Here's the thing

I have two speeds.

Slow or fast.

This seems to be true of about everything I do.

So, I started walking with another teacher a couple of weeks ago. She's pretty much punked out about meeting me up there, but I still try to go a few nights a week.

I started out trying to walk a mile at a time, but that go boring, so I added jogging. I have terrible cardio fitness so the first time I tried to jog I thought I was gonna die.

But I figured it out. Now I can jog a quarter mile if I keep myself slow so I don't run out or air. But I don't like that. When I put the breaks on it feels wrong somehow.

So this evening I tried something else. I walked a couple of warm up laps and then instead of a nice, boring, sedate, jog, I ran. I love the feeling of running, the feeling of being in motion and its like I hit a rhythm that I can't find at a slower pace and its great . . . until I run out of air. And then I would walk a while and get my air back, and run some more and walk some more and so on until it was time to go home.

I have no idea how effective this is as a fitness plan or a training plan. I know it feels good. I know that I started the session in a pissed beyond belief mood and found myself grinning at the feel of being in motion. I know that muscles in my butt, stomach, and inner thighs feel like they've done some work. I also know that I ended up doing a quarter mile less than the last time I went. That may have more to do with the fact that I was tired and cranky when I started than with what I did.

Other stuff, I've lost another five pounds which is good. My body is fighting back against the diet though. I had a couple of bad food days that left me feeling like crap. And one day I thought I had a dollar to buy foor with but I didn't and ended up fasting the whole day. Not fun, and it felt like it too two days to feel "normal" again. Definitely don't want to do that again.

My oldest child is challenging my sanity. On the one hand he is a huge help with his brothers. He meets me after school and walks the little ones home so that I don't get fired for leaving the building too early. On the other hand, he lies to me constantly. I tell him to do a chore and he says he has homework, but when I question what homework, he goes through his entire day and its clear he knew he didn't have homework. I give him a chore and he goes to do it, tells me he did it even, but then I look and I can tell that nothing was done.

I don't understand the constant lying and then he turns around and complains that I don't let him just walk to school and I don't let him go hang out with friends after school or on weekends.

Well, he's been grounded for skipping summer school, and he's such a liar about where he went, what he did and who he was with and I really don't want to let him out of my sight for more than I absolutely have to.

If his last year's grades were better and there was after school care for preschoolers, I would let him do structured type things, but his grades were so low he can't do sports and I need him to watch Noah.

I feel like a bad mom. I don't think I ever told him "hey, just lie if you aren't getting what you want", but that seems to be what he's learned in his almost thirteen years of life.

It makes me cranky, and then I go walk/run for an hour and come home still pissed, but in a better mood.