LEAP DAY! Doing nothing special.

Saturday night we went out to Roy's, an Hawaiian fusion restaurant.  Our friends Jonathan and Susan treated us, even though we were celebrating their 23rd wedding anniversary.  The restaurant was amazing!  There's actually one in Baltimore, so we hope to take Emily and Lowell to it in the summer to celebrate their second anniversary.

Yesterday was Cindy's birthday, Feb. 28.  She went on a bike ride with Ken, and we went to visit the Blue Springs State Park to view manatees with Ed and Susie.  It was sunny and in the low 70s, a perfect day for that.   Wow, the park was packed with people because there were over 150 manatees in the spring.  Gorgeous, beautiful creatures.  We enjoyed that experience very much.  It was also the first time Mark and I ever saw manages in the wild.

I won't be writing a blog tomorrow morning because we will leave at 5:30 a.m. to go to the Orlando Surgical Center. My ptosis repair surgery is scheduled for 8 a.m.  Hopefully, all will go smoothly, and we will be home by lunch time.  I have to spend two full days sleeping upright and keeping cold compresses on my eyes.  For two weeks I am not to lift anything over 10 pounds, bend over, or raise my heart rate.  I plan to stay home through most of that time and just relax.  We will probably catch up on a lot of TV.  Rudy will be arriving on March 11, so there will be some going out with him, but that will be towards the end of the two week period anyway.

I certainly plan to post some before and after shots of my eyes.

For today, Leap Day, I am just tidying up the house in the morning, including putting away laundry.  In the afternoon I will play Mah Jongg at my neighbor's house, and in the evening we are having a hot dog style picnic supper at Ed and Susie's house followed by a few rounds of Rummikub.  I need to go to bed relatively early in order to get up at 5 a.m. and on the road by 5:30.

Before posting pictures of manatees, I want to report my weight.  280 even today, so it looks like I dropped a bit again.  I had already lost down to the 279.3 that was before the last cruise, but of course I gained almost four of it back.  Glad it's gone again, but tonight's menu includes kosher hot dogs in kosher parve buns, cole slaw, potato salad, and vegetarian baked beans.  That's one of my favorite dinners of all times and high in sodium.  To prepare for that, I will try to eat light the right of the day. I would really like not to have a lot of water weight added tomorrow morning for the surgery.  I'm a little nervous about the surgery as it is because I have had only ONE surgery (parathyroid) at a weight this high.  I also have been fighting a slight head cold for a week, which could be problematic for general anesthesia.  I might call the doctor's office this morning to ask about it.  There is just a slight amount of nasal congestion and some occasional sneezing.  It's really not bad, so I hope it doesn't mean a postponement.

Kinky Boots

It was a real pleasure to see Kinky Boots last night at the new Walt Disney Theater in the Dr. Phillips Center.  The theater was packed, and Alice picked me up in plenty of time for us to arrive with time to spare.  We sat in row G in the balcony, but right in the center.  I could not really see the actors faces too well, but the acoustics were great.  The costumes, choreography, and sets were a lot of fun.  It was energetic and just a lot of fun.  They received a standing ovation at the end.

Then we couldn't find our way back so easily to the parking lot.  We actually went in the wrong lot and wandered around.  Very few cars were there, so it was obvious Alice's car was not there.  Eventually, we realized she was parked in the lot across the street!  It was pretty funny, and I got some good exercise walking up and down the ramps in the parking lots looking for the car!  LOL

Mark is at an all day meeting today for NARFE.  He's making an hour long presentation on Legislation.  I was going to play mahj jongg, but it got cancelled.  Now I have the whole day to myself, right up to 6:30 tonight when we go to a wine tasting party at the Shopiros house tonight.

My plan is to go pick up my two prescriptions for the surgery....one at Publix and one at CVS.  I hope to take a walk around the Glendora pond because it's sunny and cool out, and I need the exercise.  Then I'm going to make chicken soup!  I love making soup.  And eating soup!  I'm actually feeling like I'm fighting off a cold, which is a disaster when surgery is coming up on Tuesday, so maybe the chicken soup is just the thing I need.

