Seventh Day of Passover and Moving Day for Evey and Eric

Are you sick of eating matzah yet?  I'm not.  I do love it.  I would eat it all year except that I don't need the calories!

We took Frank up to the pool yesterday afternoon.  It was perfect weather for the pool.  He had a lovely time sitting on the bench inside the pool and relaxing and enjoying the refreshing water for about an hour.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera, so there are no pictures.  After a quick dinner, we went to the movie Steve Jobs, which was good, but it was not really about the life of Jobs. It was about his relationships with the people around him, especially his daughter Lisa.  We thought it was very well done, and Kate Winslet was outstanding as his assistant.

Today we went to shut for the seventh day.  Not many people were there, so I got the first aliyah and Mark was calling Gabbi.  It was a nice morning.  Mark and Frank watched some Westerns on TV after lunch and now both are napping. I finished my mystery novel and napped while they were watching the Westerns.

I weighed 278 this morning, so that's one more pound down.  It's going to be ugly at the doctor's office Monday morning because I will weigh in much higher there than I ever did before.  I don't think Dr. Balkman will like that.  I got my blood results back and my fasting glucose was 98, which is outstanding.  My A1C was 6.0, which is always flagged as high.  Quest says it should be under 5.7, but my last four readings (all six months apart, so the last two years worth) are 5.8, 6.0, 5.9, and this one of 6.0.  They are all flagged as high, but as long as the fasting is under 100, she thinks it's fine.  I do not believe I am a diabetic, and neither does the doctor.  My protein was one-tenth below the lowest level for normal. I never had that flagged before, so I guess I can ask about that.  The RDW, which I really don't understand, is still a few tenths high and flagged as abnormal.  She has never mentioned it, so I guess it's nothing to be concerned about.  My cholesterol numbers were outstanding, but the triglycerides were higher than usual.  I am going to blame cruising and Passover on that.  I have this appointment Monday morning at 9 a.m., so I'll see what she says about all of it. I'm not really concerned about anything except my weight.  After Passover, I'll get back to work on that.

Today is Evey and Eric's moving day.  They have had some snafus in that the moving van, scheduled for a 9-10 a.m. arrival, got in an accident on the way.  A second van had to be called out and last I heard it was about 11:30 a.m. their time and the van was not there yet.  It's going to be a long day for them, but eventually, I'm sure everything will be in the new house by tonight.  This will be their first night sleeping in their beautiful new, forever home.  Mazel Tov to them.

Playing Mah Jongg today.

Weight is 279.  UGH, but down a bit.  Just a few more days of Passover, and then I should be able to get back to a more normal eating pattern.

Today I'm playing Mah Jongg at Donna's house this morning, shopping for some cards and wrapping paper at Wal Mart, chilling out all afternoon, and going to see the movie Steve Jobs in the ballroom tonight.  Should be fun.

Yesterday we took Frank out to Orange World to buy some souvenirs and gifts for people back home.  Then we had a lovely picnic lunch at the lake at Celebration.  In the evening we attended the Shalom Club meeting where they played Passover Family Feud.  Fun!

Still Passover

Still overeating, in fact, I felt like I ate more crap yesterday than the rest of the holiday.  Apparently, it did not agree with me, so I was up in the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I'm down almost two pounds this morning from that fun time on the potty.

Today I am heading out for a mani/pedi scheduled for 10 a.m.  That will take me out of the house and away from the goodies for about three hours at least.  It's entirely possible that I could eat a more moderate amount of calories today if I stay out of the candy and cakes.  I'm going to try, at least.

Mark is going to take Frank up to the pool today because the weather is going to be delightful.  That should be relaxing and enjoyable for both of them.

Monday Weigh-In even worse than I thought.

281.

Yup.

Up seven pounds this week all due to Passover seders and generally eating too much at every meal plus snacking on the leftover cakes and candy.

I'm going to be honest.  I don't see any weight coming off this week until Passover is over, which is next Sunday.  Just too much Passover food, which involves lots of calories and carbs, are what we are eating this week.  I just hope I don't gain another SEVEN pounds this week!  That would be horrendous.

Two seders down. Two and a half pounds up.

I always gain weight at Passover, so I was not surprised this morning to be 276.7 after two seders.  We had a lot of candy and matzo and high sodium foods for two huge seders as well as other meals.  I might do better today without a seder.  Also Mark is making a spaghetti squash with pasta sauce tonight for dinner with salad.  More like a normal meal than the seders!

