Wake up call

We've all had them, that moment when you realize something isn't working, that something has to change.

Tuesday night I got one of those.

I started the dance routine for one of my scenes in Starliters.  We danced for an hour, and I found out that I couldn't do it.  I couldn't move fast enough to fit the steps into the routine, and after an hour, I was hurting all over.  Everyone else was fine.  It was my weight and my lack of recent exercise.  There have been no more days of walking, swimming, and line dancing.  The strength and endurance leave one's body pretty quickly!

I went home and told Mark.  I really have tried harder since Wednesday morning.  I went to the gym and did my weights on Wednesday with Mark, after the rehearsal.  It was the first time I had gone with him to do weights since early December, I think.  I lowered all the weights significantly and did only two sets of 10 reps.  Yesterday after rehearsal, I went to the indoor track and walked 53 minutes, two and a half miles.  It felt good, actually.  I also stayed on my food plan a lot closer.  I admit that I didn't log them in anywhere, but I sort of added them up in my head.  I didn't stay as low as I should have, but it wasn't bad.  I was under 2,000 calories each day, which I haven't done for awhile.

My reward?  I'm down four pounds since Monday morning.  I'm sure there was a lot of water weight in there, but it was still very rewarding to see the scale say 240.4 this morning.

Now come the challenges.  Today I'm eating lunch out because we have chores and errands to run. Tonight we are going out to Shabbat dinner at the home of some new friends.  Tomorrow night I am going to a banquet for Jewish women in the Orlando area at the Rosen Center.  There's going to be a huge Broadway revue show with professional singers and dancers, which should be excellent.  Sunday we are going to the Magic Kingdom, so we will be eating lunch there.  Then I will weigh in on Monday. 

I hope two things, as always.  First, I hope that all the walking on Sunday will mitigate lunch out.  I also hope to take a walk today if it stops raining and gets warm enough.  I won't have time to go to the indoor track.  Second, I hope that I can control my portions at the dinner tonight and tomorrow.  Well, tomorrow isn't an issue because it's a plated banquet.  I'll eat the sea bass that comes to me, but I'll stay away from the bar!  Tonight, my friend is making salmon, but I don't know what else she will have.  We are bringing my favorite wine and challahs.  I have been known to eat A LOT of challah!  Who doesn't love challah?  The ones from BJs are really good, so we are buying them today to take fresh tonight.  Yum. 

I have had wake up calls before, some pretty spectacular ones.  I don't have time this morning to write about them, but I can tell you that I have ignored some of those.  I should have paid more attention back then.  I just hope that Tuesday night's wake up call can stay in my head.  I want to lose this weight, again.  It's not the first time I've lost it, for sure!  I just want it gone again, but sometimes it doesn't seem like I want to lose it MORE than I want to eat something.  I know that's a form of eating disorder. I've talked about that many times in this blog.  This is a lifelong struggle, and so far the weight and the eating disorder have been winning. Since my life is already pretty long at this point, I don't have forever to get it done anymore.  LOL!  I want to live AT LEAST 20 more years and have the health and strength to continue to travel and use my DVC points.  I'd love to see my grandchildren someday and be healthy enough to visit and play with them.  There is a lot to look forward to in life, so you'd think that would be enough incentive.  We shall see.

Late Weigh in Report

I did weigh myself yesterday morning, but I was sort of busy, which is why I didn't get around to writing a blog.  As I suspected, it wasn't a good weigh in.  I am up two pounds to 244.4  I ate a lot of meals out, beginning last Wednesday, so I wasn't too surprised.  This week I should only be eating one meal out.  We have been invited out for dinner Friday night, and I'm planning on attending a dinner at the Rosen Center Saturday night with some other synagogue women.  (So far I haven't registered or paid, so I guess I'd better get busy on that today.)

We did get those two for one annual passes to Sea World on Sunday, but it took two full hours in line.  Some people behind us bailed out and bought two regular passes.  They decided the $92 they would pay for the second ticket wasn't that expensive compared to two hours of their time.  We decided the opposite!  Now we have them.  We went in and had fish and chips at one of the restaurants, a cafeteria style place, which I haven't seen anywhere for awhile.  Interesting.  Then we just walked around the big lake on the one side of the park.  We walked through the Shamu Up Close attraction.  It is just letting people in to see the orcas swimming around their "backstage" pool.  Kind of fun.  We also looked at the mommy dolphins and their babies swimming around their tank.  It was cute, too.  There are a lot of shows, so we will schedule some days to go and catch all those shows throughout the year.  These passes have no black out dates, but they do not include parking.  We don't care.  It's all good.

