New Year's Eve

Happy New Year's Eve Day, everybody!  It's a foggy, gray morning at about 63 degrees, going to a high of 72.  I can't complain.  I'm sure many of you are shivering at far lower temperatures.  Tonight around 7 we are going to the home of friends Susie and Ed for some cheese and crackers and wine.  At 8 we will go with them to the Solivita New Year's Evey party at the Village.  There will be multiple venues with food stations, cash bar, Champagne for all at midnight, party hats, both live music and a DJ dance in different locations, AND fireworks at midnight!  We went two years ago and had a blast. I think it will be even better this year because we will be with Susie and Ed and the food choices are better for us.

Last night's dinner with Ed, Barbara, and Edward turned out great.  Mark outdid himself with the crockpot chicken.  Barbara actually ate it and LOVED it, but she appreciated the panko-crusted baked cod as well.  We all shared the two pieces of cod just to get a taste of it because it looked so good.  We had a congenial evening.

This morning I checked on the availability of a 2BR at Aulani in Oahu for August 2.  It's STILL there!  Tomorrow will be the last day I check it because on Friday I can BOOK IT!  It looks like we really will be going there for my 65th birthday celebration with the kids.

Last year I didn't write a blog about New Year's Eve. I  know because I just looked back.  Mark and I had gone on the Solivita New Year's Eve cruise on the Ryndam out of Tampa. It was a BLAST.  The last blog of 2013 was on Dec. 29 about heading to Tampa.  

Two years ago I wrote a blog recapping my weight since my highest in 2009 on the first of each year.  Here it is again.  I can add that this morning I was 271.4, which is actually down about a pound since yesterday, but clearly not a good weight.   I guess tomorrow I will fill in what I will be on January 1, 2015.

2009: 322
2010: 213
2011: 250
2012: 262
2013: 267
2014: 246
2015: ???

 So enjoy the last day of 2014.  It's been a fabulous year for me and Mark personally because our son Lowell married his love, Emily, on July 12 of this year.  We got to spend a lot of time with our family, and there is nothing more fun than that.  We were healthy and happy all year.  I know that not everyone can say 2014 was so great for them.  Some of our extended family and our friends lost loved ones this year.  We were especially saddened to say good bye to our dear friend Georganne Larsen in July and then Dave Spevack just last week. I pray that those families have happier times in the upcoming new year. So I say good bye to 2014.  You were a good year for us. 

I only hope 2015 is just as fabulous!

The Works

Today I will be heading over to Nature Hair at The Cove for "The Works."  That's what I call it when  I spend a fortune and about six hours of time to get a make-over.  Every two weeks on Tuesday afternoons at 1 p.m., I go there for my gel manicure, pedicure, and facial waxing appointment with Nicole.  She's Evey's age, and I really enjoy how she does my pedicures.  She's also just a lot of fun to hang out with and talk to.  Once every four to six months, I have "The Works," which includes the gel mani, the pedi, the waxing, and adds hair coloring, cut, and highlights.  The coloring and highlights is really what makes it take so much more time than the usual.  So that's going to take the whole middle of the day, from 10 a.m. to about 4 p.m.

When I get home, I will scoot around the house, tidying and mopping the floor, setting the table, and making a salad.  We have three guests coming for dinner at 6.  Mark is making Apricot Chicken Garam Masala with rice and peas.  It sounds delicious and very flavorful, yet it comes from the Diabetic Living magazine, which means it will not be too high in calories or carbs, plus portion controlled.  One of the three guests doesn't like anything too odd or spicy.  We were told she wouldn't eat this, so Mark is making her a piece of baked cod instead.  Hopefully she will eat the salad, rice, and peas.

He was going to make her a piece of plain baked chicken since we are all having chicken. Unfortunately, it's impossible around here to go buy a piece of kosher meat anymore.  Our local Publix used to sell bags of frozen poultry parts.  No more.  The Super Target about an hour north used to sell all kinds of fresh kosher meat, including steaks, brisket, and ground beef.  No more.  We went to Whole Foods, which always had a plethora of fresh packaged kosher turkey and chicken parts.  No more.  The only thing they had was one pack of ground turkey and not even an empty space to lead us to believe they would be stocking up in the future. No. It seems like there is no place within an hour drive to buy fresh or frozen kosher meat of any kind.  We can still get a few types of frozen TV dinners, even some family packs of frozen stuffed cabbage, but no uncooked meat other than gigantic turkeys. Our local Publix will still provide us with a whole Empire kosher turkey. 