Still, we had a BLAST at both seders despite the craziness with the cooking.  The stove repairman actually didn't get to the house on Friday until 6:30 p.m. and guests arrived within five minutes after he left.  He fixed the range burners but not the oven.  The part for the oven will be here the afternoon of May 2.  We can work around no oven as long as we can use the cooktop.  It was a blessing to be able to heat the matzo ball soup up on the stove top.  Everything else reheated both nights very easily in the microwave.  Susan Shapiro ended up making her fabulous charoset in our kitchen and then taking the three kugels and the shank bone to her house to cook.  I cooked the turkey in Susie Goldberg's oven and the asparagus, soup, and stuffing on her stove top.  Carrying the stuff back and forth in the car was the hardest part.

Eight people the first night and five the second!  Both groups had a blast.  Mark planned slightly different seders for each night so that he, Frank, and I had some variety.  Susan Shapiro brought a Plagues Kit, which was 10 types of candy, one to represent each plague.  We did them both nights, which is partly where all my candy eating came from, but everyone LOVED it.  There are more cakes, cookies, and macaroons in the house now than Frank and I should EVER eat, so I may actually have to throw some of it out just to keep from eating it.  Everyone had a wonderful time, and so did I.

My worries and panic on Friday are now a thing of the past.  Having the stove die wasn't what I would have wanted or planned, but the cooking and the seders went off very well in the end.

Today the three of us are heading to synagogue soon.  Mark is reading Haftarah today.  Then we will eat a picnic Passover lunch in the car before heading up to the Dr. Phillip's Center in downtown Orlando where we have tickets to the OPERA!  Yes, LIVE opera in Orlando is back.  We are seeing two short operas, a comedy by Mozart, Impressario, and a comedy by Poulenc, Les Mamelles de Tiresias.  After going to bed at 2 a.m (second seder didn't start until 8:38) and getting up at 6:30, I'm just hoping we can all stay awake through everything today!

Evey and Eric posted some marvelous pictures of their new home.  They have really bought a beautiful house in a fabulous neighborhood with great neighbors.  We know they will have many happy years in this "forever" home.  They sure seem excited getting some kitchen boxes taken over and put in place.  Her kitchen is huge with so much storage space that she finally has room to get even MORE kitchen-y gadgets!  LOL!

I hope everyone who might be reading this also had wonderful seders with family and friends.  I have seen some pictures on Facebook of other seders.  It certainly looks like people have been having fun this holiday season of freedom.  

Here's a picture from our first seder.

The beautiful table set for the first night.

Close up of Alice Pearlman's beautiful dishes, gold flatware, and wine glasses that  Frank gave to us to use.  

First seder group: Susie, Ed, Frank, Mark, Jonathan, Susan, and Don (Jonathan's dad)

Set for five for the second night, but I forgot to take a picture of the people.  It was me, Mark, Fran, and our neighbors Janet and Herb Koenig.

Oh Lord, help me get through this day.

I'm just going to list the things that went wrong yesterday and are going to have be done today.

1.  All TV cable boxes failed to work first thing yesterday morning.  Mark was able to get them all working later in the day, but he was frustrated by it.

2.  I have gained yet another pound, 275 today.  Now the seders and Passover start, so I'm frustrated.

3.  I gained the weight because I ate an extra piece of garlic toast at Denny's and way too many chocolate covered cashews because I was depressed.  Total calories 1980 yesterday, enough to gain another pound.  Now I'm a pound higher than Monday's official weigh-in weight. I'm sure my this coming Monday's weigh-in I will be up two or three more.

4.  My abdominal pain is still there and kept me up half the night.

5.  While Mark was picking Frank up at the airport, I was cleaning the kitchen and turning it over to Passover.  In the process, something snapped in my back when I bent over to get something out of a box.  Four Advils kept it at bay, but that pain slowed me down and kept me up all night, too.  It still hurts this morning.

6.  AND THE F&^%ING STOVE chose YESTERDAY to DIE!!!!!! Repairman is coming today between 1 and 6 p.m.  No cooking in our house today for a seder for eight people that will start at 7:30 tonight.  Imagine now stove all day on Thanksgiving and no ability to go out to eat.  Yeah, I cried during the night and already sat sobbing on the bed this morning.  I am beyond depressed.