Yesterday morning I had two back-to-back doctor's appointments, which was why I had no time for a blog.  First I went back to the GYN to get the results of the Pap test and the ultrasound.  Pap is normal and the uterine lining, which had been too thick two years ago, is now normal.  Unfortunately, the cyst that was there two years ago is still there, although essentially unchanged.  It grew by .2 mm, insignificant.  It's the size of a grape, but it causes no pain or symptoms.  He said he wants another ultrasound in May, and then if there is no change, I should just regularly check it every year to be sure nothing ever changes.  So that's all good in my book.  Then I quickly ran off to the six month check up with the radiation oncologist.  Again, all is good.  I will see him again on September 3. 

I came home, ate a quick lunch, and went to play Mah Jongg.  I hadn't played in a few weeks, so that was fun. I won two games; one was a weird closed hand, which is especially fun.  After that, I grabbed a short nap, a quick dinner, and then off to Starliters rehearsal.  Another great day, albeit busy and tiring!

Today I get to have a more relaxing day.  I'm going up to Lifestyles to book some dates in the fall for our HEAL group, and I have another 6 p.m. call for Starliters rehearsal.  That's it.  So I will have a lot of time to myself today. I'm going to read and work on my jigsaw puzzle.  I'll probably watch too much TV, too.  Meanwhile, I've been obsessed with reading things about being a DVC owner on the web.  There are lots of forums and reviews out there, so I've done a lot of reading.  Like everything, there are people who love everything and people who pick at everything.  I think Mark and I are going to be in the "love everything" category!  We can't wait!

Sea World today

Since we have been down here, we have not gone to Sea World.  Today is finally the day.  This is the last day of the special promotion where you pay for a one day ticket ($92) and actually get TWO Annual Passes!  Crazy.  We aren't planning on staying long today because we have a concert here in Solivita tonight, and we're not exactly rushing out this morning.

Mark made a delicious crock pot meat chili and pareve corn bread last night as we entertained our friends Jeff and Bill.  It was all delicious.  Of course, I ate too much.  We also had hummus and pita chips for appetizers, plenty of wine and whiskey, and the dessert they brought.  They brought us an Angel Food cake, berries, and Cool Whip.  So scrumptious.  We played Parcheesi, which Cindy had given us for Hanukkah last year, and Jeff won.  What a great night!

Also, yesterday we made the final decision to buy into the Disney Vacation Club.  We loved the tour at Saratoga Springs on Wednesday.  We talked to the sales rep on the phone Friday to get some more questions answered and then again yesterday to get all the paper work started.  We will be signing the papers bright and early at 8 a.m. on Friday, February 7.  Then we will go back and get another contract at the end of April.  That way I have two separate contracts of equal value, one to will to Lowell and one to will to Evey.  The points are at the Grand Floridian as our home club, and it will give me enough points, by saving two years worth together, to take all six of us to a 2 BR villa at Aulani Resort in Hawaii in August of 2015 to celebrate my 65th birthday with all my kids.  I'm very excited about all of this!  It's actually happening.  We WILL be DVC members at last.  It's something we have thought about and dreamed about since they first started in 1992.  For the last two or three years, we have been seriously discussing it.  Finally, it's happening.  Sweet.

I'm sure my weigh in tomorrow will be hideous.  This has not been a good week, lots of eating out and the party last night.  Sigh.  All I can do is jump back on track tomorrow.

Saratoga Springs

Mark and I checked into the Saratoga Springs Resort at WDW yesterday around 2:30.  The room is magnificent.  This resort is part of the DVC, Disney Vacation Club, so our room is a Studio Suite with a lovely bar that includes a sink, fridge, toaster, microwave, coffee pot, and some dishes.  Nice. 

