Tuesday and Shopping

We had a great time visiting with Mark's former co-workers yesterday.  There were eight of us at the Longhorn Steakhouse in Bowie.  I know Mark really enjoyed the time to catch up with them.

For some reason going to the luncheon and doing a few errands on the way back just wore me out. I sat on the couch and slept two and a half straight hours from 3 to 5:30 yesterday afternoon.  Crazy.

When I woke up, I noticed the text from Cindy and Ken that they had landed.  It's a good thing her house is only a five minute drive to the airport.  We picked them up and then enjoyed their stories and pictures of their visit to San Antonio, the Alamo, and River Walk.  Someday Mark and I will definitely get there, too.

Yesterday I did no exercise, but I did make a small effort to eat better.  I was not entirely successful.  Here is what I ate:
Breakfast:  I ate my usual, which is a yogurt and 3 Morningstar links for 200 calories.

Lunch at Longhorn:  I ordered their low calorie option of grilled tilapia with mango salsa listed as 575 calories or less.  I swapped a plain baked potato for the rice and broccoli for the green beans, so I don't know if that made it more or less.

Dinner:  Mark made a lovely southwestern chicken dish with zucchini and corn from Diabetic Living.  It was about 300 calories along with a salad that had some Parmesan cheese in it.  Altogether dinner was about 450 calories.

Late night snacks:  Here's where I made some poor choices.  I had my usual banana for 110 calories, but I also had a small half cup of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream for 260 calories, a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich for 150 calories, and an unknown amount of almonds eaten out of the bag for possibly as high as 500 calories.  Total snack calories could run as high as 1020, a ridiculous amount of snacking which basically ruins a good day.  Any ONE of those snacks would have been okay.  All three of the first without dipping into the almonds would even have been okay.

So my total for yesterday was in the neighborhood of 2275.  That's a good amount for staying the same usually, but I actually went down two pounds.  I weighed 279 this morning.  I am attributing it to the fact that 2275 is probably a LOT less than I had been eating and probably less sodium than I had been eating. 

Today we are going back to Seven Mile Market to shop for the rest of the Passover food, including picking up the charoset and brisket along with various other items that are still on the list.  I hope to include a short walk around the neighborhood today as well because it's going to go up to a whopping 63 degrees today.  That should feel positively balmy!  I will be eating all of my meals at home again today, and I promise to try harder to stay away from so many snacks tonight.  It would be lovely to have the total calories come in around 1500 today.  I'm sure that would drop another pound from me by tomorrow morning.  We shall see.  I shall report it tomorrow.

I'm getting pretty excited about the seder, too.  Evey and Eric arrive Thursday morning, so I'll have them for two and a half full days.  How cool is that?  How great will it be to have both kids and their spouses together at the same seder?  VERY GREAT!  VERY COOL!

Indy's Got Talent

Mark and I had a wonderful time in Millsboro, DE with our friends Dave and Evey H.  I have included some pictures below of the weekend and the show.

This morning is Monday, so I weighed in.  The good news is that I did not gain any extra weight over the weekend, even though we ate out several times and had wonderful meals at the house.  The bad news is that I still weigh 281, a terrible number.  The words "terrible number" are  clearly very relative.  I'm sure I called many other, much smaller weights, "terrible numbers."  LOL!

This morning I ate my usual, healthy, low calorie breakfast.  Mark is making a chicken dinner from Diabetic Living magazine for us and Cindy and Ken, who will arrive at the airport from their trip to San Antonio tonight.  Lunch is out, unfortunately.  We are meeting a bunch of Mark's former NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center co-workers at Longhorn Steakhouse in Bowie.  I hope that I will order a salmon salad and eschew the bread.  That would be the right thing to do.

I'm also planning to take a small walk around the neighborhood today, if possible.  It should not be too cold today, sunny and high of 57.  Compared to the below freezing temps and snowfall that occurred in Delaware over the weekend, it will feel positively balmy.

Shabbat dinner at Dave and Evey's house.

At the Clubhouse getting ready for the show.  Mark and Jeff both added a lot to the show!

Group photo before the show.

Mark, Alvin (singer, director, and producer), Dick (MC), Dave (producer, director, writer, performer)

Dave and Froggy, the Gremlin (Jeff Rosen)

Evey sang "Bosom Buddies" with a friend from their community.

Mark and Irwin worked without a mike for the first time.  For some reason the mike didn't work, but Mark projected his voice very well without it.