7.  I am packing up all my kosher food, cookware, utensils, and serving bowls and spending the day in a non-kosher house cooking my special, kosher for Passover food over there and bringing it back here for the seder.  Thank God, my friend Susie is allowing me to do this.  We have two working microwaves, so we can reheat it all in there when it's time to serve tonight after the first half of the seder, which should be around 8:45 p.m.  No one coming to the seder gives a fig about the kashrut of the dinner except me and Mark, and we need to just get OVER IT.

8.  If it didn't hurt, I'd just want to go lay in bed all day with the cover over my head.  Or possibly just sit on the lanai drinking all day.  Neither of those are happening.

Happy Passover!  Especially to YOU, you stupid KARMA BITCH.

Good news:  Evey and Eric take the keys to their first house today. They are homeowners as of today, and they hope this will be their forever home.  A dog will be installed by the summer.  They are happy.  I am happy for them.

More sodium doing more damage, I guess.

I am up another half pound today, back to Monday morning's 274.  Depressing.  I ate all my meals at home because the doctor's appointment up in Winter Park went so very smoothly that we just went home for lunch.  I ate only 1393 calories, worked in the house a bit to change over for Passover, and ran a 90 minute rehearsal at the synagogue in the evening.  There wasn't any other exercise because there were many hours in the car driving to and from the doctor and to and from the synagogue.  There was also still a lot of pain/discomfort in the lower, left abdomen that intensified when I moved or was jostled in the car.  Not fun.  It's still there this morning.

So with my calorie count still fine, I am blaming the weight gain on the sodium.  For lunch, I ate 4 ounces of smoked turkey that was still left in the fridge.  It had 1120 mg of sodium, bringing my sodium total to 2951 for the day.  A day's amount is usually okay if it goes between 2500 and 3,000, so I'm not really over that amount.  In fact, Tuesday when I was blaming sodium, I had even less sodium than yesterday.  I don't really know what's going on except that my body has always hated giving up any weight!  It loves its fat!  LOL!

Mark is going to go get Frank at the airport today.  He lands at 11:40.  I will be home finishing up the kitchen work.  All of our Passover dishes and things are in boxes in the living room or our bedroom.  I have to finish clearing the counters, kashering everything anew, and covering it with tinfoil before I can start bringing out the Passover things.  It's a big job, and I don't love doing it, but it's much better doing it during the day than after coming home from work.  We used to start this work around 5 in the evening on a work day and finish after midnight, go to bed late, and get up for work the next day.  UGH. This is definitely better!

Sodium does its thing.

I'm up a pound today to 273.5.  I am blaming it on sodium.  That Big Catch Salad at Beef O'Brady's yesterday was extremely salty.  It was also a lot more calories than I had estimated the previous time. I had guessed it was 320, but yesterday I found it listed online at 670.  I had forgotten how huge the portion of fish was, probably 10 ounces, and there were also croutons and cheese.  Still, my total calorie count was 1529, just under the limit of 1553.  So, I am blaming the gain on sodium and hope to see it gone tomorrow.

I guess it was foolish to think that in just three weeks I could get under 270 when I was starting at about 283.  Probably I should be very happy that I have lost about 10 pounds in just under three weeks.  In fact, I KNOW that I should be happy about that.

Once Passover starts, there will a lot more sodium in the food than our usual food.  And no matter how hard I will try to log food in and keep track, I just KNOW I will be eating more than 1553 calories on many days.  It's just hard.  My goal during the 8 days of Passover, which somehow always is really 9 days of Passover food, is just not to gain more than one or two pounds, optimally stay the same.  We shall see.  Tomorrow Frank arrives, the kitchen gets completely turned over, dinner is eaten out, and Passover is ON.

We went to the new live action Disney's Jungle Book yesterday, and it was spectacular.  I say "live action" when I really mean one live boy and a lot of CGI.  Still, it was unbelievable.

Then we learned that Central Florida is NOT going to EVER get parve margarine this year.  I don't think that has ever happened to us.  We kept getting promised from our two Winn-Dixies that it was coming, but yesterday they said it wasn't coming at all.  They said they would be getting a different vendor next year, which is nice, but this year we are all doing without.  Last week Mark could have paid a ridiculous shipping charge of $50 to have it shipped here from NY, but now even that opportunity is over.  I use that parve margarine in my special asparagus recipe that I ONLY make on Passover, but now I will have to think of something else instead.  I am thinking that maybe I can make it with just some oil, but I don't know if that will work.  It's absolutely unbelievable that we can't get Passover margarine in Central Florida.  Ridiculous!