I am considering buying into DVC, so we took a tour and sales talk that claimed to last 60-90 minutes but actually went over two hours.  At the end they gave us a $50 Disney gift card, which was a surprise. Nice.  I could have let it go on longer because I had a lot of questions and was enjoying looking at the models, but we were running late for our dinner reservation at Narcoossee's at the Grand Floridian.  The dinner was spectacular and included lots of wine pairing!  They also have a private deck with benches right on the Seven Seas Lagoon with a nearly PERFECT view and sound of the Wishes fireworks.   This area is exclusively for restaurant patrons, so we felt privileged to sit out there, even though it was cold (in the 30s).  Beautiful night.

Today we will have a quick breakfast in their food court area before checking out and heading to Epcot for the rest of the day.  We have Magic Bands now because of our resort stay that are tied to our annual passes and will work forever now.  We can book up to three Fastpass ride times every day from now on!  Fun.  We have three things booked for Epcot, including my favorite, Soarin' Over California.  From 1-4 p.m. we are participating in the Solivita Disney Fan Club Scavenger Hunt.  A few months ago, Mark and I and the other couple we paired up with WON the Magic Kingdom Scavenger Hunt.  Woo Hoo!  Maybe we can pair up again and win again. Who knows?

Even though it's only 37 degrees right now, we are walking to the food court to see more of the resort.  We will bundle up!  LOL!

Sleeping in is NOT overrated.

Tuesdays are often the only day of the week that Mark and I get to sleep in.  By that I mean waking up whenever our bodies just wake up without an alarm clock.  For me it was about 7:20 this morning, so it's not like I'm a big slug-a-bed anyway.  Still, it felt great not to hit a snooze button a few times before dragging myself up.

I have a mani/pedi at 1 p.m. while Mark does grocery shopping.  Then I have Starliters from 5-9 tonight.  The morning is all mine!

My GYN appointment went well yesterday, but because the last time he saw me in 2012 I had some problems, he scheduled a sonogram for tomorrow and a follow up appointment to discuss the results next Monday.  I do not anticipate any problems with any of that.  Anyone interested in what the "problems" from two years ago were (truthfully, I doubt there are any of you out there), you can go back and read the blog from January 25 and 27, 2012.

Looking back at those blogs myself, I noticed that my pictures are disappearing.  I have no idea why. I guess the blog only maintains pictures for a certain length of time.  In some blogs, half the pictures are there and half are gone.  The captions are there, but there's a minus sign in a circle where the pictures were.  I have no idea why.  What's the point of posting pictures if I can't go back and enjoy them again at some future date?  That's just bizarre.  If anybody reading this blog has any ideas on why the pictures are gone, please let me know in a comment or private email.  Thanks.

Today is Emily S.'s birthday!  There is a huge snowstorm hitting the mid-Atlantic and NE today.  She is home safe with Lowell, who is working from home.  They have cupcakes, wine, an egg poacher, firewood for their fireplace, and two cuddly dogs.  What more do they need!  I am really looking forward to their wedding this summer.  It will be a bummer if those pictures can't stay on this blog for more than a few months.

Because I never ask Mark to hide my scale anymore, I'm hopping on it every morning.  Today I'm down another pound to 241.3.  I'm excited about that.  I still have 9 pounds to lose again to get back to that lowest point of 232 for this round of losing.  Still, I'm starting to regain my control, so we'll see how it goes.  Tomorrow we will be eating lunch and dinner out, and then all three meals out on Wednesday as well.  Hopefully, it won't set me back too much.

Monday Mania

First, the weigh-in was good. I am 242.4, which is down two pounds.  That loss is despite doing virtually nothing right.  I ate too many calories, mostly from nuts, and did no exercise.  In fact, whenever possible I just stayed home and sat in front of the TV.  The cold, which is still lingering on, caused that.  Except for square dancing Saturday night, I don't think I did much moving around at all this week.  Well, bad or good, I'll take a two pound loss.

Second, I have a routine GYN appointment at 8:40 this morning.  (UGH!  Why did I schedule it for so early?  Oh, yeah, I have a 9:30 rehearsal.)  I haven't had a routine check up in almost exactly two years, so it's time.  My PC says that women my age who are having no symptoms or problems are okay going in every other year. 

