Stressing My Way to a Slimmer Me

I am SO busy this week my stomach is churning slightly. I have also lost a couple of pounds, which makes me think I need a little crisis in my life once in a while to keep the belly flab at bay. Not anything serious you understand, but enough to make me eat less. (I've never quite understood the idea of eating when you're stressed - it's the last thing I'd feel like doing.)

A brief run-down of what's going on:

- The Queenager will be taking her first ACT exam in April. In the US, high schoolers take either ACTs or SATs (or both) as part of the college entrance rigmarole. The school doesn't really help and if you miss the application deadlines, well, it's tough titties really. (Excuse the French but I'm stressed.) Apart from having a small learning disability, she also suffers from occassional migraines which affect her vision and make her dizzy. Because of these things, we can apply for "accommodations" such as extra time, a quiet room to take the test, a computer (it takes her a little longer than average to hand write thing), etc. And of course, nothing's straight forward. Let's just say it took the school longer than it should have to find her initial LD diagnosis of 2001. And of course, the neurologist who needs to write the migraine part of the letter is out of the office till next Tuesday. No matter. I am now on a first name basis with his nurse and since I was nice as ninepence to her, she assures me it will be the first thing they discuss on Tuesday morning. I won't have to spend any more time on the phone. We'll see....

- I am now officially the President of the Board of a charitable organization. This is fantastic news (the charitable status part) not just because it took a year to get, but it now means I can apply to the huge foundations for money for my little school in Ghana. It also means that I have to send out tax letters to everyone who donated in 2009, re-design the web site, plan this year's fund-raising activities, find an inexpensive place to get t-shirts printed, put together a presentation-style document to thank the law firm who did the pro bono work, and have a board meeting before the month is out. No problem......

- I have been commissioned to interview an author in about a week's time (ooh, get me), which of course means I have to read the book. I was planning to buy this book (a secret) anyway so that's no hardship, but reading it while you have potential questions whizzing around your brain is a little more challenging. (Can you tell I haven't done this before?) I also have to get the Queenager to find the tape-recoding device I bought her. She says it's in her room......

- The man-child seems to have outgrown all his clothes - again. He has a special party on Saturday night and nothing to wear that doesn't come with rips and stains. We tried to find some semi-formal trousers at a nearby shop last night but they didn't have his size in the ones we liked, so it's straight out when he gets home from school this afternoon. Have you shopped with a teenage boy? In one respect it's great - he just tries on whatever I hand him, but his idea of what's "fine" isn't quite compatible with mine.

Recipe update - I am, as I type, also cooking this week's recipe, Taco Soup. This isn't technically something I haven't tried before, I just wanted to ease myself into actually following a recipe. And the kids (who have had it once before) love it. 

But guess what? Amateur that I am, I can't cook and type at the same time (even though it's only in a pot on the stove). It's gone and stuck to the bottom hasn't it?

.