The start of a new stage of my life...

3 months again...how does that happen?  LOL

What does that mean--starting a new stage of my life, you may wonder...  Well, after more than 10 years of adult education and advocacy in special education, and 3 years teaching high school history, this year I am switching things up again!  Last Monday, I began the "middle school" phase of my life again!  And, it is at the same middle school I attended as a teen and the same middle school where I did my student teaching all those years ago....well, sort of--the same school but in a newer building at a new site all the way across town!

SO, what is this new middle school phase?  After all those years in advocating for the rights of children with disabilities, I am now a full-time ESE (Exceptional Student Education) teacher for 7th and 8th grade here in LaBelle.  That means that I am the "special ed" teacher for all of our LaBelle Middle School students who have a 504 or IEP (Individualized Education Plan)--whether in an ESE class or not.  I am the one who helps keep up with/monitor their IEPs.  I am the resource room teacher and the one who does the consults on the kiddos who don't spend any time in an ESE classroom, but have special needs.  We had our first round of IEP meetings this week and everything went great!  The Staffing Specialist for our side of the county (the ESE person from the Board of Education) is an old friend and teacher of mine.  She was a science teacher when I was in Middle School.  She was a CHADD member when I founded the first CHADD Chapter of my CHADD career (anybody remember the "duck tape" story?), and she's a great friend and parent of 2 pretty ADHD kiddos...well, young adults!  We've worked together over the last 3 years while I was the "regular education" teacher for lots of children with special needs at the high school.  Now, we'll be working together a bit more and with a new focus--for me at least!

On other fronts, I need to get my butt moving--literally...  I spent too much time on the road and eating out this summer.  I need to lose about 20 pounds to feel the way I used to feel...  I know HOW to do it and I know I have the tools to do it.  What I am lacking is motivation.  Snugly fitting clothes is about to do it though!  I refuse to buy new clothes instead of taking the weight off!  The bike tires are pumped up...I just need to get them rolling!

What a clothes hog I was!

While I may have had to order all my clothing other than bras and undies from Lane Bryant and Roaman's catalogs, I had a TON of it! I took full advantage over the years of their deferred payment options and their credit cards. I stayed at my limit most of the time and usually had at least one order on deferred billing on my checking account debit card!

My point here?? I'm getting there! LOL Since my surgery and losing over 200 pounds, I've been getting around to cleaning closets and storage spots in my home that I previously avoided at all costs as I just was not able to do the work... My home was a huge mess of clutter. Piles here... Piles there... And, the closets were the worst. Most of them sort of overflowed their bounds! The racks were full. The overhead shelves were loaded so heavily with stuff (not usually clothes) that one of them actually pulled out of the wall and fell down! The floor of the closets were stacked as high as the bottom of the clothes with stuff--shoes and other assorted junk. And, lately, one at a time, I'm getting around to doing something about it all.

Despite having given away and shipped off well over 200 pounds of clothes and then giving away locally a HUGE contractor's trash bag of clothes again, I rounded up 40 pounds of size 4X clothes. Now not only were these clothes in good shape, but they were still in the package! They'd never even been tried on or worn! I had so freaking many clothes that I bought clothes I never even opened! And they were stashed here and stashed there.... These clothes added up to well over $400 in cost and there were 36 items!

The good news of this whole mess???? I put them up on ebay! I did it with a reserve price of $150 and a starting bid of just 99 cents. I wanted to start where about anyone could bid and the listing would be cheaper, BUT I wanted to get some money out of them too as I had given away everything else! The first time I listed them, they did NOT sell... In fact, the bidding only got up to like $56--nowhere near the $150 reserve. The second time though, the bidding went from less than $20 to a flat $150 in just a few days and was at $192 about 24 hours before the auction closed. It closed at a wonderful price of $265.00. I was thrilled! It took 3 days for the buyer to pay, but they paid and that BIG ole box of clothes is shipping tomorrow! And, she said that her Mom was going to be thrilled. So, it made someone else happy too!

I got rid of the clothes that I will never ever wear again and had never worn before.
I got a fair price out of them.
Someone's Mom is getting a nice gift--a 20" x 20" x 12" box crammed FULL of new clothes.
I have $265 to put towards the propane we need to heat this winter! Ugh! It is up to like $2.64 a gallon now. We paid $1.82 last winter....