Busy Friday

I used to envy my husband his busy, errand-laden Fridays. Now I have them, also, and I love it. I got up early to water my new plants again this morning. Today I added Miracle Gro to the water, so hopefully the feeding will make them happy. We took some old bookcases to the county dump, walked a few times around the mall, got a Starbucks coffee (Mark's was free with a birthday coupon), bought a few more coffee things for my Keurig, hit two banks, and ate lunch at Subway. Now we're home. I immediately received a phone call from the doctor's office to schedule my routine five year colonoscopy. Done. It's on May 27. Now I'm about to go out and spray Round-Up on anything weedy in the mulch beds. I did it yesterday, but I swear there is more green stuff peeking out today. I hate weeds. After all that, I had better practice some music. Maybe I'll even get an afternoon nap. Who knows? I love busy Fridays!

Landscaping

Yesterday we had some major landscaping done on our yard for potential buyers. Hope it helps. I also started singing again with both of my former choirs, and it was a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed sitting in the alto section of the synagogue director. I sat between my friends and felt great being able to be one of them instead of the director!

I forgot to put my weight in this week. On Tuesday it was 212, not bad, but this morning I'm 214, so something is going wrong. I have been keeping to around 1700 to 1900 calories and much of it was very high sodium, so that's what's wrong. I also am not back to walking everyday. Today I plan to go out and walk because I'm also going out to lunch yet again, so the calories will be high, yet again.

I don't know if anyone was looking at the links to my vacation pictures or not, but here is the next batch. Unfortunately I have to take offline the previous batch because Picasa only allows so much free webspace, so if you didn't get to look at them yet, it's too late now! Here';s the next six, which takes us from Anaheim to San Diego to the start of the first cruise. Enjoy. I'll leave these up until next week.

San Diego Day One http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/SanDiegoDayOne?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKRnYLu1MGU-gE#

San Diego Day Two, the zoo (don't know why this is just six pictures, most of the zoo pictures are in the next album) http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/SanDiegoDayTwoTheZoo?authkey=Gv1sRgCPan0efT3_v10AE#

Day at the Zoo http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/DayAtTheZoo?authkey=Gv1sRgCPLJ99bH8IjZIA#

Old Town San Diego and the Beach http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/OldTownSanDiegoAndTheBeach?authkey=Gv1sRgCOqd0eKuwoXcSQ#

San Diego Day Four, Maritime Museum http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/SanDiegoDayFourMaritimeMuseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCJi1o7b-4tDNsgE#

Off to Hawaii http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/OffToHawaii?authkey=Gv1sRgCK2EzOTDk7r_CQ#

The first legs of the trip.

Here are some links to the first few days of our trip. We went across country by train and stayed in a sleeper car for the first time. You can copy and paste the url into a new browser to find these pictures. If you have never tried to look at Picasa pictures before, I would recommend NOT using the slideshow feature or make it full screen. When you do that, the captions show up on top of the picture and are often unreadable. Double click on the first little picture and that will open it up to about half the size of your screen with the caption below the picture. You'll have all the time you need to read the caption, and there is an arrow at the top to click when you're ready to go to the next picture. I find the pictures are still big enough to see everything that way. Good luck.
The First Leg of the Trip http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/FirstLegOfTheTripWashingtonToChicago?authkey=Gv1sRgCPyIlIzD0uecrQE#

The Second Leg of the Trip http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/TheSecondLegChicagoToLA?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLUgIiFudK9-wE#

California Here We Come http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/CaliforniaHereWeCome?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7m0aeO6cWW0AE#

Shabbat in Anaheim http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/ShabbatInAnaheim?authkey=Gv1sRgCJj-u8qqz5_mGw#

Disneyland http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/Disneyland?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7jiLft_vDoqAE#

Clean Up Day in both parks http://picasaweb.google.com/RMSilverstein/CleanUpDayInBothParks?authkey=Gv1sRgCNbQjvrJ0p3y6QE#

Good things are happening!

I have such a busy day ahead, and I love that. Plus it does NOT involve going to school or work! I LOVE that, too.

I got on the scale (sorry, Mark) and I'm down another pound. I'm within four and a half pounds of the weight I hit before we left on the trip back on March 2, so I'm encouraged that I'm getting back to the good habits. I also sang two songs last night at the synagogue's fabulous show that honored all the past presidents. Since Mark was a past president, it was wonderful to see him be honored and be able to sing a few songs also. Everyone who performed last night was incredible, so it was an honor for me to be asked to sing as part of such a high quality show. Well, yes, there was the usual funny humor courtesy of a few of the usual suspects, but it was especially great last night also. We just had a fabulous time!

