Excited face or not excited face

Have you ever thought about how another person's reaction to seeing you makes you feel?  For some reason this has been on my mind lately as a teacher and as a friend.  At school I stand outside my door when my kids are coming in and I've noticed my students' reaction depending on how I greet them.  When I am sort of blase in my greeting and lazy smile, they return the same reaction.  However, two of my 8th graders rounded the corner, I got so excited to see them (it wasn't an act) and you should have seen the look on their face. 

On the other side, I just saw two different friends.  One of them gave me a huge smile and was seemed really happy to see me.  The other while I'm sure what also happy to see me as she usually is, did not seem today particularly excited that I was there and I realized inside of myself how differently that felt.

So the lesson I learn from this experience is that I'm not sure we realize the impact that our passion for people can invoke in them.  People might tend to label me as too exuberant or emotional but I get to experience first hand how a person's face lights up when I take my excitement level up a notch. 

Some new adventures

I mentioned in my last post that I had joined Weight Watchers, and that continues to be successful and exciting.  I lost 2.2 more pounds last week taking my two week total to 8 lbs.  I'm very near my 5% goal.  I go again tonight and am excited to see what happens.  In addition to watching what I eat, I've added exercise to the mix.  On Saturday I tried my first Zumba class.  Besides basically floundering about like a fish out of water, I really enjoyed myself.  Today my arms and abs and legs are all sore...the good kind.  I used the activity calculator to see how many points I earned and it was 9!  OMG, that's astonishing.  I want to keep on keepin on and taking on this journey because results are invigorating.

We officially only have 1 quarter left of school and I admit that my heart is breaking just a little.  I love my students and teaching this year.  Everyone told me that if you can make it through your first three years, things will change afterward and they were right.  It's a wonderful twist to desperately miss the students who haven't even graduated yet rather than eagerly count the days until their departure. 

Stay tuned for an update after tonight's meeting...

Almost 5%

I started Weight Watchers last week and I was both sad and frustrated by how much weight I had gained...

since high school
since losing a ton of weight in college
even since my wedding

I was dedicated to the program this week though and it paid off because I lost 5.6 lbs my first week.  Now I could be pessimistic and say that it was just water weight or maybe I was bloated.  I'm choosing to just be really excited and proud of myself.  I tracked every bite of food going into my mouth for a week and was astonished that when I don't think about what I eat at all, in goes the junk.  When I really thought about each little bite I became so aware of how much goes in my mouth. 

I can't pinpoint the reason but I came home super excited!!!!