Hey hey, my friends! Long time, no talk. Guess we all had some busy and fun weekends. Sounds good to me! Looking for some good reads from the weekend?

• Love ‘Em and Leave “Em
• Shrinking Carrie’s Self-Love Reflection

Let me fill you in on the rest now. After I left you on Saturday morning, Peter and I had a lot planned for the day. I showered up and packed up the kids for a long, fun day ahead. We had plans for one of our fall traditions!

We hit the road a little before lunch time and got about halfway to our destination before Makenzie had to potty. We stopped at a grocery store for a bathroom break and both felt the hunger strike. The store had a huge salad bar, so we made that work for lunch.

We made our pit stop as quick as possible to get back on our way to the North Georgia region. I love going there this time of year. Look how pretty!

After about an hour of driving, we made it to our first stop – the North Georgia Corn Maze! We normally visit a corn maze and pumpkin patch closer to home (the one we visited for Makenzie’s field trip), but discovered a Groupon deal and decided to check out this site instead.

There was hay bale jumping…

…and some silly fun…

…before finally settling in for the two main events. First up? A hay ride through the amazing scenery.

I loved this place’s hay ride. They really took you on a longer ride and you got to see a LOT more than at other ones we have visited. Family photo op!

Gotta love photos with kids! Ha!

Once the hay ride finished, we made our way through the corn maze

.

I much preferred other corn mazes. This one was small and not very well organized. I nearly killed myself tripping over the mass amounts of rogue corn all over the paths. That could just be me and my clumsy ways, though. No matter. We still had a GREAT time there.

Moral of the Story: A deal ALWAYS wins with us! And nothing compares to the free beauty of seeing this…

From there, we weren’t far off from another one of my favorite fall traditions.

Oktoberfest in Helen! Helen is a small “Alpine town” in North Georgia with a ton of cute shops, biergartens, tubing down the river (not in this cold!), horse drawn carriages, and other such fun.

After walking around the town and perusing a few shops – glassblowing is my favorite! – we stopped for an “afternoon snack”. In other words – a reason to get some beer in Helen.

We picked both the lighter and darker Oktoberfest seasonal brews to share. I’m an amber girl all the way. The light one didn’t do it for me in the least. But the darker Oktoberfest? Yes, please!

I also say “Yes, please!” to the following part of our Helen tradition.

A hunk of Peanut Butter Swirl fudge from Hansel & Gretel’s Candy Kitchen. I long for their fudge and we get some every year. It’s gone by now. Duh.

Moral of the Story: A salad bar lunch leaves plenty of room for beer and fudge later. Good thing. Very good thing.

And I can’t end the weekend without brining up a certain special part.

The night ended on a very high note. Since we were out gallivanting around town all day, we had to record the Georgia-Florida game. We watched it later on Saturday night (while eating our fudge, no less) and were quite pleased with the outcome…

which I found out thanks to Twitter (I’m looking at you Brittany! haha!) before even starting to watch. It didn’t make Georgia’s victory any less sweeter, though!

Moral of the Story: Stay away from social media if you want to be surprised of the outcome of something. And Go Dawgs!

But perhaps the biggest moral story of them all – nothing beats a weekend unplugged and spending time with my family. Hope you had a good one too!

• What would be the “moral of the story” for your weekend?
• What is one of your favorite fall traditions?

Welcome to another Self-Love Reflection! Carrie from Shrinking Carrie shares with us her weight-loss journey and the “AHA!” moment she had along the way. Enjoy!

Well hello FFF readers! I have been reading FFF for a few months now, and I am so
honored to be able to mix my little world with Tina’s for a post! I have found many
thought provoking subjects, as well as funny life anecdotes, and I love how Tina
keeps it real by sharing experiences, both good and bad.

I blog over at Shrinking Carrie, where I try to show motivation and inspiration
through weight loss. I am on a journey to lose 120 pounds so that I can be a healthier, happier, mother and wife.

I have been overweight almost my entire life. I did have a couple of years when
I was in my early 20’s when I did some unhealthy crash dieting and lost about 90
pounds. I met my amazing husband in 2001 and we got married the following year.
Needless to say, the weight all came back and then some.

Throughout the past 9 years of marriage I have tried every diet imaginable to lose the weight, but with no success. After being married 4 years, we decided that
it was time to start a family and so I saw an endocrinologist to make sure that I was
capable of even having kids.

She bluntly told me that I was too fat and needed to lose weight. I was hard on myself and, after hearing that I was “too fat”, the only thing I wanted to do was hide in a closet with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. I ate all of my feelings and, each year that passed that I didn’t get pregnant, I gained a little more, and hated myself a little more. I felt like I was being selfish to my unborn child by not losing weight, and that I was putting food over my baby.

Then a miracle happened. After 5 years of trying to have a baby, I got pregnant.
I had a hard pregnancy considering that when I delivered I weighed 296 pounds
and had to deal with Gestational Diabetes. But when the delivery was all said and done (emergency c-section) I had the most perfect little girl. I had a little girl that I needed to be an example to.

I was so ecstatic to be a mother that I decided I immediately needed to make some
changes in my life. I felt that my calling in life was to be the best mother I could be to my baby and I didn’t want to waste my life feeling sorry for myself, or whining about the obstacles that had been put before me.

How do you start a journey that you’ve tried to start a million times before? I racked
my brain for answers that I could never find before, and then it came to me clear as
day. Forgive myself. Forgive others.

Forgive myself for the negative self-talk and the countless times I failed in the
past. Forgive myself for not taking care of my body, and giving it the love that it
needed. Forgive myself for wallowing in self-pity when I could have been making
my situation better and promoting positivity around me.

I forgave others. I forgave family circumstances that were beyond my control. I
forgave the kids that made fun of me for being “fat” when I was young. I never knew that forgiveness was the diet I never tried.

After I had forgiven myself, and others in my head, it was like a weight had lifted off
of my shoulders. I had been carrying around so much bitterness from the past it
was literally weighing me down.

I started my blog to help me with my accountability, and I vowed to try and show a
positive and inspirational message through my writing. I have found that positivity keeps me losing weight and helps me to not revert back to old bitter ways. It seems to all go hand-in-hand.

I hope you will check out my journey so far, and hopefully get some inspiration
along the way. I know that blogging has helped me to go to the next level of self-
loving and I hope that it shines through in my words! Thank you Tina for letting me
share my story with your readers!

• What has helped you in your journey to be/stay healthy?
• Ever had an “AHA” moment to a life long question?