Southern Girl Reviews

Since we came back to school from the holidays, our community has been under multiple boil water notices. The school is providing us with BOTTLED water. – yes a bottle of water for every student and teacher and then the big containers for refills – DAILY! Can you imagine how expensive that must be?  I keep thinking that as much as we are spending lately on bottled water, we might should look into some type of filtration method (such as the PureClean ukf7003axx) so that we don’t have to worry about all the issues that our community has with water. This is such a headache and that seems like such an easy fix (if it would work for that). Luckily I’m on a separate water company at home and haven’t experienced any of this. But if I had, I would be seriously looking for a way to get around this besides buying water for days at a time.

So I am looking over my stats for the last few weeks (yes, I knew due to my lack of activity they would be sad) but I thought this one was funny – someone found me site by searching for myrtle beach vacation rentals and I’ve never even been to myrtle beach. How odd is that? I don’t think I’ve posted here before about Myrtle Beach or a vacation rental.  I sometimes wonder how these search engines work when those weird search terms show up on my site. 

In my world, Thanksgiving is the beginning of eating, eating, and more eating..between faculty parties, family get togethers, PTSO feeding us, and friend get togethers, it seems that every time I turn around is a super duper meal. And I don’t turn away good food – Nope, not me, NEVER!  This is the time of year when I bet search terms such as best way to lose belly fat ” probably grow mega in popularity. At least around here it does. I’m already planning to start a new exercise routine and maybe even a detox a couple days next week. Here’s to not gaining too much weight over the next month!

After things at work being so busy and kind of “blah” lately, we decided that we were ready for Christmas and started putting up the Christmas tree a few weeks ago. We started bringing home the Christmas boxes from storage – the tree is up, the Christmas pillows, blankets,rugs and village is in the process of all being up. As soon as school is out Tuesday at lunch, we’ll finish up putting everything up. I can’t wait.  Pictures will be posted around my blogs…stay tuned. WE LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Only a day and a half of school this week, and my online life will be active again. I’ve written a schedule to make sure that any new reviews and contests are written before next Sunday (when school starts back)..my goal is to have almost 3 weeks worth of content ready to post. Then we’ll be on Christmas break.  It seems that teaching a new subject is more demanding than I expected, and I just haven’t been able to keep up with the reviews lately. I have notified all winners of previous contests so if you are waiting on those results, please note that all winners were emailed directly as I wasn’t posting actively over here. Yes, life has been crazy.  Things just keep piling up at home. I have been wanting to plan an Orlando vacations and just get away. A few short posts tonight and maybe tomorrow…reviews start later in the week. Stay tuned.

I am an ABC junkie. I admit that. It is rare that we change our tv on weeknight evenings from ABC.  Each season, we anxiously watch the new shows to decide which ones we’ll like and which we’ll skip out on.  One of the new series that premiered recently that I have thoroughly enjoyed is Eastwick.  I did not think the previews looked very good. In fact, I planned to skip it entirely that first week, but out of laziness I didn’t change the channel, and from that first episode, I was hooked. There are three main women characters – Roxie Torcoletti (Rebecca Romijn), Joanna Frankel (Lindsay Price), and Kat Gardener (Jamie ray Newman). I feel like I relate to all three of these women on some level.  Roxie is a single mom of a daughter (like me) trying to make it as her daughter gets more mature and independent and also manage the dating scene. Joanna is a reporter with a nerdy and insecure side that I can relate to on so many levels, and Kat is someone who has put her children before her happiness for many years and is now venturing out into her own life (sounds familiar to me). Deciding which character is my favorite is difficult because they are all such outstanding characters. Each of these women have special powers. Of the three, my two favorites are Roxie who has visions and Joanna who can make eye contact with someone and will them to do as she says. I think I’d rather have Joanna’s powers than any others as having the ability to look at my students and get them to instantly do a I want would be a great teaching tool.  Joanna has used it to get dates (yea!  I might could use that) and to insist that people tell her the truth – that would be GREAT!

If you have not checked out Eastwick on ABC, I encourage you to do so this week for their Halloween episode.  It promises to be a good one!

More info?

Eastwick ABC Site
Eastwick  on Facebook

This time of year there are many things we need to remember.

1. Halloween is the most dangerous day of the year for children to walk. Be sure to know where your children are at all times during Trick or Treating. Walk with them. Safe Kids USA has more tips for keeping the kiddos safe on Halloween.
2. November 1st is Daylight Savings. Don’t forget to set your clocks back before you go to bed on Halloween.
3. Change the batteries in your smoke alarms. Daylight Savings is a great time to do this every year. (Don’t forget carbon monoxide detectors too)
4. November 1st through 7th is Safe Crossing Week.

Looking for more information on keeping your kids safe? Check out the Safe Kids USA site.  I was amazed at how much information was there.

When all else fails, do you turn to slimming pills? I haven’t decided yet. I’m against medication across the board really. I don’t even take Tylenol for headaches until they are unbearable. So taking medication for anything is hard for me, but then I keep looking at the lack of results of everything I’ve tried in the past and I’m not so confident anymore. I’m going to give these 10 Minute Workouts a try though before I decide on a new plan of attack.

I’ve heard over and over that if you start exercising, you’ll have more energy. So my question is how do you start exercising when you have NO ENERGY?  My solution? I can’t afford, nor do I have room for, any type of fitness equipment which would be my preferred way of working out so I’m going to try the 10 Minute Workout series.  I’ve set up several in my Netflix Que and hope to find a couple that I’ll enjoy. If I can just incorporate 10 minutes each morning into my routine, would that help? I’m not sure, but I plan to find out. I’ll let you know.

When I actually had the flu, I did avoid eating almost anything, but then there’s been the weeks of exhaustion afterwards.  That has resulted in me exercising even less than normally.  And less movement means more weight.  I’ve got two options – fight it with some of the best weight loss supplements out there or find ways to be more healthy.  I’ve started taking a multivitamin every morning, drinking less soda and more water and juice.  I think it’s working. I’m almost caught up and back on top of things at work and today I started the email battle. Baby steps I guess?