Operation Tubetop

Good morning everybody! It is Monday morning and I have the whole day free. Tomorrow is my flight to Canada and I am freaking out just a teeny tiny bit because I haven't heard from my Air BnB hosts since I received the confirmation in March. Fingers crossed I don't end up homeless when I arrive. I would not be pleased. I packed too many nice outfits. Speaking of outfits, I have had to pack a lot of different outfits for this trip. Usually I go pretty casual when I am back in Canadaland but I have a few important meetings and of course a wedding to go to so I guess my plaid shirts will have to stay in Vienna. Yesterday was the end of my 5 week challenge that I called the Tova Be Toning it Up Challenge. It was fun, I lost some weight, but I probably could have kicked my tuckus a little bit harder. I am a masochist, but I did not reach my full potential but I was close. So how did I do after the 5 weeks? Not bad. Not bad at all. I lost a total of 5 kilos (11 pounds), I lost 5 ...

If you want to see pictures of food and random things I did this past week, beachy crafts, etc. please check out Instagram @tmspatz. Also, please feel free to join me for the next 4 weeks! I am not a nutritionist, a personal trainer or even an Instagram star so this is not a certified diet thingy. This is just something I custom made for me so don't sue me. Please check out this blog post here so that you understand what the challenge is all about! This recap will include what I ate, what workouts I did and what "Tone it Up" lifestyle things I did. Also, the end of the post will include how many centimeters and kilos I have (if any) lost this past week. Enjoy! (None of these pictures belong to me... because I don't take random pictures of girls in bikinis. All of these pictures belong to Tone It Up). I DID IT! 5 WEEKS! Here is the Week 5 Recap. But stay tuned for my final summary in the next post! Monday The Kid woke up in a mood and I decided to keep hi...

Just two more days of work and then I am off for 2 weeks. I need this time off desperately! I have been feeling a little overwhelmed these past couple of weeks... probably because I am hungry and missing pizza. Tonight I will be going out with some friends to Schrei and Soehne. I have never been but it is in the hood and these are my hood buddies. The majority of us are Canadian so we are cool and shit. Drinks will be had and I need to be careful and remind myself that I still have one more day of work left after. I am definitely looking forward to an evening out, sitting outside and drinking with good friends. Well deserved I do declare. Speaking of declaring, I finally got to watch the first episode of Southern Charm Savannah. The original one is pretty much the only reality show that the Husband will watch with me and we are so so so behind. We totes need to catch up. I finally watched the Savannah one and it isn't bad. It doesn't have the same, dare I say, charm, as the...

Hello Tuesday! Yesterday I stayed home with the Kid. He slept over 11 hours and then woke up crying and yelling. We assume his stomach was hurting him and I made the executive Mommy decision to keep him home. The Husband was sure that he was fine but I was all Sally Fields and clutched him to my chest. Yeah, I think I got played. By 11 he was happy and bouncing around. Well done, Kiddo, well done. The Nanny and therapy student came in the afternoon so that meant I had a couple of hours to kill. I bought myself some shoes and then stopped for a drink at the shady bar near my place. I read more of the Great Gatsby and then headed home. Of course the Kid was in an amazing mood. I made him dinner and then, since he was full of energy, I decided to take him for a walk. We even stopped at the vegan ice cream shop and he was amazingly patient, waiting for us to get our scoops. He had a little bit of mine but lost interest so I had to eat most of it. Thanks for helping me diet, kiddo. It w...

If you want to see pictures of food and random things I did this past week, beachy crafts, etc. please check out Instagram @tmspatz. Also, please feel free to join me for the next 4 weeks! I am not a nutritionist, a personal trainer or even an Instagram star so this is not a certified diet thingy. This is just something I custom made for me so don't sue me. Please check out this blog post here so that you understand what the challenge is all about! This recap will include what I ate, what workouts I did and what "Tone it Up" lifestyle things I did. Also, the end of the post will include how many centimeters and kilos I have (if any) lost this past week. Enjoy! (None of these pictures belong to me... because I don't take random pictures of girls in bikinis. All of these pictures belong to Tone It Up). Well, week 4 is done! Hard to believe that I have been doing this for about a month! I really thought that this week I would work even harder. I worked... but not ...

Hello Saturday! I am almost at the end of week 4 of the 5 week challenge. This week was busy... not as busy as last week but still pretty crazy. I stuck to the plan but definitely ate and drank more than I had originally planned. But that's o.k. life is for living. It is Saturday morning, the Kid slept in (he woke up at 2 a.m. and had a 1 kid party in his room) and now he is a little grumpy. I am supposed to go to a bbq this afternoon but sadly I might not be able to depending on his mood. So what's new? A couple of things. Walk with me. On Monday I had a great evening out and Tuesday and Wednesday were low-key evenings at home. On Wednesday I did have a phone interview in German for a Vienna newspaper and that caused me to sweat bullets. I am o.k. talking in person in German but talking on the phone is a different matter. I can't see their reaction of disgust when I butcher verbs but then at least I can change routes mid conjugation. Ugh. The woman was so nice and pati...

It is no secret that I adore this city. It is a great town to live in and after almost a total of 17 years, I still speak the language terribly. My biggest complaint is how autism support is handled but besides that one major problem, I do love living here. There are a lot of complaints that people have when they first move here: people seem rude, you can't buy baking soda or food colouring, and shops are closed on Sundays. But over time you learn to live with most of the above. The customer service is renowned for its surliness... especially in the famous coffee houses around the city. I have lived here so long that I don't even notice it anymore. The waiter would have to call me fat for it to even register... I am totally serious. You need to scratch the surface to really appreciate the dry and acerbic humor the waiters throw at you. They like you if they act like complete dicks while cracking a joke. Vienna and its coffee houses are like wine and cheese. They must go tog...

It has been a crazy past few days. I had to cancel the picnic because there has been a ton of rain and a storm had been forecast. Of course there was no storm this morning but it was actually really nice to have a really quiet morning. As much as I can been an extrovert, I very much crave quiet as well. This is one of the reasons I like to workout alone: silence (save for the sound of my lungs trying to escape my chest cavity). I don't even listen to music when I run... that is how much I crave quiet. Next week will definitely not be as wild: a ladies dinner on Monday, a therapy networking evening on Thursday (which I will only stay for for an hour or so) and then quick drinks on Friday, and a bbq Saturday afternoon. Oh, o.k. that is actually a lot. But not as cray cray as the past few days. On Wednesday the Husband and I had a date night at Cafe Pierre. It started to pour as soon as I left the office and I had forgotten my umbrella so when I arrived, I looked like a hot mess. ...