Today I have to drive up to Winter Park for my final follow up with the eye surgeon. I think they look great; the swelling is all gone; the scar is minimal; my vision is vastly improved.  I don't see any reason why she will want to look at it again.  And then tonight I have the SOJC choir rehearsal.  We have two performances coming up, May 12 and May 15.  Then I can take a break from choirs for awhile, although the Cove Singers are going to do a sing-along on the Fourth of July.

PS.  I am still having that pain in my abdomen.  I took the Doxycycline, starting Monday night, so I have taken four pills.  I plan to finish the 10 day course.  I have my regular six month check up with my family doctor on May 2, so I can at least discuss this with her at that point.  My fall back is to go to an ER if it gets really bad.  So far it is staying steady.

Feeling like September

I am not talking about the weather.  Yesterday as the day went on, I had the same heavy, uncomfortable feeling in my lower abdomen that I had back in September.  Then I was panicked that it was something dreadful and gynecological.  I went to the GYN, had a lot of tests, and found nothing wrong.  After a week, it went away.  My family doctor said in October that perhaps it was diverticulitis flaring up and that I should call her to get antibiotics if it came back.

Well, it came back yesterday and got worse as the day went on.  I have a prescription for Doxycycline that I got as a precaution before a cruise because I thought I was getting an infection in my toenail.  It never materialized, so I never took the pills.  Last night I took one and this morning I took a second.  It's a ten day supply, so I'm going to finish them just in case that it is diverticulitis.  So uncomfortable.

Mark was great at the Ormond Beach NARFE meeting.  We posted some pictures on Facebook, but I can't put them here because they are on my phone.  I still can't figure out how to get pictures off my phone and into Picasa anymore.  Ah...updates that break things....gotta love them.  After the meeting, instead of driving back to Epcot, which I would not have had the strength to do anyway, we did a driving loop around Ormond Beach that included beautiful views of the Atlantic Ocean, several state parks, and river views.  It was great.  Again, I didn't take my camera, so all those pictures are on the camera, too.  I might put some up on Facebook later today of that pretty drive.

Today we are driving to Lakeland for our NARFE Board Meeting, followed by the movie Jungle Book back at Disney Springs, followed by a trip to the Winn-Dixie to see if they finally have any Passover parve margarine in the store.  Crazy how that is such a hold up this year in our shopping.  I'm just hoping the discomfort in my abdomen does not interfere with these plans.

Meanwhile, I lost another pound and a half. I was 272.5 this morning, which was great.  Our plan was to eat at Subway yesterday because we didn't think lunch was part of the meeting.  We were wrong.  There was a pris fixe menu that included a fried grouper sandwich and fries and a drink.  Mark's lunch was comped since he was the speaker, so he saved money just buying mine.  The grouper was literally the only thing on the menu we could get, and it was delicious.  It was completely coated in Corn Flakes and fried and HUGE on a HUGE bun with a reasonable portion of fries.  I ate it all.  Then one of the ladies at our table said, "Here, you have to try this."  It was a pretzel roll, about seven inches long, covered in kosher salt and oil.  I had been eyeing it in the bread basket and kept telling myself no.  Then she hands it to me; I took it; I ate it all.  OY!  I estimated my lunch calories at 1150, almost a whole day's worth.  I had already had my usual breakfast.  Also it was National Animal Cracker Day.  Mark had bought a bag, so I had planned to eat 10 of them for 75 calories. If I ate dinner, too, I was going over my allotment of calories. I thought I could walk a half hour or so, but I didn't feel well enough to do that.  So I just skipped dinner.  I really felt so bad by the time we got home at 6 p.m. that I wasn't hungry and didn't want dinner anyway.  Around 9 p.m. I ate a banana and the 10 Animal Crackers.  That gave me a calorie count of 1529.  Just under my allotment of 1553.  Note, my allotment went down a few calories when I logged in my weight yesterday morning.  So this morning I was pleased that I did that and got a pound and a half of weight off instead of gaining from that big lunch!

Today we will eat lunch out at Beef O'Brady's at the Board Meeting. I always order the Big Catch Salad which is a fair sized portion of grilled tilapia on an entree sized salad.  I estimate that lunch to be 300 calories, a lot better than yesterday's lunch!

A little bit is better than nothing

So yesterday I talked at length about the week's calories and weights.  I was up yesterday, but I'm down a little today.

The official weigh-in today is 274, so that's a loss of 1.9 pounds, nearly the two that can be expected in any week.