Third, because I still feel crappy from this cold, I'm not going to Mah Jongg this afternoon.  That's sad because I dearly love it, but if I don't take a break between 1 and 4 this afternoon, I have no down time at all.  At 5 I have to go to Starliters blocking rehearsal.  Last week I left after that because I had no voice and felt terrible.  Today I still have no voice but feel slightly less terrible. I'm going to stay and listen to the music even if I can't sing along.

That's it for today.  Time to get some breakfast and head out to my appointment.  Have a good one, everybody.

Making Carcass Soup

Today we have changed our plans. 

Originally, we were going to go up to Sea World, a place we have never been since we moved here. They finally have a deal we cannot pass up.  On weekends in January the deal is buy a one day Fun Spot ticket for $92 and get another ticket FREE.  So that's a two-for-one deal.  But WAIT!  There's MORE!  Only on weekends in January, if you each bring an empty Coca Cola product bottle, the card will be good ALL YEAR, no blackout dates.  WHAT?  An annual pass for two people for the price of a ONE DAY ticket?  That's ridiculous.  OKAY, we're IN!

The fine print is that we have to pay for parking ($15) each time we visit, but that's fine.  We really don't plan to go that often.  Still, it's such a sweet deal we couldn't say no.

So today was supposed to be the day because our calendar showed was open all day.  Unfortunately, we are both still sick.  I think I'm slowly improving, but Mark is slowly deteriorating.  We put the trip to Sea World off until next Sunday, which will be our last possible day to cash in on the deal.  Hopefully, we will both feel much better by then.

Now the plan is to stay home all day in our jammies and veg out in front of the TV.  Our DVR is 97% full, so it would be good to watch some of that stuff before he needs to record something else. LOL!

One problem with changing plans is changing Mark's menus for the week.  Since we were going out to Sea World today, he had planned for us to eat at our local Denny's on our way home.  They have been closed for remodeling, so we haven't been there in awhile.  They are also advertising a new salmon diner on the menu.  Well, now that we are staying home in PJs all day, we don't feel like getting dressed just to go out for dinner, and there wasn't anything else in his plans to substitute.

So. the new dinner plan is that I'm finally making Turkey Carcass soup.  My Thanksgiving turkey carcass and all the left over meat was still in the freezer.  I love making and eating turkey soup, so it will be a pleasure to work on that all day.  I don't even know if I have anything to put in it, but it will be full of whatever I find. I know I have some onion, celery, and carrots.  There's also some frozen corn and canned green beans.  There's also farro, quinoa, and brown rice in the pantry.  I have tons of spices to throw in, so I think that's enough to make an interesting soup. We will be eating turkey soup for dinner.  It was only 34 degrees outside at 7 a.m. when I cam out to the kitchen.  The grass looked frosty.  That's a perfect day for staying home and making turkey carcass soup. 

Yesterday we spent most of the day in our jammies, also. I had a terrible night Friday night with a LOT of coughing. My rib cage is sore from coughing so much the last two two nights, but we rallied around 5 p.m. and got dressed up in our cowboy/cowgirl finery and went square dancing.  I didn't know if I could do it without coughing all the time, but it was fun.  Our friends Donna and Alan had invited us to join one of the Solivita clubs for their square dancing event.  The place was PACKED, and we ran into a lot of other people we know.  The caller was very good. He made everything easy and taught it all as if no one had ever square danced before.  That was true for a lot of people in the group. There was one square of experts who gave a beautiful demonstration of some fancier steps.  They also seeded themselves around the room, and our square was lucky enough to have one of those couples.  Our square was Donna and Alan, me and Mark, the experienced couple, and two ladies.  I know one of the ladies from Guys and Dolls.  Our square was really good!  Mark and I both had a lot of fun and forgot about being sick for awhile.

I guess last night was a good example of my father's philosophy.  Only last night he would have said, "Get up and go to square dancing.  You'll feel better."

Motivation

"This week, instead of thinking about what you can’t have when you’re working on eating healthfully, focus on what you can – delicious and healthy food, a reasonable amount of treats, good health, better self-confidence, a stable wardrobe, a more peaceful relationship with food, great feelings, etc."

The quote above came from a website called The Beck Diet Solution.  LOL!  How appropriate.

