Where in the world is Miss Kathy Jean?

Hi everyone.  I'm sure you've noticed I've been quiet in my neck of the woods.  I'm so sorry, but it always gets like that at this time of the year when I'm preparing for the end of the school year.  I'm in charge of our senior awards ceremony and it takes up a lot of my time.  Thankfully it will happen on Monday afternoon so I'll be able to return to normal life.  After that, we have a senior breakfast, senior picnic and then graduation.  Speaking of graduation day, I definitely have to pace myself because it's going to be super busy.  Here's what it will look like that day:  graduation practice with our seniors which includes showing them how to march into our stadium, helping the senior girls put on their caps and gowns in a security area, handing out stoles to all the graduates (approximately 600) to wear in the ceremony, doing security in our theater while we all wait to start, throw on my own cap and gown, help the students line up as we near start time for the processional down to the field, run ahead to the staff line as we begin the march onto the field, participate in the actual ceremony down on the field, help with crowd control as students turn in their gowns and pick up their diplomas after the ceremony and then head over to a graduation party afterwards.  Whew!!  I'm exhausted just typing that out.  Speaking of the cap and gown, I got mine yesterday.  This is the first time in all the marches I've done that I will now get to wear a hood with my university colors representing my degree since I received mine last year.  Whenever I marched in our high school's graduation in past years, I've always longed for those colors adorning my gown.  To me, it represents years of sitting in classrooms at night after a full day of work and soldiering on even when I sometimes wanted to quit.  It's about perseverance, which I try to impart to kids all the time.  My degree hangs on my wall in my office at work and it's a reminder to me to never give up.

On the weight loss front, I've been slacking on my workouts the last couple of weeks.  I've been so tired with all the end-of-the-school year craziness that I'm just pooped out by the end of the day.  Friday will be my last day and then I have eight glorious weeks of summer break.  I wish it was paid summer break, but I guess you can't have everything!  I'm so excited that I will have the time to refocus my energies and give myself what I need to take care of my body.  In one month from today, I will have my last bariatric pre-op class.  It's so insane how quickly these last five months have gone.  When I first started the class, like most everyone else, I dreaded having to do the six months of education and group work.  However, I have met some amazing new friends in there and have grown so much.  I'm much more mentally prepared for surgery.  Obviously it's going to be a big change in my life, but I have such great tools to handle it on a grander level than had I just hurriedly pushed through and got the surgery as soon as possible.  I won't have the ability to eat for comfort any longer and that's going to be a big adjustment since that's what I've done my entire life.  If I was happy, sad or just plain bored, I'd go to the kitchen to see what was in there to make me feel better.  I won't be able to do that so I have to continue working to find other ways to handle those moments of being uncomfortable.

Anyway, I'm still here!