Anders comes home tonight, and I am SO glad. Single parenting is HARD. I don’t feel like I’ve had a moment to relax or slow down for the entire 2 weeks he’s been gone, but we’ve managed nearly everything and the house hasn’t fallen apart and the kids haven’t died of starvation or anything, so, Yay me!
I was at Martin’s school tonight for a parent meeting. The first half was about the trip to London that Martin’s class won. They are going the first week of November, for 3 days, and I get to go, too! I haven’t been to London since I was a teenager, and what I remember is very blurry. There are 18 kids going and 12 adults! Ha! That’s nearly one adult for every child. 9 of the adults are teachers and there are 3 parents going: me and two other moms who are sharing a 3-person hotel room. I didn’t even know they made hotel rooms for 3 people. I tried to convince Martin when I got home that plans had changed and he wasn’t going to be sharing with his friends, but with me instead, but I don’t think he fell for it.
The downside is that we have to be at the Lund train station at 4:45 AM the day we are leaving (the plane leaves at 7-something) and we won’t be home until 1:30 AM the night we get back. Crazy! But we have 3 nearly full days in London and 2 of them are free to choose what activities we want: shopping, sight-seeing, whatever…the teachers are coming up with a list of options/prices and the kids get to choose for the 2 days. The middle day we will be spending time at the Science Museum with the entire group and 2 people from Lunds Energi (that sponsored the contest the kids won).
The second hour was all about the gymnasium choice process for the 9th graders and GEEZ what a lot of information! There is so much to know and do, and Martin has to be applying for his choices by January/February! He brought home a huge catalog that lists all the schools in Skåne and what their programs are and all the details about everything. It’s like choosing a college!
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One of the women in the AWC put up a new activity last week: a 12-week fitness challenge. She made the point that as of October 1st it was exactly 12 weeks until Christmas and she was looking for people to participate in a support group to do as much as possible for weightloss and healthy changes by then. I decided that was the motivation I needed to get going and though I haven’t started the fitness portion yet, I have started the challenge part. I figured that I would use some of the tricks that I learned in WeightWatchers: weighing myself weekly, and keeping a daily food diary because if I have to write down everything I eat, even if I’m only accountable to myself, it makes me think twice, and I’m avoiding sweets and junk food during the week. I’m back to eating big yummy salads, and the biggest thing, and the hardest by far, is portion control. And starting this weekend, I’ll add the fitness portion: walking at least 20 minutes a day to start with the first week and increasing from there.
I opted out of the email discussions about it, because nothing gets boring faster than droning on about weight issues and exercise, but the organizer started a forum for the group, so if I need an extra bit of support I can check there. Wish me luck, because I REALLY need it. 🙂