Is It Friday Yet?

I'm loving my new work schedule. It's like having an extra planning period every day, and it gives me what time I need to physically leave work at work at the end of the day. I still bring home mental baggage, but there's no getting around that. Papers are graded and grades are entered into the computer for parents to view the very same day work was completed. I've never been THAT on-the-ball. My lesson plans are made for the next 2 weeks. That makes me feel good.

Food was good today. My fridge at work seems to be freezing 75% of the contents. Not sure what that's about, but it will have some impact on how I do lunches next week. I have liked very much taking "groceries" in on Monday and having food on hand for the week rather than packing mine and hubby's lunch nightly. With him having been gone, and now he's taking vacation days, I'm off the lunch packing detail until Tuesday, so perhaps I can figure something out by then. I like very much the Buddig brand packaged meats for lunch. 90 calories for the whole pack....easy cheesy. Then I also found Laughing Cow soft cheese wedges in Chipotle flavor....oh...need I say how much I DO love those! I use them in place of a condiment and it satisfies not only my love of cheese, but also gives and ooey-gooey mayo-esque faux condiment indulgence for a mere 35 yummy calories! I felt like a cow eating 2oz of brocolli slaw in my pita wraps, so I'll have to find a veggie substitution. It didn't help that THAT was the first item to freeze. 2 oz of brocolli slaw is, well, a LOT. I don't recommend it.

I'm enjoying, let me say that in caps...I'M ENJOYING a glass of Georgia On My Mind peach wine right now...a souvenir from our Chattanooga trip and an excursion to Georgia Winery. Hubby is out mowing. Dinner is likely to be white pizza with mushrooms and spinach and a side salad. I have 600 calories left for the day. I'm not hungry. That's what I like about doing "it" right. It's when I'm off track that I get squirrely and feel like a bottomless pit.

I bought 2 books last night. What in the Hell does that have to do with ANYthing, you ask? Well, this time of year, as the weather gets cool, I crave things. I crave bad things. Least of all evils is popcorn. I keep all varieties of popcorn on hand for "moments"...but I crave spices....cinnamon, ginger, cloves, brown sugar and stuff that Fall is made of. Hubby and I have made ritual of making a pot, a REAL teapot of tea, and we retire to the bedroom with it at night and polish it off over tv or movies. It somewhat squelches the cravings, but I often want zucchini bread, banana bread, ginger rolls, etc. Hard to fight those seasonal wants; even more difficult to categorize them as wants and not needs. But this runs parallel to my enjoyment found in reading. A good book will take my mind off food, and I can read until my eyelids are heavy. It buys me Grace. So last night I bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the second one in the series. I was delighted to see that the price in paperbacks has come WAY down with the rise in popularity of techno-books. I like real books. Odd, because I didn't enjoy reading at all until 40 was past tense. I don't know what happened. I never liked reading as a child, and damned near refused to do it at all in high school. I could count on 1 hand the number of books I read in high school, and of all the book reports I did, most were done by reading the book jacket. I remember in one instance, my Mom read the book FOR me the night before the report was due and helped me get through the dreaded book report. It was on Harry Houdini. It wasn't the first time Mom bailed me out, and certainly not the last. Reading just wasn't my thing, and she was ok with that. Wine makes me get off track. So I bought the first 2 books in the series. The third was there, but not available in paperback yet. I figured reading the first one was a committment to read them all, so I went the low road and committed to paperback rather than waiting in line for the few copies at the library. Number 3 will have to wait, and chances are good it'll be in paperback before I'm done with these 2. This being part of my lifestyle change strategy too...it gets my mind off things and makes me sleepy. Can't eat while I sleep, so there you go.