The kids are doing very well in school this year.
Sophie loves her high school. She got straight As her first quarter. It's a very demanding curriculum (charter school, ranked #1 in the state and also ranked nationally), so her getting such high marks her first term says a lot about how hard she worked.
She also did an outstanding job in the school play--she had a lead role in Act 1 of The Musical of Musicals (she was June). She got a lot of compliments from teachers, students, and audience members. It was the first time she had such a large role. She's also in a play at her acting studio, where she has a lead role, as well; it runs Halloween weekend. It is an original play that her voice teacher wrote, a little over an hour long.
Luke also did well, getting As and one B (an 89.66 in science--but the teacher only had 5 grades for the entire quarter. It's only 5th grade so I'm totally not stressing over a "B.").
He got to bring his trombone home several weeks ago, and I was impressed with how much his band teacher has been able to teach him in such a short period of time. Luke seems to be a natural with this instrument. He likes band and doesn't mind getting up early to catch the early bus (at 6:52) to go to band at around 7:10am at the high school (then he rides a bus to his school, which starts at 8:15).
Last week I started training for the Disney Princess half marathon, which is in February and I am going to do again next year. I got in two training days. The first day was brutal and only two miles. The second day was better and three miles. This week I'm shooting for three days. My plan is to train Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It is next to impossible to squeeze in any time for ME, which is why I signed up for this race (I wasn't going to do it, but Mark told me I should, if it meant I would start running again). And I did run. In tenth of a mile intervals. But I'm running. And even though it's hard, it feels good to be moving again.
My anxiety still has been bad. I started taking a new medication a few weeks ago. I'm on a very low dose. It makes me extremely sleepy within about 20 minutes, and gives me a bit of a sleep hangover. It seems to help with the anxiety somewhat. I haven't been taking it long so I'm not sure how effective it is yet.
My nurse practitioner and I talked about what drugs to try next at my last appointment. I am so against taking a different antidepressant because of weight gain on SSRIs, that I basically have tied her hands on how to help me with the traditional methods. But she totally gets it and has never tried to push me into an SSRI or anything that would cause me to gain weight.
I've gained about 8 pounds in the last three months. So not happy about that. I've been eating too much in the evenings, mostly carbs, and it has caught up with me. My clothes still fit and it doesn't show too terribly badly, but I can feel it around my waist more than I used to (thanks so much, middle age). I'm hopeful that running again after work will prompt me to make better choices. I also know that being heavier makes it harder to run faster, so that is motivating me.
Luke turns 11 on November 6th. I "met" most of you when he was around a year old. So we've been doing this about 10 years now. It is crazy how fast the years have gone by.
