My brain is fried. What was supposed to be a day in my office turned into an even longer day in the unit. But I can't complain. I love my job!

Regardless, however, after finishing up homework when I got home I am in now shape to communicate, so instead, please enjoy browsing some pics of my crafts over the last couple months :).

Remembering 9/11

It's been 10 years today and my jaw still drops to the floor and my eyes instantly fill with tears when I hear the stories of so many people that lost their lives that day and the families that love and miss them.

Dateline aired a story of remembrance this past Friday. I started watching it with Ryan and a little way in wanted Chase to come down and watch it with us. This is something that he doesn't remember happening. He was only 1 at

the time. But this is a story he should know. He too should remember the lives lost and the sacrifices made.

When I asked Chase if he knew what I meant when I talked about the World Trade Center he said no. When I asked him if he knew what 9/11 meant he initially said no. But then he started to remember. He asked "Is that when those planes flew into those buildings"? He has learned some about that day in school, but his heart has yet to feel the pain of that day like so many of us have. But I know one day he will understand it as we do.

9/11 is more than when planes flew into a building. It marks a day in history none of us will ever forget. 2819 people lost their lives that day. So many, many more lost their loved ones. Our nation lost part of our family. It breaks my heart just thinking about it. Each family has their own story of their own personal tragedy surrounding that

day. It is not hard to find these stories amongst the many books, TV shows, and movies that stem from the attacks. But so many people have yet to tell their story. That is why it important to remember.

I hope and pray that nothing like this ever

happens again. But it does. We still have soldiers who lose their lives fighting overseas to prevent something like this from happening to us again. They fight for us like all the civil service workers fought to help the people who were trapped on our own soil that day. The fight will never be over because, thankfully, we will always have men and women willing to sacrifice their freedom, their lives, to protect those of us too scared or unwilling to do it ourselves.

To all these people. To the men and women who fought for our lives so many years ago, those who fought on 9/11, those who fight today, and those who will fight tomorrow...I will remember, forever. Thank you so much for all that you have given and continue to give for my freedom and the freedom of the ones I love.

Here is a link that gives some insight into just how much we lost that day: http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm

Evie & The PreK

So we've heard about Chase. How's Evie?

Evie started PreK at Lee County PreK this year. Here wonderful Daddy waited all night in line in March, in the freezing cold mind you, to reserve his little girl's spot in the program. This is the case every year in Lee County, as there are usually never enough spots.

I remember when I went to sign Chase up for the program when he was 4. The sign said 8am, so there I was at 8am. I thought it odd to find so many lawn chairs parked outside the building. But no people outside. Surely people had been sitting outside waiting for registration to begin. I found out they had. There we only 70 spots for our zone that year. Thank goodness, despite my sleeping in the own, warm bed the previous night, Chase was registered in slot 63.

This year there were 110+ spots for our zone (there are two zones...East and West). I was there at the board of education at 3pm the day before registration, to save Ryan's spot for the night. When I arrived, the line was more than 30 deep. But we knew E was in. To be honest, she would have been in regardless of whether we had camped out or not. Ryan arrived around 530pm and we swapped kids. We went and got Daddy dinner, had a picnic with him, and went off to sleep at home without Ryan. He didn't get much sleep that night. It was very cold and uncomfortable. We met him back at the BOE the next morning to sign Evie up. We found out later that day that they hadn't filled all the spots. We're ok with that. As soon as we'd decided not to camp out we would have missed our chance.

I've drifted a little from the topic. We had hoped to have Mrs. McConnell, Chase's kindergarten teacher, as she had moved to the PreK. We were sad to find out she was only taking West Zone and we're East (they try to keep the kids together because they'll split schools next year). Total bummer...she was such a wonderful teacher for Chase. Evie is in Mrs. Pearce's class, however, and so far, so good. We like her a lot, and so does Evie. Her paraprofessional, Ms. Mitchell, is very nice, too.

Evie enjoys taking her lunch every day. She started out in the after school program, but that only lasted a week before we decided it wasn't for us. It's a mix of 200 4-11 year olds and very chaotic. Evie wasn't happy there. So she is riding the bus home now and loves it.

Mrs. Pearce loves bumblebees, and the room is covered in them. Each day Evie brings home a stamped paper with a bumblebee which means she didn't get in trouble. She's gotten a bumblebee every single day :). 2 weeks ago was her turn to bring home Bee. Bee is a bear who gets to travel home with a little girl form her class each week (the boys get to take home Bumble). She was so excited! She had lots of fun with Bee and we took pictures to send to school with her to show all her friends.

Inevitable Detention

While signing Chase's planner tonight, I commented on how proud I was that his disciplinary sheet remains empty...a whole 4 weeks into his first year at Lee County Middle School. Go Chase!

So he was telling me that he got to choose a prize for remaining "discipline free". His choices were:
1. A "Hat Pass": He could wear a hat to school on the day of his choosing.
2. An "iPod Pass": He could bring his iPod to school one day to listen to his tunes at lunch.
3. An "Outside Pass": He could spend a lunch break outside.
4. A "Detention Pass": He could receive a pass to bail on detention at any one point this school year.

I find it incredibly ironic that one of your choices for a reward for staying out of trouble is a pass to get out of being in trouble in the future. And what did my son choose? The "Detention Pass". I guess he thinks he just can't keep this up forever :).

But we are very proud of Chase. He is really enjoying his new school. I was very worried about how Chase would transition to being the little fish in a great big pond. He went from a school of 700 to a school of 1200. He is changing classes now. He was changing classes in elementary school, but he changed with his whole class. This year he is on his own, as each kid in his class goes their own way to each class. But he is loving it all. He especially loves his Keyboarding class and is always wanting to show us how fast he can type (which I think is pretty darn fast for an eleven-year-old). I spoke with his teacher last week, just to check in and see how he is doing and she said she is transitioning well. Ahhhh...I can breathe again.