Excellent guitar/singing medley.

Alvin and Dave, plus the guitarist and one more friend, were the Delmarvatones.  They sang three Doo-Wop songs throughout the show.  Here they were singing "In the Still of the Night."

Evey and Eric did a very funny skit.

Alvin was a fabulous singer and not only sang three songs with the Delmarvatones but also sang two other songs of his own plus a tap dance solo!

Eric Land was great as Oliver Wolcott.  This skit was "On the Streets Where We Live."  All the streets in Independence are named for famous Americans.

This skit was the last act before the whole-cast finale.

The cast singing the finale.

Goodies were provided by residents and the bar was open in the Clubhouse for the After Party.

It was good to see Jackie and Eric Land.  We had not seen them in about 10 years, and they still look exactly the same. How is this possible?

Then we found them again at the Long Neck Diner for a late supper after the show.

We all enjoyed the food at the diner for the late supper and went back for the breakfast buffet the next morning.

Mark took one picture of me at the diner.  We really enjoyed the weekend.

Going to Lewes, Delaware

Today, after dropping Ken and Cindy off at the airport for their long weekend to San Antonio to celebrate Ken's 60th birthday, Mark and I are driving to Lewes, Delaware for two nights with Dave and Evey Herschler.  They live in a beautiful over 55 community, and they have invited us to be their guests this weekend.

Dave and Evey are producing a talent show for their residents tomorrow night, the first one ever at this community.  Somehow he talked Mark and our friend Jeff Rosen into being part of the show. I  had the good sense to decline.  I am just going to be an audience member, and I couldn't be happier about that!

This morning I cracked a new number on the scale, which was HIDEOUS.  I am now at the same point where I could not walk a block before my back hurt terribly or my hips felt like they didn't want to move anymore.  281.3.  Why?  Well, it might be a bit of sodium overage yesterday because I ate a lot of tortilla chips, lime flavored.  Yummy, but stupid.  I don't know what to say for myself.

Once I had lost the 100+ pounds, I told Evey that I felt young.  I thought about myself and said, "I don't know how I let myself get that out of control."  That's still a true thought, but here I am nearly back again to 300, only 14 pounds from the day on April 8 in 2009 in the surgeon's office when he yelled at me about weighing 295 and being too obese for surgery.  Here I am wondering how I got to this point.  Here I am wondering why I'm out of control.  I'm a binge-eater. I know that.  I guess it's a life long disease, like all addictions.

Evey once said I should go to counselling for this.  She has studied obesity and diabetes in depth as part of her master's degree in nutrition. I'm sure she's right.  In fact, I had never heard of BED, Binge Eating Disorder, until she told me about it.  At that point, I was in the 230s and feeling good about my weight loss.  I did not think I would need any counselling. I thought I had it under control.  Clearly, I don't.  Clearly, it's time to read about BED again.

Passover begins next Friday night.  We shopped for a lot of our special Passover foods yesterday. I found myself throwing four bags of potato chips and several boxes of other candies and cookies in the basket.  Do I need those things?  Absolutely not.  Will I eat them?  Absolutely will, unless I throw them out before then.  I am sometimes a scary and pathetic person when it comes to food.

Meanwhile, I am not taking the computer to Delaware today, so there will be no more blogs until next week.  I promise to weigh myself again Monday morning and report the weight. 

LOL!  I just started giggling, sitting here at the dining room table by myself.  LOL!  HaHa!  Tee Hee!  For some reason, the title of this blog just made me laugh.  Maybe I should change it soon.

Happy Birthday, Lowell!

It's our son's birthday today, so happy birthday to him.  He's 36 today.  I will not see him today, but I did send him a Facebook greeting and later I might call him.  We took him to Toby's dinner theater on Sunday to see The Addams Family musical and gave him all his presents then.  Tonight he and his wife, Emily, will be going to the Melting Pot, one of their favorite restaurants.

Also Happy Birthday to my friend, Annie.  She is turning the big Six-O today and is having a Mah Jongg party at her home tonight to celebrate.  I've been invited, and since I am not seeing Lowell and Emily, I am free to go to her party.  Very cool.

Mark has an eye appointment to get a new prescription and then new glasses at noon today.  FINALLY!  He tried hard to get them for nearly a month back home, but after cancelling two appointments because they didn't get the doctor in his insurance plan soon enough, he was unable to get any appointments anywhere else before we came up here.  At last, he has an appointment at Visionworks today.