Mark isn't too concerned since he mostly orders all of our meat online from Grow and Behold in PA.  It is pastured, kosher meat.  They have EVERYTHING. 

Does it cost a fortune?  Absolutely.

Is it delicious?  Absolutely.

Does it come fairly promptly?  Absolutely.

Can you get an order last minute?  Not really.

So no more last minute changes or guests for us.  Mark tries to put in a meat order about every two months and stock up, but we are at the end of that order.  He had the chicken thighs he needed for the crockpot Apricot Chicken Garam Masala, but he did not have any other piece of chicken in there for this guest. 

Good thing she likes Cod!

Monday Magic

Why is today magical?  No real reason.  LOL!  Just sounded good.

I am down a little bit since last Monday, weighing in at 272.3.  This is mostly because we went to the pool both Saturday and Sunday, so I exercised and swam in the pool both days.  I also ate less snack food and most meals at home.  We had a wonderful dinner at the home of friends Jonathan and Susan on Saturday night, but I guess I didn't too badly there.

This morning, we plan to hit the water aerobics class at The Cove for the first time in a very long time, since last spring when we went up north in June.  It is every morning at 10:30, so I'm going to make this blog short in order to get out on time.

After water aerobics, we have to go north to do some shopping for kosher chicken and some special wines.   Then we'll be home for an early dinner and out at 6:30 to SOJC choir.  Lovely, magical day indeed.

Here are some pictures from our final day of fun at WDW for our anniversary and end of Hanukkah. 

Our last day was spent at the pool and then the lobby of the Grand Floridian.

Mark looked up and saw himself.  We have no idea who this is, but he really does look like Mark.

We listened to the pianist for an hour....

and the band for another 45 minutes.

Then we had our wonderful DVC Christmas Eve dinner, which we gave to each other as a last night of Hanukkah present!

The Carolers entertained for about 15 minutes before the doors opened.

Gorgeous table for two.  We got to take that bouquet home. It's full of orchids and roses!

We each got one of these big tins....

with a snowman cookie inside.  I ate one cookie already, but the other is still "canned."

Mickey and Minnie are wearing their Hanukkah outfits.  Blue and White!

The really big draw was a chance to meet Anna and Elsa without a huge line!  What a coup!

The buffet dinner and entertainment were great, and everyone got a full sized special DVC game to take home on the way out. I picked Scrabble, but the other choices was Monopoly.  Great fun!

Beautiful Sunday

We had Sea World on our calendar for a long time.  We wanted to go for two reasons.  First, to use our pass one more time before it expired at the end of the year.  It was $99 for TWO season passes.  We only used it twice during the year, but that meant it was only $25 each to go in. Not too shabby.  If we went today, it would have been amazingly cheap.  Second, we wanted to go see their holiday shows.

Well, this morning we noticed that most of the holiday things don't happen until after dark.  We had planned to go up in the morning and leave by dinner time.  We wouldn't have seen any of the special things.  We really aren't interested in being there between 6 and 11 p.m.  Second, we have already purchased our upgraded season passes for next year, which will not include parking, so there is no need to squeeze one more visit in this year.

AND it's going to be sunny and 84 degrees.  New plan:  POOL DAY!!

Saturday we overslept and skipped shul, but we did have a pool afternoon.  Then we had a lovely dinner at the home of friends Susan and Jonathan at the Cove.  She had converted in the spring, and we gave her a Havdalah set as a gift.  They wanted us to come over and make Havdalah with them, using the set for the first time. It fit in perfectly with my Pick-a-Mitzvah plan of doing Havadalah each Saturday night.  We had a fantastic day.

I also finished my REALLY, REALLY hard Dr. Who jigsaw puzzle after over a year of working on it.  I'm going to give it to a neighbor to give to someone else she knows who loves hard puzzles.  Then I worked on one of the 8 other puzzles that have been waiting for me.  I did the 3D vase puzzle that Laverne gave me last Hanukkah.  It wasn't as challenging as I had thought it would be because the pieces were all numbered!  It took an hour or so Saturday and then I finished it this morning.  Turns out it was missing piece #133, which was irritating but not catastrophic.  I worked around it and now the vase it in the living room.   You really can't tell the piece is missing.

Now which puzzle to pick next?

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the puzzles and more pictures from our WDW trip last week. The pictures from the last day of the trip will be in tomorrow's blog.  These pictures are from Tuesday.

Tuesday heading to the main building at the Grand Floridian, Mark had to duck to miss the garland.

