Hello Donalds !! I am back from my Ladies Spa weekend and we had a wonderful time. Baden-Baden is such a pretty town. It kinda reminds me of a small Paris. I did not get to go to the Friedrichsbad due to TOM so I went to a different spa that still has the thermal water but is more like a water park and you wear a swimsuit

Anyway, it was not so great. We have some places like that around here that are better! And, it is really not a good idea to sit around in any kind of thermal bath during TOM anyway I discovered

But, that was only about 2 hours of the weekend and the rest of the time was a lot of fun. One lady who is a recent new mother got VERY drunk at dinner, it was quite amusing.....until she broke her wine glass at the table

I came home quite refreshed from the weekend away. And, I met a new lady who is going to take me to a membership club store tomorrow so I am excited to see what products they have there. I've heard they have really nice Argentian beef; you buy a whole loin for about 40 euros and go home and it will slice into about 12 nice thick steaks. I'm definitely getting that.
Congrats to LTS for hitting onderland!!!!!!!!! What a cute post about it. Do not worry at all about gaining on your trip and going back over. It will just be a temporary gain and you'll get back there quickly I am sure.
Congrats to Beth on your engagement

How exciting!!! Can't wait to hear wedding details.....
pamela and shawn- I think when your boys go off to college, you should start up your own reality tv show, THE ORGANIZERS, and you can start right here in MA. (I'll pm you my address)You can go into peoples houses, like the nanny and help them get their lives and homes in order.
wouldn't that be fun
QOTD:
1. Do you set "mini-goals" for yourself and how do you celebrate when you reach them?
2. What are some non-food rewards that you use to reward yourself for reaching goals?
Yes, my goal is always to lose 5 more pounds and I reward myself with a new clippie

Don't know why that is so motivating to me! I also go down one number in my BMI every time I lose 6 pounds so I have that in mind too. I don't think I've really given myself any rewards this time. I spoil myself on a daily basis however
QOTD for Saturday
Continuing on the theme of goals, there is a popular saying related to weight about being able to still fit into your wedding dress.
Do you have a significant item of clothing that you are hoping to fit into at some point?
Yes, I bought a gingham blouse for the annual Spring Fest here. A lot of people dress up in traditional costume, Dirndles for women and lederhosen for men. I do not look good in a dirndle so I thought it would be nice to wear the blouse with jeans and still fit in with my friends wearing costumes. I really need to do some serious work quickly as it is TIGHT and the fest ends May 8th. It's tight right in my problem area-upper abdomen
QOTD for Sunday
pjlla shared her before and after photos with us. Have you taken any photos or done anything to document your journey?
I just happened to have a couple of before photos by chance. One is the last day in the US before we moved. We are standing on our front porch posing with our close neighbor friends and another is a few months later when we are here and I went on my first hike with the Wandren Club. I'm so glad I have those photos to show my progress. I had hubby take a photo when I lost 25 lbs and I plan to take more at each new 5 lb increment.
Too tired to post more tonight, but here is the QOTD for Monday.
If you could go back 10 years and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?
I would tell myself to stop doing the low carb diet and eat a balanced diet and try to maintain the 29 pound loss I had in 2001!!! I would also tell myself it does not have to be all or nothing. You are not on a diet one day eating zero cookies and off a diet the next eating 50 cookies. Aim for moderation and if you fall off the wagon, do not beat yourself up, just get back on track as soon as you can. I would also tell myself to make time for moderate exercise daily and to be more active with my 4 year old.
OK, caught up on the QOTD now. Our life has been crazy since Friday. DS had an opportunity earlier in the year to go on a student exchange trip to Spain. He did not want to go. We tried to talk him into it but he was pretty adamant. On Friday, it was announced that a student on the trip had to back out and they were looking for a new participant. I asked DS again and he now wanted to go! So, we booked and paid and he is over the moon about it now for some reason and he leaves next Weds. BUT, I had thrown away all the info about it and I probably should have gotten more details before agreeing. It turns out the Spanish student comes here the exact week my BFF from the States is coming to visit. I had to let them know the student can't come here because we don't have room and I will be travelling most of that week. They weren't too happy about that. Then I realized that DS will miss the last 2 Scout meetings before they have their big campout at Normandy and he will miss a lot of the details and planning

THEN, I remembered that the week after the Spanish trip, DS is supposed to participate in a German exchange program where he goes to a local German school for one week and a German student goes to his international school.
But, how can he miss 13 days of school in a row ????? I am thinking he needs to pull out of the German exchange to keep up his work in other classes. In addition to all of that, we had our huge PTA fund raiser last Friday night and I have trips to Poland, London and Amsterdam coming up in the next month and it's just been very hectic around here. I had to write it all down for DH so he could see what's going on. He only has to go back and forth to work and on the Amsterdam trip for Easter break.
And, speaking of work, today DH was told we had the opportunity to go home this Summer instead of next!!!!!!!!!!! I could be living back in the US in a few months!!!!!
We would have thought we'd be very excited but we both feel a little ..... funny about it. He has to let them know by the end of the week and I am pretty sure we will go back early. I sure wish we had kept our house in the US now. I think we would have done things a little differently if we'd known it would only be 2 years instead of 3. So, I need to call back to our old school system and find out what is needed to transfer in to HS there and we need to figure out if we are renting or buying and a million other details. My head is swimming but it feels good to let "somebody" know. We aren't saying anything here until it's finalized. Thanks for letting me ramble
Well, I PM'ed my Friday weight to Tracey, I was up .4. Today I am up 2.4

Looks like another week of trying to get back to my old weight. I need to get off this merry go round

Atleast I got all 21 HH points last week
Talk to ya later Donalds,
Shawn