This past weekend we went to see Joel O. as the ring announcer at the UWE events in New Cumberland, PA, about a ninety minute drive north.  There were about 20 people from his family and friends who came to see him, including his mother, his brother, and his wife.  He also actually participated in a tag team match with another wrestler against another announcer and wrestler.  Joel's team won when Joel pinned the other announcer.  It was so much fun! 

It's FREEZING up here in Maryland.  On the first day of Spring, it snowed!  It was a pretty snow, one that didn't stick to the roads or sidewalks, so no shoveling!  It snowed all day and accumulated about two inches on the grass.  I went out twice and threw some snowballs.  The next day it was all melted away.  Very nice.  While it was snowing, we stayed home all day and just enjoyed reading and TV and watching it snow.  Still, it's again cold this morning, very cold.  I can't wait for some real Spring weather to arrive.

There is nothing to report about my weight.  It is staying the same at about 277.  I did not weigh this morning, but that's what I was yesterday.  We have eaten out several times and also eaten many delicious meals that Mark prepared in Cindy's kitchen.  I have eaten too much all the time and also many snacks.  I have not done any real exercise other than walking in the mall on Monday when we went to the movies.  It's been too cold to walk around outside, in our opinion.

Monday we went to see the new Disney Cinderella movie, which came with the new cartoon short, Frozen Fever, to open it.  Both were just wonderful. I hope they are a huge financial success for Disney, but I also hope everyone goes to them just because they are truly wonderful. 

We had lunch at BJs in Laurel with our friend Rudy yesterday.  That was fun.  We also did some shopping for Passover, picking up all the pretty plastic plates and flatware that I need for the seder.  We will have seven for the seder next Friday night, including all four of my kids!  How cool is that!

Here are a few pictures from the wrestling match.

Mark with old friend Neil

Joel leading us in a moment of silence in honor of a wrestler who had died in the ring the night before in Mexico.

Joel and wife Xenia watching the ladder match.

Mark, Sheldon, and Neil really enjoyed the matches.  They have all been avid wrestling fans in the past, but it has been years since they came to a match, especially together!

Joel announcing!

At intermission I snapped some of the guests who came for him.  Zack in white on the left has been a good friend for a very long time.  Seated in the center is his brother Ilan.

His beautiful wife Xenia, from La Paz, Bolivia.

Now Joel is the WRESTLER!  He was very cool and he pinned his man.

Unfortunately, the only picture I took of the two of them at Toby's came out blurry.  Sorry, Lowell and Emily!  Happy Birthday to Lowell.

Mark and Lowell walking back to the car after the show.  Lowell is carrying a bag of presents.

Thursday shopping day

Yesterday we just worked on little chores in the house (Cindy's house).  Mark worked HARD on his NARFE stuff because getting Cindy's printer to recognize his new laptop took HOURS, but he persevered and made it work finally.  It almost felt like he was having a full work day.  LOL!

Other than uploading my photos from the conference, putting some laundry away, and writing yesterday's blog, all I did was take an afternoon nap and then meet Phyllis for dinner at Great Sage.

Today my entire agenda consists of shopping with Mark for some basic food items for the week.  I'm enjoying the low key resting day, and I'm sure my cold is improving.

NARFE Legislative Conference

We headed north on March 12 to attend the conference.  After a five hour delay getting the train out of the station, causing us to arrive late on Friday, everything went very well.  Even the train delay wasn't that big of a deal.  Someone asked me what I would do for five extra hours in the train station. I replied, "The same thing I would have done on the train: sleep and read."  And so I did.  Mark and I had packed plenty of food in a cooler, not expecting to get any meals.  As it turned out, they gave out some sandwiches and breakfast after all.  We ate well and also agreed that we slept the best ever in a coach seat on a train.  I guess our colds were really knocking us out.  The nasty cold has lasted a long time.  I still have it today in fact.

We checked into the Renaissance hotel in Crystal City, VA Saturday late afternoon in time for the opening half hour orientation session and the banquet.  From then it was a roller coaster of non-stop sessions all day Sunday and Monday leading up to our visits on Capitol Hill Tuesday.  Mark and I had an appointment with our representative, Congressman Alan Grayson, at 10:30.  Another of his constituents joined us for that visit.  He gave us 20 minutes of his time, which is huge for this sort of thing, and a photo op.  We also went to the two senators offices and dropped off materials with a staffer.