I lost one pound again yesterday, down to 282 again.  I hope walking and eating chicken soup will be good for me today.  I will have to watch myself at the party tonight.  In addition to sampling four types of white wines from New Zealand there will be all my favorite snack foods: nuts, cheeses, and crackers.

Weigh-in Wednesday

I am officially moving my weigh in day from Mondays to Wednesdays.  I actually started out on Wednesdays a long time ago, so it feels okay to go back.

This morning I am 283, which means I gained back 3.7 pounds since Friday morning.  Having company is as bad as going on a cruise!

I overate on the Progressive Dinner Saturday night, but Saul and Phyllis took us out to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes.  In theory anyone can eat healthy there and low carb and low calorie, but it's also possible to overeat terribly. I'm the second kind of person!  I walked once around the Glendora pond with Mark and the Oreskys on Saturday, but then they walked twice while I sat in a chair.  My back and legs were already hurting.

Sunday I ate too much for breakfast and lunch before we even went to Bomas. I ate a lot at Bomas!  Goes without saying.

We had a great time with the Rosens and Oreskys.  It's been awhile since we could just hang out together.  The last time all six of us we were together was Lowell and Emily's wedding in July of 2014.   Saul and Phyllis left Monday morning and Jeff and Sara are leaving today.  I didn't have much time to spend with them other than hanging out at home.  We all went to watch Mark in Arsenic and Old Lace on Monday morning, and the Oreskys left before it ended.  Then in the afternoon I had to go up to Winter Park for my next appointment with the eyelid surgery. I'm not sure what Mark and the Rosens did while I was gone.  In the evening we watched an old Disney movie on TV, Flight of the Navigator.  On Tuesday I had a hair cut, hair color, and mani/pedi followed by an afternoon rehearsal.  Mark played all day with Jeff and Sara, mostly walking!  They went over to Hollywood Studios and walked the long walk from the Studios over to Epcot, looking at Boardwalk, Swan and Dolphin, and Yacht and Beach Club. In the evening we watched TV.  Sara and I watched the first episode of Survivor while Mark and Jeff watched the Democratic party Town Hall.

It's been a great time, but I gained back as much weight in these six days as I did on a cruise!  LOL!

At Animal Kingdom Lodge on Sunday

Jeff and Sara with Trevor from South Africa

Eating at Bomas.

Sara touched the wall plaque on the way out of the Lodge, meaning she is being sent safely into the future.

Sweet Success!

The seven cruise pounds are gone, in only three days.  Of course, that just shows that it's mostly water.  This morning I am once again 279.3.  I am pleased!

I had a perfect day on Wednesday, a very good day on Thursday, and a not-so-good day on Friday, and yet the seven pounds are gone.  Total calories on Wednesday were only 954, and Thursday were 1342; however, Friday was 2400.

Tonight we have a progressive dinner: appetizers at Susie's house, dinner (fish tacos) at Judi's house, and dessert at our house.  I am not good at parties!

Saul and Phyllis arrived at 5:30 and we had a lovely Shabbat dinner with them.  We are heading to shut in a few minutes where Mark will read haftarah.

Got to run!

Pre-Op

I was a very good girl yesterday and was rewarded with a four and a half pound weight loss in one day!  I am sure that was just the inevitable water weight from too much sodium.  Today has been going well so far, too.  I had an appropriate breakfast and lunch.  Soon I'm going to the primary care doctor to  have my pre-op physical for the ptosis repair surgery on March 1, which for some reason does not involve blood work.  In fact, it sounds like they just want an EKG.  I hope to catch a little fifteen minute walk afterwards and do some shopping in Walmart.

Mark had his rehearsal this morning and then will go grocery shopping.

I won three games of Mah Jongg.  I hosted two tables this morning, so that was fun.

Tomorrow the Oreskys are arriving for Shabbat dinner and a few nights.  That's going to be fun!

I will end with a few more pictures from the cruise.

At the port in San Juan

This time we took a bus trip to the rainforest.

We're back from a great cruise.

