In the midst of me feeling very overwhelmed with school, kids, shopping, planning, shopping, wrapping.... I have to say that this is my favorite holiday.  Now, I love the time spent with family, the decorations, the traditions, and of course the gifts ;^)  But one of my favorite pieces is the Christmas cards.  Today when I got home from school there were 3 cards waiting for me in the mailbox.  One from my cousin, I always look forward to this one.  It's always a picture of her family, 7 girls and (new addition this year) 1 boy.  She takes the photo herself and they are always wearing coordinating outfits, usually something she made.  Yes, she is an overachiever and I adore her!  The second card was from an old friend that I used to work with.  When I saw her name it made me smile while remembering some of our fun times together.  (I sure miss you Karen!  The hall at my new school is wonderful but it sure is quiet without you.)  And the third card was another photo card.  It was from a girl that I graduated with; she and her husband were high school sweethearts so I actually graduated with both of them.  We also worked together and her oldest daughter sang at my wedding (Somewhere Over The Rainbow while the wedding party walked down the isle. - I actually have a wonderful story to go along with that but I'll have to share that another time.) and was in my class that year.  Anyway...they have had a new baby so I got to see how the other kids have grown and get a peak at the new baby girl.  I just love, love, love getting home from work each day and checking the mailbox for new Christmas cards from friends and family that I don't get the opportunity to visit with very often.  I love seeing how the kids have grown and even simply seeing the name of an old friend brings back fun memories.

Happy Holidays...take a minute to remember an old friend and share a fun memory with a new friend. (kinda cheesey but who cares :o)

Liz

As I am sure you can tell, I am a few lb's shy of goddess status...I don't know exactly when this happened....but...alas...it is what it is.  I'd like to say it's "baby weight" but my "baby" is 11 years old....so....  **A little side note ~ when I dream I'm always much slimmer and when I successfully avoid all reflective devices I always visualize myself about 10 years younger and 40 something pounds lighter....and then I stumble upon a mirror and I am shocked to be face to face with the reality of things.  But I have sort of gotten off the topic....you'll notice, after a while...okay, pretty soon....that I tend to stray from the topic at hand.  But, good news, I generally talk in circles so eventually I'll come back around and finish the story I started with. 

So, several ladies and a guy that I teach with have also found themselves in a less than goddess-like state.  So we decided to start a "Fit Club" and the results have been awesome!  September 7th everyone that wanted to participate, 25 people, put in $25.00 and we drew for teams.  There are nine teams with 2 or 3 people on each team.  We all have names, my team is "Thin to Win"  (I wanted "Sassy by Summer" or "Booty-licious" but the 1 guy happens to be on my team and he didn't feel that was butch enough).  $20.00 of the money we paid goes to the winning pot for the end of the contest, Jan 4th, and $5.00 goes to weekly drawings.  The team that looses the highest percentage of weight wins the pot.  Every Friday everyone must weigh in before 12 noon or the team cannot place for that week (or Thursday if you know you'll be out).  If you loose weight, no matter how much, your name goes in a drawing for a weekly prize.  The prizes consist of coupons to wear jeans one day, or leave 30 minutes early one day, gift cards to sonic, school pride type stuff...  Then the teams are placed to show who is in the lead and down the line.  After lunch the nurse, who is the only one to see anyone's weight, makes an announcement as to how much we, as a campus, lost that week, how much we've lost all year, who lost the most that week, and who won the weekly drawing.  We also have this information posted in our break room along with a "losers" list for who has lost 10 pounds and now we have who has lost 20 pounds.

Well, so far, we have lost over 200 pounds campus wide.  We have gone as high as 239 but then through Thanskgiving and all we are back down to 219.  This week we lost 7 pounds but gained 20 pounds so it's sort of a tug of war.  We have about 10 people on the "10 pound Loser" list and 2 people on the "20 pound Loser" list.  By the way, as of today, I have lost 12 pounds.

Our nurse and PE coach are heading this up. Coach emails everyone health tips each day.  One of the really neat side effects of this "club" is that we, as a campus, are really getting to know each other and having a lot of fun!  Each Friday the teams take turns providing a nutritious snack for the break room.

AND, the other day one of my sweet little students said that I looked "really skinny" (a bit of a stretch even with my imagination...but I'll take it).  He doesn't know it yet, but he is going to do really good this year ;^)

So, if you're interested in starting something like this at you school/work and you have questions about how we got started, just give me a shout.  And I'll post an update each Friday...but no heckling when I gain...cause we all know that's going to happen.