I can't remember how I stumbled onto this. It's really a plan that wants to sell you a book and products, but it also has daily tips on the website for free.  I have bookmarked the site.  This quote was from Monday of this week.  I haven't been looking at it recently or regularly, but today I felt I needed something.

This week is flying by, and I'm down one pound.  I have three days left to lose another one to meet that two-pounds-a-week goal.  Well, I'm not sure I'm going to make it, but I did lose three last week.  That will average out to two per week.  This week has involved eating way too many nuts in the house. 

I LOVE nuts, all kinds of nuts: salted, dry-roasted, plain, fancy, mixed, flavored...I do not care.  There are NO bad nuts.

This week I have had several handfuls of plain roasted almonds that Mark buys for his breakfasts and lunches.  There are many reasons to keep my hands out of those bags.  Too many calories is one of them, and a tendency to graze frequently is another.  They are expensive and one of the good foods for Mark's diabetic diet, so I should leave them alone for him.  That's another.  Also, I was told not to eat nuts ever again because of diverticulosis, but there is some evidence that it is not necessary to avoid nuts for that condition.  I still avoid popcorn because it did send me to the ER once, but nuts have still been okay for me.  Yesterday,  I also ate a whole load of salty pistachios because Mark bought a bag for a recipe.  The recipe used very few, so there's a big bag of them in the pantry. I ate quite a few yesterday and even licked all the delicious saltiness off the shells.  So bad.

Today there is no reason to be bad.  If I keep my hands out of the bags of nuts and stay out of the pantry entirely, I should have a good day.

Exercise has been limited this week.  I have a nasty cold, which doesn't seem to be improving, so it's just sapping my strength.  It's all I have in me just to get through what I have to do each day without adding extra weight lifting or walking into the mix.  I hope to be on the mend next week and get back to exercising. Saturday night we are scheduled to go square dancing, and Sunday we are finally going to get to Sea World.  There will be some exercise in this week after all.

I will end this blog with another quote from the website.  This one is from January 9, and I really need to pay heed to it. It is one of my worst faults.

"It’s important to both give yourself credit for the good choices you make and not berate yourself when you make a mistake. When you beat yourself up, the only thing it does is demoralize you further and makes it harder to get back on track. When you give yourself credit, it makes you feel great, helps raise your confidence, makes it easier to keep doing what you're doing, and gives you motivation to stay on track."

"Get up and go to school. You'll feel better," said Bill Meese, to anyone who would listen but mostly his kids.

Yeah, that philosophy worked most of the time. I had good attendance in school.  It didn't work the day I had my appendix out.  I didn't finish that school day and ended up with emergency surgery.  Well, you can't be right all the time.

I'm going on his philosophy today, and I hope it works for me.  I have developed another nasty cold.  I felt it coming on slightly on Sunday and hoped it was my imagination.  On Monday, I knew it was true.  Yesterday I actually bailed out on a Starliters vocal rehearsal because I can barely talk let alone sing.

Today I have a 9-12:30 rehearsal with Mark for Laughter on the 23rd Floor because I'm one of two people doing props.  From 2-4 we have a H.E.A.L. meeting that Mark is leading.  I'm presenting some recipe conversions for spaghetti and meat sauce.  From 6-10 I'll be driving to and from and leading a rehearsal at SOJC.  I can't sing at all, but I have everything recorded.  Hopefully they will do all the singing.  Mark will be going to the Disney Fan Club meeting here at Solivita, so I'm on my own out to SOJC.

So...if EVER there was a day when my dad's philosophy needs to work, it is today!

Weigh in is Good.

This has to be quick.  It's Reuben's last day, and we are heading out to have breakfast at the Kona Cafe in the Polynesian Resort and then back to Magic Kingdom one more time.  Mark is taking him to the airport later this afternoon.

But it's my new weigh in day, and I am happy to report a three pound loss.  I am 244.3 this morning.  I have eaten in some wonderful restaurants and many desserts this week with Reuben, so clearly the loss is from all the walking. 

Dinner in the San Angel Inn in Mexico, Epcot

The Wahoo fish was delicious at San Angel Inn.

With Yee Haw Bob at the River's Roost in Port Orleans-Riverside

Muppet Vision 3D, Hollywood Studios

The fantastic dessert Reuben and I shared at Citricos int he Grand Floridian last night.