We had ten glorious days on the Celebrity Constellation.  We had dinner most nights with a group of six friends that we have cruised with before.  Next February they will all be back again.  Other than on Facebook, we only see this group once a year on this cruise, so that's kind of cool.

I gained SEVEN pounds.  NOT GOOD.  This morning I was 286.3, up from 279.3 ten days ago when I left.  There is not much to say about that.  It's fairly common for people to gain that much on a cruise.  I didn't do much exercise or even walking at all. I didn't walk the track even once.  We went on shore only two times, and there wasn't much walking around on those times either.  No wonder my clothes were getting tight.

Now we have about four and a half weeks until the next cruise, which is 14 days.  This is the time to do something about this.  Of course, you may remember that I probably said the same thing after the January cruise.

Geez, seriously, though, I now weigh only 9 pounds less than that horrible day in the surgeon's office in April of 2009 when he said 295 was too high for surgery and that I would die.  I cried for thirty minutes in the car when I left his office.  I actually was feeling GOOD about that weight because in January of that year I weighed 322.   Being down 27 pounds in three months made me feel successful.  Then the surgeon said I was NOT.  That did not feel good, but it did spur me on to lose another 90 pounds for that total of 117 pounds.  I met that milestone at the end of February of 2010, and I felt that I had lost so much that I could NEVER gain it all back.  Well, clearly I was wrong. In fact, I did not keep it off even one day.  In March we took off on our big trip across the country and our cruise to Hawaii and the Panama Canal.  I was up 15 pounds by the end of the trip and up another thirty more by the end of 2010.  Since we moved to Florida, I have zigzagged up and down, but more up than down, leading me to this weight today.

So this morning I dragged out my Lose It! program and logged in my weight.  It's the highest I have been since I started the program.  It graphs the weights that are recorded and my graph is a huge zig zag up and down and up and down.  It really reflects the story of my life!

Today I am eating all my meals at home, and I started with an 80 calorie Greek yogurt that I logged into the program.  Soon I will drink my first glass of water for the day.  Mark is leaving for rehearsal pretty soon, and then I'm going to dress and take a walk.  I really need to get back to the daily walking, which I have pretty much abandoned.  At this weight, walking more than 10 to 15 minutes is very hard.  My back will hurt and my legs will go numb.  I know from starting this journey back in 2009 that waling, even that little bit, consistently every day will bring weight loss and the ability to walk more.  I KNOW what to do and how to do it.  Now I just need to put it all into practice.  There is no pretending anymore that I am okay.  I am NOT okay.  My weight is not healthy.

OK, enough of this.  Here are some pictures from the cruise.

First day walking through the ship.  

Mark is watching the spillway party from his favorite spot on deck 11.

Captain's Club cocktail party.  Too much free drinking was probably part of the weight gain!

Second night we had our dinner at the Tuscan Grille.

It was the first elegant night, so we were dressed up.

Unfortunately, Mark got one of those heart episodes after our Tuscan Grille dinner, but it won't be recorded  for the doctor because we are gone too long and away from the monitor.  He laid on this chaise for about an hour.  

Sailing in to Fort de France.  There's the fort!

We watched the Carnival on Mardi Gras from deck ten on the ship.  We couldn't see the actual parade, but we saw this one float head up to the parade.  It was LOUD!

It was the Red Devil's parade, and anyone wearing red and black could walk in the parade.  Hundreds of people got off busses right across from the ship and walked up to the parade, too.  We watched it for three hours!

Dinner with our cruising friends.  The waiter took this, and I guess the ship moved too much to keep the camera still.  LOL!

Heading to bus and cruise very soon

Just thought I'd make a short blog before packing the laptop.

I wanted to log in my starting weight for this cruise.  This morning I was 279.3, not at all good.  In August in Aulani I was 273, and I thought that was bad.  In October on the Carnival Sunshine I left for the cruise at 274 and came back at 278.  In January on the Constellation I left at 280 and returned the same, which I described as a mini-miracle.  So this morning, I'm about what I was for that most recent cruise.  This is 10 days, just three days longer than the January cruise.  I stayed the same for that one, so that's my goal on this one.  I would love to log in on the morning of February 17 and report that I am still the same weight.  We shall see.