Well, I can't complain about that, and if I had not been getting on the scale every day, I would not know that I had actually lost a pound more than that and then at the last minute went up and then down.  Crazy.  That is definitely why Weight Watchers says just do a weekly weigh-in.  Although other programs do encourage daily weigh-ins.  I see the value in both, but I know I'm still going to get on the scale every day.

At 9 a.m. we are heading to Ormond Beach for Mark to talk to that chapter of NARFE about legislative issues facing the country and specifically NARFE right now.  Mark is the Florida Legislative Chairperson for NARFE, in charge of federal legislation.  There's actually a different person whose focus is state legislation.  In the three years that he has been in this position, this is only the second time he has been asked to come to some other chapter meeting to speak. This is the farthest away, too, because Ormond Beach is out on the Atlantic, just north of Daytona.

Evey ad Eric had a wonderful evening last night in their new home!  The current owners (Evey and Eric take possession on Friday.) invited them and many of their new neighbors to dinner.  Apparently, it was a resounding success.  The owners have lived there thirty years and raised their kids there.  Just like Mark and I did in Laurel with Lowell and Evey.  Those owners are pleased to be turning their home over to another young couple to do the same.  Also the house next door was purchased by a young couple in January.  That couple, Amy and Andrew, are shockingly like Evey and Eric.  First of all, the neighbors think it's cool that there is now the A house and the E house.  I am sure that is how they will always be called now!  Second Andrew is Jewish and Amy is not, like E and E, only the opposite person.  And Amy and Evey are virtually the same age.  Amy's birthday is April 1 and Evey is April 3, same year.  It just can't get nicer than that to move to a new neighborhood. I wish them all the best and many years of happiness in that home.

Our rehearsal and performance at the Cove yesterday went very well.  My choir did a beautiful job as did all the other soloists and ensemble.  We expected maybe 40 people, so we put out 50 chairs.  Then 75 showed up!  It was a wonderful day.

The Perversity of Weight on my Body.

These are the calorie counts for each day this week and weight in the morning:
Monday         1423         275.9  (down from 283.2 the Monday after the cruise)
Tuesday         1338         273.9
Wednesday    1198         same
Thursday       1318          273 even
Friday            1450         same
Saturday        1305         same
Sunday          1208         275.8

WHAT?  Seriously?  I put back the whole week's weight loss in one day with calorie counts like that?

Of course, I haven't eaten those 1208 calories that are planned for today, but that's what I will do today.  Those counts are as accurate as possible. I use the Lose It! program, log it all in, never cheat, and get the calorie counts from either Mark's recipes that he makes from Diabetic Living, the product label itself, or a best guess from Lose It! or CalorieKing.  If I'm off, it's never by much.  I only ate two lunches out, Wednesday at Subway and Thursday at the Grille.  At Subway, the double turkey salad and Baked Lay's is a standard lunch for me when losing weight, and it is 320 calories.  At the Grille, the bowl of plain mixed greens and about a six ounce grilled salmon was estimated at 310.  It's possible there was more oil on that salmon than Calorie King might predict, but even if I added 200 more calories to that estimate, my day would not be over the limit set by Lose It!, which is currently 1566.  I have been well under my limit every day.

It's got to be the EXERCISE!  I have not exercised this week. Mark has been sick, so he did not feel up to doing weights or taking long walks.  I had only minimal exercise such as shopping, a little swimming, and leading rehearsals.  They probably don't add up to much.  On the other hand, taking a 20 minute walk and doing 10 minutes of weight lifting only burns a total of 126 calories.  Although the Lose It! program allows you to eat those calories back, I never do, but that amount of extra calories burned is not going to make or break a weight loss week.

Clearly, I need to do something, and there are only two things to change up.  I can eat less calories and exercise more.

This past week was supposed to be one of my best because there were only two meals out.  This upcoming week is going to be tougher.  I will be eating lunch out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, dinner out on Thursday, and then there are two SEDERS, Friday and Saturday nights.  Passover begins officially Friday night, but eating Passover food begins at lunch on Friday.  Although we didn't buy as much stuff as usual, there will still be a LOT more calories consumed during those seders and possibly the rest of the week.  I had really hoped to lose a lot this past week and now that opportunity is over.  I am a little bit bummed.

What I must do now is NOT GIVE UP! I need to continue to log it all in, try to incorporate some exercise when possible, and not beat myself up if I gain weight during Passover.  I can always lose it again after Passover.