Today...Epcot

It's summer.  Really?  It's January 11.  No one told central Florida because it's going to be in the mid-80s with afternoon thunderstorms.  Sounds like summer to me.

We all had an excellent day at Magic Kingdom with Reuben yesterday.  No rain either! 

I ate a lot, but I walked a lot, too, so I'm down a bit this morning.  I'll take it.

Today we are doing Epcot all day.  Unfortunately, today we are taking a backpack full of rain ponchos with us!

Evey had her MRIs and saw the ortho doc yesterday.  The good news is there is no labral tear, which was the concern and the reason for the MRIs.  The doc also thought the inversion in her hip wasn't too bad, either.  The bad news is that there is no good reason for all this hip pain.  Now he wants to do an arthogram, another type of scan with injected anaesthetic and dye.  She will schedule that next week when she gets back from her fun weekend in Disneyland.  So...doesn't look like I need to fly off to CA any time soon.  The doc also wants her to do 6-8 weeks of PT, including e-stim and ultrasound.  Since she works in PT and administers those things to others, she is not convinced that it will help her.  She has already given up Zumba, jogging, and squats for about two months.  That hasn't helped any, but doctors like to take conservative approaches first.  I think she's going to try the PT anyway.  I"m not sure what else the arthrogram will show, but she's willing to try it.  I think she said that if it doesn't show any significant defect in the hip joint, the doctor will start looking for problems in muscles, nerves, back, and spine next. 

Evey, I'm sure you are not reading my blog this morning because you have better things to do in Disneyland today, but if you do, consider yourself virtually HUGGED.  ((((()))))))

Wish I could give you a real one!  But next best, here's a picture of me hugging you at the airport when you flew home after Thanksgiving.

Wow!  That picture surely does show the 15 pounds I put back on since then!

Here's a few pictures from yesterday at MK with Reuben.

Waiting for lunch at Be Our Guest restaurant in the new Fantasyland.

Haunted Mansion queue

Between Liberty Square and Fantasyland are the new "Tangled" themed restrooms.  That's Rapunzel's tower in the background.

Disney Days

Yesterday was busy with a NARFE meeting and errands and ended up at Jiko's for a lovely dinner with Reuben and his friend Robbie.  We found out that Jiko's has a special vegetarian menu!  Nice.

Soon we are heading over to Wilderness Lodge to pick up Reuben.  Robbie will have already headed to the airport via the Magical Express bus.  Mark, Reuben, and I will spend the day at the Magic Kingdom.  Today's weather will be a high of 82 and sunny all day once the morning fog burns off.  Yay!  A perfect Disney day.

Out on the other coast, Evey is flying to Disneyland this evening.  Eric is doing some snowboarding up north in Vancouver, if I remember correctly.  Evey is flying south to meet up with a girlfriend and spend a weekend at Disneyland.  How fun for them all!

Evey is also under some stress over hip pain.  She has had xrays and a preliminary diagnosis.  On Tuesday she had an MRI.  Today she is having another MRI for additional views and then speak to an orthopedic surgeon about the results.  There are no good answers, so surgery or living with pain may be the two options.  No one wants either one.  I am anxious on her behalf.  If she needs surgery, I will be flying out to CA for as long as she needs me to help out with shopping, cooking, laundry, and taking care of her.  I wish Mark could come, too, but he has rehearsals for the theater group's play.  It would really leave them in the lurch if he had to miss a few weeks of rehearsal.  I might be able to stay in Starliters even if I leave for a few weeks.  If not, I am easily replaced!  My daughter is more important.

At Jiko's in the Animal Kingdom Lodge with Mark, Reuben in the plaid shirt, and Robbie.

Two Whole Days of Winter! LOL

Looks like winter is over and spring has sprung.  We had two days of temps in the  40s and overnight below freezing.  Today is spring, rain and 70s.  Saturday is summer, possible record highs for that date, all the way to the mid 80s.  Got to love central Florida!

Today begins five days of Disney fun with Reuben!  Our Maryland rabbi's son has been staying at the Wilderness Lodge with a buddy since Monday.  Tonight we will have dinner with the two of them at Jiko's in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Then tomorrow the friend is flying home, but we are picking Reuben up in the morning to spend four more days at Disney and stay at our house.  He flies home Monday evening.  I'm saying all this to explain why there might not be any blogs until Tuesday!  LOL!  It looks like a lot of busy Disney fun coming up.