The Gingerbread House amazes me every year.

Lunch at Gasparillo's.

Then into the Magic Kingdom, on Dec. 23.  Crazy, I know!

Anna and Elsa were in the Christmas parade.

So was Olaf.

The Marching Toy Soldiers always look great.

And, of course, Santa finishes the parade.

Yeah that's the crowd at the end of the parade.  We had to swim upstream through that to get to our next activity.

Castle Show

Elsa lights up the castle at night.

Pictures from Grand Floridian and WDW parks.

I am posting two blogs today because the blogspot people were cranky yesterday. It wouldn't let me post any pictures, so I just left it alone and went on about the day.  Today it was working fine, so I got yesterday's blog up today.  Crazy.  Maybe it was just too busy?

We had a fun Jewish Christmas.  We watched the Disney holiday show and then went to the movies.  We liked both movies but were STUNNED at the number of people at the theater.  Crazy.  We also loved our Chinese food dinner.

Today we are going to the Cove. Hopefully, the weather will be warm enough to enjoy some pool time and lounging in a chair. Mark is going into the library to do his usual three hours of scanning magazines.  We were told the library usually remains closed the day after Christmas, but if I feel like it I could go in and put up the Open sign.  It will depend on how nice the weather is this afternoon.

Meanwhile, here's some pictures from the Grand Floridian and Epcot from Monday.

The day started at Epcot.  Here Mark is sharing his lunch with Hanukkah Duffy!

We went to the Kwanzaa demonstration....

immediately followed by the Hanukkah one.

DVC Member Merry Mixer, treats and hot chocolate and a DJ and characters to meet.  Fun.

Every family left with this year's special ornament.

Dinner at the revolving restaurant in The Land.

Duffy approved of our restaurant choice.

Four characters were walking around.  Chip was first and Dale came later.

Mickey is cute in his farmer outfit.

Pluto!

Late at night we finally checked into the Grand Floridian, sixth floor studio this time.

Duffy ad Olaf helped Mark light the candles for the seventh night of Hanukkah.

This was our anniversary celebration, too, so I sent Mark a gift basket that included a very special (meaning expensive) bottle of Silverado Cabernet.  It also included cheese and crackers, which became our breakfast for the two mornings, a Mickey head shaped plate and basket and two wine glasses.  Lovely.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from our day at the Magic Kingdom!

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends celebrating today!

I am in front of my computer at 10 a.m.  The Disney Christmas parade is about to start.  Nice.

We came home late last night from three days of magic at WDW and the Grand Floridian.  There will be pictures!  There may be too many for just one report.  Maybe I'll spread them out over a few days.

The short version is we had a wonderful time, and I ate too much, as always.  I'm up three pounds in three days to 277.  It's kind of shocking to me that I'm essentially back to the obese state where I spent most of my life.  I hope I can put the brakes on before I find myself over 300 again.  As we walked around the parks for miles and miles, I got blisters on my feet, aching hips, and a very painful back.  I'm back to where I was five years ago when i could only walk a block or two before I had to sit down because the back pain was so bad.  I'm not quite that bad yet, but it does start to hurt in a very short time.  It's entirely due to the weight.  I know that. I also barely have any clothes that fit anymore. I gave away all my 3X and 4X clothes when I lost the weight. I was down to just L or XL when I was in the low 200 range.  I'm glad I kept all the 2X sizes because that's all I've got that fits right now.  Sad.

Today we will have the Jewish Christmas: movies and Chinese food.  At least I do plan to eat my usual breakfast (already had my 3 Morningstar links and a sugar free yogurt, 200 calories) and lunch at home.  Of course, Chinese food is full of calories and sodium.  Our plan is to go see two movies today at the Regal (trying to avoid AMC Downtown Disney today.  It would be chaos!) using the gift card from my sister for my birthday.  With any luck we will see Annie and Into the Woods.

So have a wonderful day celebrating Christmas or whatever.  Enjoy your family and friends.

Love to all and wishing you a Happy New Year, too.

Hanukkah Ball table decorations.  We provided the blue bag, full of everything you need to play Texas Hold'em Dreidel.

We really enjoyed this Ball.

Maybe Mark was enjoying it a bit too much.

Harpist playing in the lobby as people entered.

Barbara A. and me.  Barbara and her husband Steve, originally from Rockville, MD, were the first people we met at Solivita.  They were assigned to take us out to dinner and talk up the community when we did Discovery Days in June of 2010.  Now we sing together in Guys and Dolls!