During the two seders the meal will be four cups of wine, at least one board of matzoh, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, turkey, stuffing, gravy, potato kugel from a mix, and my special asparagus with lots of margarine in it.  Then there are the desserts, both those we bought (chocolates) and those others are bringing (cakes and cookies).  And we get to do that TWO nights in a row.  Even if I eat only small portions of all those items, the sodium content and calorie count will be through the roof.

We will have eight for the seder Friday night and five for the seder Saturday night.  Dinner will be late Friday, about 8:30 p.m., and an hour later than THAT on Saturday.  It's tough when you eat a high sodium, high calorie meal so late at night, too.

Well, Passover is coming whether or not I'd like it to be this week.  I'm not going to give it another negative thought.  Once it starts and the company is here, I'm going to try very hard to relax and enjoy it.  Still, I will also program the calories, even if I go over the allotment.  It is what it is.

Meanwhile, the Celebration of Life went very beautifully yesterday.  I got through the song pretty well.  Fred was very moved, so that was nice.  I got a lot of compliments, so that made me feel great.

Today we are having a long dress rehearsal from 9 to noon at Lakeside for today's Cove Singers Recital.  The show is 2-3:30.  That's definitely going to burn up some calories today!  Maybe I'll start the week out tomorrow back at 273.  I would be so happy if that happens.  Stay tuned!

Still the same

Yesterday's calories were a bit higher than they have been because of Shabbat dinner.  Having wine and challah with dinner always makes it higher.  Then I messed up and ate twice as much challah as planned and parve margarine on it, which I had not planned for at all.  My total calories were 1550, just about the max, but not over, for the day. I also swam in the pool for 20 minutes, although it was very slow swimming.  Still, it felt great to do it!  No one showed up to play Mah Jongg at the Cove at 2 p.m., so I just went in to the library and talked to Edward all afternoon.

My weight this morning is holding steady at 273.

Today my calories should be only 1200, and that will include a serving of the Mount Gay Great Cake (rum cake) that we brought back from Barbados!  All my meals will be at home, and I've already programmed them all in.

Mark is so sick with a head cold!  He has not been like this in so many years that we can't even remember the last time it happened. He had been saying since Tuesday that his throat hurt when he woke up in the morning, but it always went away.  We were blaming it on dry air.  Well, yesterday it just blew up into a very nasty head cold with lots of sniffling, sneezing, blowing his nose, and some coughing. I am praying it doesn't find me until after today and tomorrow's performances.

At 2 p.m. today we are attending the Celebration of Life of a Cove friend, Lana Van Nest, who passed away while we were on the cruise in March.  Her husband has asked me to sing something uplifting and joyful, so I'm singing a medley of "You'll Never Walk Alone/Climb Every Mountain" to a track used with Guys and Dolls. It hits some pretty high notes for me because I'm basically singing the soprano part of a choral arrangement. I hope they like it, and I hope the cold doesn't settle in by then.

Last night while watching TV, I could feel a little tingle in my throat and chest.  That's often how things start for me.  As long as it doesn't blossom out too fast, I can get through this afternoon.  Tomorrow I'm directing 9 songs for the Cove Singers' Spring Recital. I'm also supposed to sing in a six person ensemble as well as a solo.  Mark is doing all of that, too, if he can.  He can probably muddle through the chorus and ensemble songs, but he's not sure he can do the solo.

Currently, we are both taking it easy.  He is watching cartoons and I'm typing this blog.  Hot showers and lots of hot tea should help me get through today!

Passover shopping just never ends.

We may be driving all the way back to the Maitland Winn-Dixie again today to get parve margarine.  It was supposed to come in today, but if it's not going to be there in the morning, we will have to find another time.  We both have obligations at 1 p.m.  The closer W-D near our synagogue is also supposed to have margarine today, but a friend called yesterday and it was not delivered.  To save a longer drive, I do plan to call them again this morning just in case it came in overnight or early this morning.  No one can really understand why margarine is making everyone's life difficult this year.  And even if we go somewhere today or next week to get it, we still have a yet another shopping day to do because we always get the fresh things like milk, eggs, fish, and vegetables just the day before Passover.  After all the shopping, cleaning, and preparations are made, I usually relax and enjoy the holiday, but honestly, I don't think ANYONE likes the few weeks leading up to Passover.  I don't bake or make any special foods until the day of the seder, but honestly, I don't know how some women do it. Some of them bake their cakes and cookies well in advance and store them for the holiday.  I have never figured out how to make the kitchen kosher for Passover that far in advance just to bake.  No thanks.  I'll buy my baked goods!