Bon Voyage to me and Mark.

FYI  Mark and Carol are leaving today also on the Carnival Sunshine for a 7 day cruise.  They are going to the Dominican Republic and Grand Turk, like we are, but they are not there on the same days.  We checked!  Bon Voyage to Carol and Mark, too.

Mark in front of our favorite ship in Key West.  We are not going to Key West this time, but we are taking our EIGHTH

cruise on this ship!

Packing and thinking of the cruise

Even though I played mahj morning and afternoon yesterday, and I even won three games in the morning, although none in the afternoon, I did get all my packing done as well.  I'm not sure I can close the suitcase, but everything I want is in there!

This morning I have a 10:30 appointment to get my two big toes repainted.  From 1-4 we will work in the library like always on Fridays.  We also have to hit the Cove office to pick up our packets of information on riding the bus tomorrow to Fort Lauderdale.  FIVE busses, about 250 people are going down to the cruise.  We are supposed to get a color-coded bracelet for which bus to get on tomorrow and a color-coded sticker to wear off the ship in order to be herded on to the appropriate bus at the end of the cruise.  This is the first time we ever tried to do this.  It cost us $100 a person, and I'm already regretting it.  We did it because going down today, which is what we normally would have done, getting a hotel room and paying to park the car for 10 nights would actually cost about $250.  This saved us $50.  On the other hand, we are not arriving until 2 pm, which will drive me crazy.  We are usually boarding about 11:30.  Apparently, the bus leaves the Cove at 9 but is required to do an HOUR long stop at a rest area on the way.  It's Saturday, so Mark and I won't even be buying any lunch or anything else, but 250 people coming out of five busses will cause HUGE lines for the rest of the folks.  On the other hand, coming home is a Tuesday, and we WILL be standing in line with everyone else trying to get a lunch that day.  BOO!

We also acted like ROOKIES for this cruise in that neither Mark nor I remembered to finish the online check-in process.  That means a longer wait time trying to board tomorrow.  ANOTHER BOO!!    Still, once we are on board all our problems will melt away.  It's going to be great, as always.  We know a lot of people who are cruising, so we will have plenty of friends to hang out with.  I even packed my MAH JONGG set!!  At least three of us will be playing occasionally.  Mark and I are also part of a group of seven who will audition to be in the Talent Show on the last night.  We are singing to the tune of "Hey, Jude" by the Beatles with new words that Donna and I co-wrote.  Marilyn is accompanying on the piano, and Donna, Alan, Alice, Barbara, Mark, and I will be singing. I think we have a good chance of getting picked to be in the show!  Of course, there will be some practice sessions on board as well.

There will not be another blog for awhile now. I won't have time to write tomorrow morning, and as I said yesterday, I'm not sure I will use my precious internet minutes to write a blog.  If I do, then that's a bonus.  If I don't, there will be plenty of blogs with pictures after February 16.

Mah Jongg all day long. Then laundry and packing.

On Monday I played Mahj at my neighbor's house and did not win even one single game.  Today I am playing for three hours in the morning at one house and another three hours in the afternoon at yet another friend's house.  Perhaps I shall have a little bit better luck today.

After the doctor's visit and Mark's rehearsal, we went to see The Finest Hours, the new Disney film about the Coast Guard's all time best small boat rescue.  It was tense but great.  At least I knew they were going to be successful and rescue those sailors!  I didn't have to worry about that.

Today Mark is rehearsing in the morning and shopping in the afternoon while I'm at Mah Jongg.  This evening we plan to finish up the laundry, fold and put away the three baskets, and then pack.  We leave early Saturday morning on one of five buses with over 200 of our closest
friends (LOL!) from Cypress Cove to go on the Bare Necessities cruise on the Celebrity Constellation for ten glorious days.  We are really hoping it's warmer further south.  The last few days have been warm here, but this afternoon it's going to rain and bring tomorrow's high down to only 60.