With Disney fun comes a lot of eating out.  Hopefully all the walking will mitigate the calories.  So far, I haven't done anything to lose weight.  I am still 246.3 this morning.  The good news (if you can call it that) is that all the M&Ms are gone.  So are all the other leftover holiday goodies.  I think I've managed to consume anything in the pantry that looked yummy.  I guess that will force me to start eating right.

This morning we are heading to the monthly NARFE meeting in Plant City.  That involves lunch at Outback, which is fine.  Tilapia, salad, and steamed veggies isn't going to hurt anything.  Then there's the fancy dinner at Jiko's tonight.  Before dinner we will be shopping at BJs for assorted items, picking up Mark's comic books, and doing the weekly grocery shopping at Publix.  Busy day!

I will close this blog with pictures from the end of the cruise.  And if it's still not spring time where you live, hang in there.  It will be eventually.

Our final port of call was Costa Maya, Mexico, where we visited a large area of Mayan ruins.

On the last full day at sea, we participated in this 5k walk, which ended up being just 2.5 miles.

Afternoon tea

Beautiful goodies at the special afternoon Indonesian tea

Mark and Marilyn at the cocktail party hosted for us by Zenith Travel

My complimentary cocktail, a nice way to end the cruise

below freezing in central Florida, OUCH

It was predicted to go below freezing over night, down to 30 degrees here in central Florida.  The high for today will be about 46-48.  That's very cold for this area.  I know it's toasty warm to some of you who may be reading this up north!  LOL!

Don't worry about us.  We can handle it for a few days.  Saturday is predicted to be record highs for the date, mid to upper 80s.  I guess I can bundle up until Friday when it's going to hit 82.

Don't hate us!

I talked a lot yesterday about getting back on track.  I just wish I had practiced what I preached.  I did log in all my calories, so that's why I know I ate over 3000 calories.  Yikes.  Why did I do that, you might ask, when all my meals were at home? Theoretically I had total control over all the meals.  Breakfast was perfect; dinner was perfect.  Lunch was ridiculous.  I don't know why.  I started out with a salad and a can of tuna, my usual good lunch.  To spice it up a bit I added some Bacos and Parmesan cheese.  Not terrible, but too much of each.  Then a piece of Gouda cheese.  Then I ate the leftover Linzer tart cookie that I bought at the Contemporary Resort at Christmas.  There was no calorie count on it, but I estimated about 450 calories for that dang thing.  (Well, it was delicious if that means anything.)  And then I thought, well, I should just be sure all the crap gets cleared out of the pantry.  There were six chocolate truffles in there, leftover from a delicious tower of goodies that Pat and Phil sent us for the holidays.  I ate all six.  There was a calorie count on there, so that was about 300 calories in the box.  Hm...should have stopped there, but NO!  There's MORE!  I went to Mah Jongg at 1 p.m., as I often do on Mondays.  My neighbor was giving away one pound bags of M and Ms because her son had given her FIFTEEN bags of them!  Really?  Who gives someone 15 bags of M and Ms?  So, she insisted everyone take a bag.  I am nothing if not helpful and obedient, so I did not argue. I took my bag.  Then I proceeded to eat about half, maybe a little more than half, of that bag throughout the rest of the day.  Yeah, that's how I had so many calories.

Well, you know what they say...when you fall off a horse...or a wagon...

So today I'm going to try to do better.  I have a mani/ped/hair appointment at 1 p.m., which could totally run right to 4:30 when I have to go to a 5 p.m. rehearsal.  If I don't get to come home to eat dinner, I am going to walk across the street at 6 p.m. to the Bistro and have a slice of pizza for dinner.  I guess that won't be too bad if all I eat today is the slice of pizza and lunch.  Lunch will be noon, just before I head out to the salon.  Breakfast doesn't look like it's happening at all today since it's already 9:40.  I slept in, and I haven't showered or dressed yet.  I might as well just get busy with those things, make a few music recordings for the SOJC choir, and then have lunch and head out.  That means I had better be careful when I get home tonight after rehearsal, around 9:15 p.m.  I will have to be careful not to snack too much and definitely stay out of the M and Ms.