Today I'm about to practice choral music. Yes, CHORAL MUSIC! I haven't looked at a piece of choral music in at least six months. I had to drag Evey's electric keyboard out and set it up to practice since the piano is in the POD. I'm actually excited to do this. I am going to sing with the MT choir as an alto for their spring concert and also with the CMC spring concert. There aren't many rehearsals left for this, so I have to get started!

Also the reprise of the Cabaret has been finalized and announced. In fact, I announced it last night at the show. It will be Sunday, September 26 at 3 p.m., and I hope lots of people come to it. Mark and I really want to do it again. Mark especially wants to do it again so he can do it without chest pains. Ha Ha!

I sent out pictures of our trip to about 15 people during the vacation, but last night other people who were hearing about them have asked for them. I really think that most of the people who got the pictures are also the ones who read this blog, but just in case there are some other people out there who read this and want to see the pictures/travelogue, I am going to start putting some links on here to the pictures. I have to do them in little batches since not all of them are out there on the web anymore. I found out that Picasa limits your space and I was taking up too much space. LOL! Anyway, since the pictures are not public, I have to put the link embedded in this text for you to copy and past the url into a new browser to find. If you are interested, I will start doing that in the next blog. Have fun.

I feel so happy and upbeat today despite the gray, rainy weather. I love this feeling. I hope everyone reading this is feeling as great as I do today!

A week's gone by

I guess I have fallen out of the habit of posting on this blog daily. Sorry! It's been over a week since I wrote. Yesterday was weigh-in day, and I was 215.5, about a two pound loss for the week. I was ok with that since the week included four days on travel to Boston to visit Evey, and I enjoyed the restaurants way too much. Yesterday I had a perfect day, eating only what I wrote down, 1400 calories. I was sure that I was dropping weight like crazy, but clearly I can never tell. This morning I was up a pound and a half. That's why no one should get on the scale on a daily basis! Today I'm heading out in just a few minutes for my annual GYN check-up, no one's favorite thing to do, but it's only once a year. I'm going to eat right again today. That's all I can do.

Even Worse Tuesday Weigh-IN

219. Yup, that's pretty sad. I was 208 on March 2 when we left, so that's an 11 pound gain for the 42 day trip.

Last year I lost about 15 pounds on our 36 day trip, so I left here hoping for at least a maintenace weight, if not a little loss. When I got to the ship the first time, I weighed in at 206, followed by a 216 which I reported on the last blog entry. In between I dropped a little back to 210 and then I didn't check anymore. Now I'm home, so 219 is the official weight on my home scale. So sad.

It was harder than I thought. My old habits are so deeply ingrained. Last year we ate at Subway and Denny's most of the time, with only a few special meals in big restaurants. There was also a lot of walking around. This time there were massive buffets, fancy restaurants, lots of opportunity for between meal snacking on the ship, many high-caloric alcoholic drinks, late night pizza, etc., etc. I found it harder and harder to resist. There was opportunity for walking on the ship, but I took more advantage of that on the first cruise. I didn't do it at all on the second cruise. Although there was some walking on the shore excursions, it clearly was not enough to account for the massive amounts of eating. Again, my old eating habits are so hard to break.

Well now I'm home, and not loving the new reality I'm finding. I put the first of at least six loads of laundry in the machine last night late only to watch water leak out all over the floor from the bottom of the machine. Now I have to buy a new machine today plus find a laundromat! We had to rent a car at Union Station to get home because it was actually easier than getting an expensive cab home, but I have to return it to BWI by 3:30 p.m. I have to go to the post office to pick up six weeks of held mail and go through that massive amount of paper. I need to go to a few banks. I'm getting my nails done at 10:30 this morning, and we are taking our son out to dinner at Don Pablo's tonight. Hm...I'm hoping to eat less than I would have on the trip, but I really love their food. On Friday we are driving to Boston to visit our newly-engaged daughter. She is singing her last concert with her Northeastern University a cappella choir group, Distilled Harmony. Their first CD is also being released that night, so it's an exciting time. Plus we get to "ooh and aah" over the new engagement ring. That will be fun, but it provides several days of less controlled eating again.

I really need to get the mind-set back about proper eating habits: smaller portions, appropriate food choices, less drinking, more walking. Wow. Wish me luck!