Weigh-In Friday

Hello!!! It's a LOVELY Friday where I'm at!! I'm sorry for not posting last night, I'll get into reasoning later. First off, let me share my weigh-in:

This is a loss of only .6, but I'll take it!!

So anyways, last night I spent the evening with two of my students whom I am mentoring. My area is very poverty-stricken (whose area isn't though, right?), and so I decided to take the time to hang out with two disadvantaged kids and hopefully be enough of a good influence on them that they begin to change the terrible cycle the youth in my area is stuck in. We decided to go to dinner and a movie.

Ok, I don't know how many of you grew up in underpriviledged homes, but if you are sitting on a computer, reading this, you most likely aren't in that situation any longer. If you never have, consider yourself very blessed. Being with these two helped me realize just how blessed/spoiled I am in life. I've mentioned before that there are no good places to shop in my area and the closest decent mall is 30 minutes away. Neither of these kids ever really make it out to those places. I figured we were going somewhere that they didn't get to go very often, but I didn't realize the extent of it!

First off, the boy - we'll call him T - I don't think he's ever been on the freeway before. We drove through some construction, and at one point we had to share the lane with the oncoming traffic because our side of the freeway had been ripped up and was being prepared to be repaved. T looked over at the dirt where the road had been and asked why they were building another road. He truly didn't get that it WAS the road and we were just on the other side while they fixed it. They opted to eat at the Golden Corral, which if you don't know is a buffet. To me that place is disgusting and the people who are usually there at that particular one are usually slobs - if we're going to go to a buffet, I'd much rather go to the Hometown Buffet (it's much cleaner and nicer) - but I told them they could pick where we ate, and they had never been there before. It had a chocolate fountain at the dessert buffet, and they were thrilled! They took pictures with their phones and sent them to everyone they knew! It wasn't even anything fancy!

We specifically went to this city because I really like the theater there. It's huge and has an old-time theater feel. They were AMAZED to say the least! The theater in our area is run-down and tiny, so they had never been to anything like it. They continued to take more pictures and send them to everyone. I had to laugh - I've been going to that theater for as long as I can remember and so it was nothing to me. Again, oh how much I can appreciate my life after being with kids that have never done those things in fifteen years!

Let me tell you, those kids have no social skills either. And it's not because they are bad kids, they have just never been told how to act in public. After we came out from the movie, there was a stand set up with people dressed as pirates showing off replicas of pirate-y things for the opening of The Pirates of the Caribbean. The kids were asking tons of questions, interrupting the guy before he could even get his explanation out for the first answer. Then, around the corner, another guy dressed as a pirate came out to join the table. He was a rather large man with a limp. The kids took one look at him and yelled 'Oh my gosh' and T asked if he was really walking with a limp or if it was a part of his costume (and not in the politest of ways, either). I was SO embarrassed! I ended up explaining to the pirates, after the kids walked off in another direction of course, what the situation was and that they were disadvantaged kids with a great lack of social skills, and luckily they were very understanding. I felt like I was with a couple two-year-olds the entire time, but that's exactly what their social age would compare to I guess. I felt like I was constantly nagging them - sit down, stop talking, shhhh don't say that, don't touch that, etc. etc. etc., but when I went to school today I talked about the whole experience with a fellow teacher who has been mentoring students for years. She said that's what it'll feel like at first, but after a while they will get into better social habits and it'll be easier. She also told me that those behaviors are not uncommon at all, which made me feel better because I was almost wondering if I had made a mistake taking on the mentoring position.

Here are some pictures of our adventures:

 Just a couple crazy kids! They both are very good kids at heart. T has gotten into trouble in school and with the law a little bit, but he's seemed to have straightened himself up quite a bit since he decided to get involved with track at school. He's an amazing runner - winning just about every race he competed in this season. J (the girl) was also in track. They both come from very rough areas of town, particularly the low-income housing, and have multiple family issues to deal with at home. I love them both a lot, which is why I chose them, and deep down they are really kind-hearted, sweet kids, but boy do they need to learn a thing or two about how to act in public!

So anyways, I really was amazed to lose any kind of weight whatsoever this week because of how bad I was last weekend and how little I've worked out this week. I'm hoping I can stick to the plan this weekend as much as possible. Since camping season started back up, I'm afraid of falling into my old routine of drinking both nights every weekend and eating junk food by the campfire. It's such an easy habit to fall into because that is basically what everyone around here does! And being that my hubby is the owner of the place, everyone invites me to their fire to suck up (which I of course accept :) ). And dinner each night usually consists of something off the grill - hamburgers, hotdogs, etc. This is exactly how I gained all the weight last year! I'm so close to being down 20 pounds (my official first weigh-in was at 175, before I started blogging again), and I really don't want to screw this up! Determination, DETERMINATION, DETERMINATION!!! Oh boy.

It's so nice out I really should be running or riding my bike, but of course I'm stuck in the campground store. I choose what days to work each week, and it never fails that I decide on the nicest days. If I had decided to NOT work today, it would have poured down rain all night. Just. My. Luck.

Well, I've rambled enough for the evening. Believe it or not, I did start this post at 4:00 and it is now 6:00. Not that I've been writing for two hours, just that I've been busy in the store and I'm having a little focusing problems tonight ;) HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!