rooster. Heather, Henry, and Eric were all born in the year of the Sheep/Ram. Ryan and Angeles were born in a year of the Dog. And Alex is the one I would want to be--he is our only one born in a year of the Dragon (however, Glen and I were married in a year of the Dragon, so I guess that's okay).
Glen and his students were able to participate in another mock disaster drill at the Navy base this week. They've been helping for years playing victims to whatever scenario the Navy is running, but last December there was a drill that the Navy didn't ask for Glen's help because they didn't want to bother the students during finals.
The Navy evaluators, who come out from San Diego, asked where the drama students were who usually helped. Apparently the Navy personnel don't get into their rolls as victims, so it lowered the effectiveness of the drill, and the base was asked to redo the drill. This time they invited Glen and his students to participate. Yay for Glen and his students. So, on Thursday they got to play victims again. And I got to play Glen as I subbed for him.
And today marks 8 months since I first started using the Bright Line Eating guidelines. I had lost 14 pounds before that, but since I started BLE, I'm down another 32 pounds. I lost 13 pounds the first month and then averaged 2 pounds a month for the next 3 months. Then October was a really good month and I lost 8...but with the holidays, I held even. I'm back on track and have lost 5 pounds this month past month. I'm so thrilled. I haven't weighed this little in 28 years. I only have 3 more pounds to go till I'm out of the overweight category and in to the normal category. It's very motivating.
The basics of Bright Line Eating (which I don't always adhere to as shown by my weight loss slowing down so much) are:
don't eat sugar or sugar substitutes
don't eat flours
eat only 3 meals a day--no snacks
and eat the prescribed quantities of food for each meal which are given in the guidelines (specific measurements of protein, fruits, vegetables, and fat for each meal)
I'm never hungry, so the amounts are sufficient, but I'm tempted to eat things I shouldn't, even when I'm not hungry. I need to do better on not caving to temptations.
I love having only one chin. :)