Because I'm a complete masochist, I just got on the scale to see what happened. Lo and Behold!  I'm down a smidge over a pound to 246.3.  I bet that if I can drop a pound with that calorie count that it was just water weight from all the sodium in the cheese yesterday.  Today will require actual work to keep the calories in the 1200 range.  I can do that even if I have a slice of pizza for dinner because I should be out of the house a long time.  Night time snacking is the only possible downfall for me today.  I will just promise to do my best.

Here's a few more pictures from the cruise, days 4 and 5.  Bundle up and stay warm.

It was windy in Gautemala!

All ready for our shore excursion in the bay.

Just walked around the dock in Roatan.

Beautiful day in Honduras.

Enjoying the deck and looking at the Roatan dock.

Swimming on the Lido Deck.  The pool water was about 90 degrees!

Sunset sailaway in Roatan

Specialty dinner that night at the Canaletto restaurant with Jim and Lucie.

2014! Make it a good one.

First, the weight news:  I only gained 1.5 pounds on this 7 day cruise.  I am pretty amazed by that because I made no effort to curb my eating or drinking. I did do a lot of walking, but I never went in the gym at all.

Second, a new change:  I'm now going to stop doing weigh ins on Wednesday.  When I started this blog, I did my weigh ins on Tuesday, mostly because I think the day I wrote the first blog was a Tuesday.  Or it might have been because I used to go to Weight Watchers on Tuesdays years and years ago.  Somewhere along the way I switched it to Wednesdays, and I kind of liked the alliterative sound of Weigh-in Wednesdays.  Ah, so that's over.  Today I weighed in and I'm going to report it and I'm going to stick with Mondays for awhile.  It will also make my Lose It! program on the phone very happy, since it is pre-programmed to make the week Monday through Sunday.  In general I don't love doing it on Mondays because weekends are often times for splurges, so Monday might not look so good.  That's not really true anymore since I'm retired.  Any day of the week is as likely as any other day to be a splurge.

Third, all splurging has to be OVER!  This morning I weighed 247.5, a gain of 15 pounds since December 11, only three and a half weeks.  Geez, I gained almost five pounds a week in those three and a half weeks.  Ridiculous.  So even though I only gained 1.5 pounds this week on this cruise, I had already done the damage earlier.  Ridiculous, I say again.

Now my Lose It! program says I am 147 days from my goal of 200 pounds.  That leaves NO time to screw up now if I want to be 200 at the wedding on July 12.  I have about six months.  If I lost 8 pounds a month, which is averaging 2 pounds per week, I could theoretically lose 48 pounds by the wedding.    That's what I need to do!  There is no going off track now no matter how many holidays or visitors or dinners out there are between now and then.  And there will be PLENTY of all of those things.  There are always plenty of all of those things!

So I will make 2014 a good one.  I will make it a year resolved more than ever to stay on track and do what must be done to reach that goal of 200 by the wedding. 

As for the cruise, it was wonderful.  Mark and I enjoyed being with fellow Solivita travelers.  Taking the bus over and back to Tampa was just so easy!  We were home yesterday by 10:45 a.m.  Sometimes there are cruises where we are barely off the ship by that time.  LOL!

We had perfect weather the entire time. It rained only a little bit as we were leaving Costa Maya on Friday and then most of the day on Saturday.  Saturday was a sea day, so it didn't really matter!  It was warm, but not too hot the entire time.  Perfect.

Now the country is about to be plunged into a deep freeze!  We are going below freezing ourselves tonight, here in central Florida.  Our high tomorrow will only be 46.  Pretty amazing!  Bundle up, everybody!

Here are a few pictures from this cruise.  I'll keep posting a few every day this week.  Enjoy.

Mark at dinner the first night with our Solivita hosts, Al and Maureen

Enjoying the private hot tub in the thermal suite on the second day of the cruise.

Sunset sailaway from Key West

Tuesday was a sea day and the first formal night.  Ready to head out to dinner.

At dinner in the main dining room on the formal night, which was also New Year's Eve.

Jim and Lucie were enjoyable friends to cruise with.

The ship knows how to throw a great New Year's eve party with noisemakers, dancing, and lots of free champagne and food!