Once that was done, Mark and I hopped the Metro over to the other side of town, took about a seven block walk, and arrived at the OPM building to see a new monument inside.  Mark has wanted to see and be photographed with the special monument honoring civilian federal employees who were killed in the line of duty since it opened in 2013.  Well, we saw it.  It's not accessible to anyone except employees of the building, and the security guard wouldn't even let us photograph it from afar.  Mark enjoyed seeing it, but the rule about no photography seemed a little arbitrary.  He is planning to write a letter about this to the head of OPM.

On the way back we stopped at a fabulous Indian restaurant on I street, Aroma.  We had a delicious, spicy vegetarian combo platter.  We also enjoyed the rest because our legs were killing us by then.  Both of us had terrible leg cramps on the way home in the car.  Mark's were especially bad and took him nearly 45 minutes to resolve while I was driving the Beltway.  Crazy.  My phone app said we walked nearly 7 miles, so I think that was the reason.

Despite all that, we managed to stop at the kosher market on the way home and get a big hunk of corned beef to boil with cabbage and potatoes for a delicious St. Patrick's Day dinner with Cindy.

Today Mark is doing laundry and some NARFE work.  At 6:30 we are meeting Phyllis for dinner at the vegan restaurant in Clarksville, Great Sage.  Other than, I am having a day of rest!  Maybe I can finally stop sneezing and blowing my nose.

NARFE's president, Richard Thissen, opened the conference at Saturday night's banquet.

On Monday afternoon, Mark led a meeting of those of us from Florida to strategize our visits on Tuesday.

Outside the Capitol building Tuesday morning to begin our visits.

Arriving at Senator Rubio's office in the Russell building with Rudy, the legislative chair of the Orlando NARFE chapter.

Rubio's office had not answered Mark's request for a meeting, but we showed up unannounced and gave this staffer our materials.

We did the same thing at Senator Nelson's office in the Hart building.

Next stop was at the Cannon House office building.

We had an excellent 20 minute meeting with our Congressman, Alan Grayson.

Next stop was the OPM building to see the memorial.

One last look at the Capitol before boarding the bus back to the hotel. 

Heading North

Today is Mark's birthday. Happy 64th  Birthday to you, my love!

For his birthday I bought us tickets on the autotrain instead of driving 9 or 10 hours to Florence, SC.  Instead, we can have more leisurely morning before heading to Sanford and the train.

Unfortunately, we got a call from Amtrak last night saying that they will not be providing dinner this time.  HUH???? They charge a fortune for two tickets to sit in coach, hundreds of dollars, and you are supposed to get a nice sit down dinner and a breakfast the next morning.  They used to give you free wine with dinner and cookies at night with a movie.  They took all of that away last year, but at least we still got dinner.  This time the train is arriving so late today that in order for us to head out on time at 4:30, they won't bother restocking the train with food.  SUCKS!  I am hoping they will refund or at least give us a credit for a portion of the fare.  I was told to call tomorrow after we get off the train and see if we can get some money back.

So now we have to stop at Publix on the way up and figure out what we can pack to eat on the train for dinner.  Ridiculous.

Still, it's more relaxing than driving.

On Monday we had a really great day at Crystal River State Park and Homossassa Springs State Park with Susie and Ed.  Tuesday we spent the day at the Cove and hung out with Jonathan and Susan as well as Dick and Peggy, visiting down from NY.  It was a nearly perfect day.  Yesterday we went to the dress rehearsal of the Solivita Theater Group's spring production of Neil Simon's Rumors.  Very funny and an especially beautiful set!

My weight Monday was the same as today, 277.8.  I wrote that down in my book for this big month long trip.  I'm taking my computer and there will be wifi everywhere we go, so I'll be writing blogs for sure.  I'm also packing my scale!

So it's time to load up the car and head out.  Here are some pictures from Monday before I go.

Lunch at Charley's Fish House first.  Great views and atmosphere as well as great food.

Our boat for our 90 minute Eco-tour.

Susie and I are waiting to board.

Mark, Ed, and Susie on board.

They told us this nuclear power plant wasn't running anymore, but there was still lots of smoke coming out.

Beautiful views along the Crystal River and even looking out at the Gulf of Mexico.

Then off to Homossassa Springs State Park.

Yuma, a Florida panther.