Our itinerary for the cruise is Martinique until late night for their Carnivale, San Juan, Dominica Republic, Grand Turk, and the private island, Coco Cay, in the Bahamas.  There are also five fabulous sea days.  I love sea days!

We do plan to take our laptops and buy some minutes, but I usually don't use them to write blogs.  I might just try to write at least one though.  But if you are a regular reader and don't see anything until after Feb. 16, you'll know why.

Treadmill Tuesday!

Yesterday, we left at 9 a.m. to run my car back up to Mullinax Ford to get the last of the three recalls done.  I can't go back until Friday morning to get it.  From the Ford dealer we ran to the bank to deposit a bunch of checks and move our accounts into the recently created Trust.  From there we went to the Cove where we had our picnic lunch and swam in the newly refurbished pool.   This was about the first day warm enough to swim.  At 1 p.m we had a rehearsal for a group that will audition for the talent show on the upcoming cruise.  At 2 p.m we had an hour break so we sat by the lake and enjoyed the view.  Mark studied his script.  At 3 we had a rehearsal of the Cove Singers for an April performance.  Then at 5:30 we were at Susie's house ready to head up to the Mardi Gras celebration of a parade, bands, and food.  Lots of fun!!!

Today I dropped Mark off at his rehearsal and then went to Nature Hair to have Nicole take the polish off my two big toes.  (I wrote about my toes a few days ago.)  She suggested I see a doctor, so I immediately went to the excellent dermatologist right in our neighborhood.  He is FABULOUS.  I was a walk-in, but he saw me in just an hour and 15 minutes of waiting.  I thought that was fine.  He said he didn't think I needed an antibiotic right away, but he sent a prescription over to the pharmacy for me to take on the cruise just in case.  He also made the case for me to see a podiatrist and get my toenails fixed as they have always curved down and grown in.  He said that as I age, my ability to heal slows, so it's best to fix it now.  I have thought about doing this my whole adult life, but I always wimped out.  Once I started doing regular pedicures every two weeks, I started to have less problems and that's been for nearly sixteen years.  Of course, when we travel, it's not always possible to do them, and as I get older or maybe unable to pay for, tolerate, or drive to the nail salon, then I'll be up a creek.  I have decided to see a podiatrist, but it's not the highest thing on the list.  First, I have the eyelid surgery to do and then another cruise!  Maybe in May....

Here are some pictures from the Mardi Gras.

Great theater

We all really enjoyed Hands on a Hardbody at the Garden Theater yesterday.  It's hard to understand how it only had 28 performances on Broadway.  There was a full sized truck on the stage on a dolly.  The characters pushed, pulled, and spun that truck around as part of the choreography.  We had never seen anything like it.  The music was country style, so maybe audiences in NYC just didn't relate to it, but we enjoyed every minute of the performance.

We had a lovely lunch in the Thai restaurant nearby and some frozen yogurt after the show.  Fun Sunday.

Today Mark is going to rehearsal without me.  I have turned my props duty over to Hedy.  Instead, I will be busy ironing shirts for Mark to pack for the cruise, tidying up for Susie and Ed's visit tonight, and sweeping and mopping the floor.  Susie and Ed will be coming over for dinner at 6:30 and then we'll play Rummikub, using the new game Cindy gave us for Hanukkah.  I will also go play Mah Jongg at 1 p.m. and possibly a book lecture at 4 p.m.  We didn't know about this one until Saturday, so it was too late to get and read the book. I would go only to find out what the NEXT book is.

My weight this morning is 278, so I have stayed essentially the same again this week.  I now have only six days until the cruise.  We take the bus out of the Cove, with hundreds of our closest friends, Saturday morning!  The cruise in January lasted 7 days, and miraculously, I did not gain any weight.  This cruise is 10 days, and I am praying I don't gain any weight on this one either.  I'm still not sure how I didn't gain weight last time, so it will be hard to replicate it.  I know that if I walk more, take the stairs as often as possible, pass up snacking, and drink less, I should be okay.  We don't have the drink package this time, so that might help.  On the other hand, we are now Elite members, and I think there is a place for complimentary drinks every day...not really sure.  Guess we'll find out soon.