On a Game On! side note...my 2nd perfect day of the game. Go Dieting Divas!

Stupid Scale!

So Day #3 of the Game On! Diet and I have only had 1 perfect day...yesterday. Why was today not so perfect? Because I broke a rule. A minuscule rule, but a rule nonetheless.

When reading the book and the rule about not weighing yourself more than once in one day I thought, "who would weigh themselves more than once in a day?" Well, I would. I know this because I did it, just today.

The game requires you weigh yourself once a week, on the morning of your day off. But it recommends you weigh yourself daily because studies show that dieters who weigh themselves daily lose twice the weight compared to dieters who weigh themselves weekly. Interesting. So I chose to go the daily route.

The book discourages weighing yourself more than once a day to avoid the obsession with the scale. Some people (obviously people like me), tend to obsess over details like "how much do I weigh at this time of day" and "how much will I weigh after I pee". I would lie and say I wasn't the "obsessive" type, but I am. I am that person who obsesses over the details. Resultantly, I lost 1 of my possible 100 point today. Bummer.

On the bright side...I've lost 2 pounds since starting the diet Monday and am now down to 138.6. :)

GAME ON!...The 1st Day Recap

Since I am working nights this week and haven't really seen my kids enough to have much to say about them, I figured today's post could be purely Game On! related, and I'll do a recap of Day #1.

You would think the beginning of the competition would be the easiest, and that it'd be no arduous feat to score a perfect score on your first day. Sadly, this was not the case for me. But let me explain!...because surely I have an explanation.

While a perfect score is 100 for any given day, I only made a 94 on Day #1. I lost 6 meal points. Day #1 also happened to be my start of 3 night shifts this week and I made an error in planning my meals. I was trying to think of the best way to squeeze in 5 meals and all the sleep I needed to get back on a night shift rotation. I woke at 10:30am, prepped some meals and at 11:30am ate my first meal: Scrambled eggs (3 whites, 1 yolk) atop a slice of whole wheat toast. Very yummy. I laid back down for a nap at 2:30pm, and didn't think I needed another meal before then because it was only 3 hours since the last meal. In fact, when my husband came in and said "Don't you need to eat again", I explained that I didn't. Poor planning on my part.

During the day I was trying to think what my "day" needed to be when I was working night shift. In the end, the best thing I could come up with was to always have my days run midnight to midnight. Hence, I missed a meal. I ate another meal before work around 5pm (1/2 a grilled chicken breast, 1/2 slice of cheese wrapped with spinach and olive oil inside a whole wheat tortilla). At 7:45p I had meal #3 (two hard boiled egg whites and 1 yolk with a peach) and dinner at 10:45p was brown rice stir-fry with scrambled egg whites, cabbage, zucchini, broccoli and olive oil. If you're keeping track, that makes 4 meals for the day. Not 5. Darn! My first failure!

The rest of my points were much easier to come by. I got in my 3 liters of water much easier than I had thought it would be. I took a break after dinner and walked the stairs for 20 minutes to get in my exercise before midnight (but 4 1/2 trips up and down the stairs had me sweating far more than I would have liked when I had to go back to work). I had already done my blog post and communication and I survived the day with not a drop of Red Bull.

So, I will still count Day #1 as a success, even though it was not a perfect success. The lapses in judgement are supposed to teach you, as they taught me. Today will be a perfect day. And hopefully, so will every other day too :).

GAME ON!

So for those of you who have never heard of the Game On! diet, I would encourage you to visit www.gameonediet.com and check it out. A group of us girls at work have just started up our first game. I am very excited about learning to live healthier and getting to have a ton of fun in the meantime.

So what does this mean for the rest of you? More Graham Fam! The game challenges you to lose one unhealthy habit (which for me will be my very unhealthy habit of a daily Red Bull) and gain one new healthy habit. My healthy habit, lucky for you, will be to post one new blog post each day(which counts as journaling). I will be posting daily about both the Graham Fam and my Game On! challenges.

Yesterday was my last day of "freedom" before beginning healthier living, and I did it up nice. We met our friends, the Brinsons from Savannah, at Wild

Adventures in Valdosta for some fun with our 5 kids, plus their 11-year-old cousin. I celebrated with TWO Red Bulls yesterday. I had a couple slices of pizza and far too much soda (since I rarely drink it anymore anyway) at the park. Luckily the rain held off until after 6:30pm last night, but then it moved in full force. We were already headed to the car, having seen the very black clouds rolling in and fearing a torrential downpour. We were less than halfway to the car when the bottom dropped out. But I think the kids had a really great time running through the rain and my last couple weeks of intermittent 5k training really paid off! We met the Brinsons at Texas Roadhouse where I enjoyed a couple rolls, some cheese fries, a few more Cokes, 1/2 a cheesy hamburger and a sweet potato. Farewell evil food! See you next month(maybe...). The best part of the day was snapping a good pic of all 3 of my kids together...a VERY rare event indeed!

As for Game On! I woke up this morning, weighed in (and as reluctant as I am to share, I will: 140.6), finalized my habits with

the help of my husband, and began cooking. I am cooking some meals for the next couple days, since I am on nights for the next 3 days. Right now I am working on a healthy stir-fry of brown rice, cabbage, zucchini, and broccoli. When I get it on the stove I will throw in some egg whites for protein and EVOO for a healthy fat. For breakfast I whipped up 3 egg whites and one yolk for scrambled eggs to top off a piece of whole wheat toast. Very good, I must say. Game On! girls! Go Dieting Divas (our team name. My teammates are some great girls forms work: Misti, Amy and Anne).