Yesterday went as planned with the exception of skipping the movie.  It's a good thing we didn't go because we got severe thunderstorm warnings and hail and high winds right around the time we would have gone to the movie. We didn't get much out of the storm, thankfully, just about 30 seconds of small hail.  We've had more rain and higher winds at other times.  Still, the emergency radio kept going off, so we made sure the yard had nothing in it that could be a projectile and unplugged our computers just in case there was a power surge.  Better safe than sorry.

I had grilled salmon on a plain green salad with no cheese or dressing at the restaurant for lunch yesterday.  That was by far the very best option. I had water to drink and that was it.  It was National Pecan Day, so I weighed out 1 ounce of pecans, 196 calories.  My day was great, 1320 calories, although there was no exercise.  My weight this morning is the same as yesterday, 273, again.  If we drive up to Maitland, we still hope to be back to eat lunch at home or maybe pack it and eat it in the car.  That way all meals are at home today.  Saturday and Sunday will have all meals at home, too, so I should be able to finish the week staying on track.  With any luck, I can crack that 270 mark by the end of next week.  Although there will be two seders and lots of Passover food as part of that week.  That's going to be a serious challenge.

Blog is being funky today.

I don't know why my blog is acting strangely today. I wanted to go back and look at some posts from last August at Aulani.  Usually I click on the year, then all the months for that year come up.  Then I can click on the month and see all the entry titles for that month.  Then I can click on an individual title to read it.

Not today.  Today no matter what year I click on, only the months from 2016 are showing up.  When I click on 2015, or any other year, the final post for that year shows up.  I can scroll back a few days when  eventually it stops.  At that point there is an "older posts" button.  When I click on that, I can scroll back another few days of entries.  Wow.  That would take forever to go from the end of December to August.  I'm not even trying, but I am bummed that the blog is acting like that today. I hope it's not going to stay like that!  Geez.  I hope it's not some update they rolled out because it sure didn't update anything in a positive way!

My weight this morning was 273, so I was happy.  I wanted to go back to the Aulani entries to double check what my weight was when we left for Hawaii.  I think it was about the same, so I feel like I made a milestone.  Well, it's a good thing I record some of these weights in Lose It! and in an old-school paper and pencil notebook, too.

Our day went exactly as planned yesterday. I ate only 1200 calories.  There was no specific exercise, but there was shopping, tidying up, and sweeping and mopping the kitchen.  While we were out shopping, we had lunch at Subway.  That's one of the few times that I eat non-kosher meat in a restaurant because the turkey is the lowest calorie item on their menu.  I always order a double meat turkey salad, no cheese, no dressing, and pair it with a bag of Baked Lays.  That is a total of 320 calories for lunch.  That's about as good as it gets for eating lunch out in a restaurant.  When we do our big two month road trip this summer, we plan to eat almost all of our lunches at Subway.

This morning I have 8 ladies coming here to play Mah Jongg. It's been several weeks since I hosted the Thursday morning group, so this is going to be fun.  We will be using the new card, too.  After playing, most of us are going to the Grille for lunch.  The Grille changes its menu frequently and I have been there in awhile, so I don't know what I'm going to have.  I hope to have a salmon salad.  That's probably going to be the best choice.  Mark is making tuna steaks, baked potato, and green veggie for dinner, one of my favorite meals!  At 7 we are going to see the movie Truth in the ballroom. Unlike last week when I ate the popcorn, tonight I will NOT eat that.  UGH.  So much sodium!

Another great day.

I didn't lose any weight between yesterday and today, but that's ok.  You can't drop weight every single day, which is why most programs, like Weight Watchers, recommend only weekly weigh-ins.

I had an excellent day yesterday, eating only 1340 calories.  Mark made a spectacular dinner of bean and veggie patties from the Diabetic Living  collection and paired it with a lo-cal, lo-carb, lo-fat grilled cheese sandwich because it was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich day.

Yesterday was just wonderful. I had a fabulous and relaxing mani/pedi and haircut, followed by a lovely hour-long conversation in the home of a friend, followed by a picnic lunch by the pool with two more friends, followed by a two hour OUTSTANDING rehearsal with the Cove Singers, followed by that delicious dinner and lots of TV shows.  That's a fairly perfect day.

Today I have been tooling around on the computer for so long that I've been up for three and a half hours and still have not eaten breakfast, just two cups of black coffee.  The weird thing is that I'm not even hungry yet.  That IS very weird because some mornings I just wake up ravenously hungry.

Soon we are going up north to do some more Passover shopping, so a lot of today will be spent in the car.  We don't hate that because we have audio books and lots of talking and reading to do.  It will mean eating lunch out, but we plan to do that at a Subway, so my calories will be good. Tonight we have a Solivita Disney Fan Club meeting, which we haven't been able to attend for a long time.  It will be fun to reconnect with some friends.

I expect my calories to be excellent again today.  I am really looking forward to getting out of the 270s.  It will be a red letter day when I crack that number and work my way down through the 260s.  I was in the 250s at Lowell's wedding in the summer of 2014 and then was in the 260s by the end of that year.  I have been in the 270s and even 280s all through 2015 and into 2016.  This is going to be the last of that!  I am promising that to myself!

Cleaning burns calories

Just because cleaning burns calories does not mean I'm going to keep doing it.  LOL!

Yesterday I dropped two pounds.  I'm 273.9 this morning.  I worked on cleaning the pantry and fridge and then shopped for Passover.  It took all day, and I definitely worked up a sweat.  Still, I hated every minute of it, so I don't plan to do it more than once a year.  Haha!

Today I have an early mani/pedi at 9 a.m. and a Cove Singers rehearsal at 2:30, so I'm just going to stay at the Cove all day.  I am packing my lunch, and there will be chance to snack or overeat on anything.  This is our last Tuesday afternoon rehearsal because the show is Sunday afternoon.

Got to run.  It's already time for the mani/pedi.

it's a new week. Passover cleaning and shopping is starting today.

It's Monday, and my weight is 275.9, a loss for the week of 7.3.  I am very excited.

There was no real loss from yesterday to this morning even though my calories were only 1362.  I ate okay at Bravo Cucina Italiano and ordered from their "light" menu where they had printed calorie counts. I ordered the grilled mahi mahi that came in a light cream sauce with couscous and veggies.  It was marked 570 calories.  I also ate three of their piece of herb bread that was in the basket in front of me.  That was 225 calories.  My breakfast and lunch were very reasonable, and I only ate a banana for a late night snack.  There was no formal exercise yesterday, although I did lead a two hour rehearsal at the Cove, mostly on my feet.  I am only down one-tenth today from yesterday,which really is nothing since the scale can't measure that accurately.  It is plus/minus .2 at best.  However, the weekly amount is fantastic!  I am quite pleased.

I know from so much experience that it's not possible to lose a significant amount of weight every day, in fact one or two pounds a week is the average.  I know, also, that the first week of a strict diet is always the best week because there's usually a lot of extra water that is excreted.  One time when I re-started Weight Watchers, I lost eleven pounds in the first week.  The real test is what I do next.  I need to settle into these routines that I have established this week and lose two more pounds this week.  That would be a milestone, in a way, in that I weighed 273.something when I went to Hawaii last August.  I was upset with myself for weighing that much for my 65th birthday, but now I'm trying to get back to that weight on the way to the next milestone and the next and the next.

Passover is less than two weeks away.  This morning Mark and I plan to clean out enough for the fridge and freezer to get the first round of Passover food in there.  After lunch, we are going to our local Publix for a few boxed and canned items and then up to the Winn-Dixie with the big kosher sections for everything except fresh foods.

We could have up to 11 people for our first seder night because people have cancelled; I replaced them; others forgot they were invited; they said yes then no!  We really don't know what's happening, although we have a definite seven: me and Mark, Jonathan and Susan, Susie and Ed, and Frank.  After that, the other three always seem to be in flux.

The concert last night was fantastic.  The Maccabeats really excited that sold out crowd last night.  I didn't take my camera, but there are plenty of pictures on Facebook from our friends who posted.  It was just fun going to an auditorium of 650 people, all Jewish, and seeing lots of synagogue friends and dozens of Solivita friends.  Twelve of us went to the restaurant, and that was just a wonderful loving feeling.

Starliters was a lot of fun....and now Curacao and the end of the cruise.

We went to the Starliters show last night. Cruising was its theme!  It was very well done, and we really enjoyed seeing our friends up there.  It's is SO MUCH WORK, and I give them all a lot of credit for putting in so much time and effort.  This was the second year that I did not do it, and I won't be doing it next year either due to the seven cruises in 2017 that are already booked.  In fact, at this point I have only done Starliters two times ever, 2012 and 2014.  Guess I shouldn't consider myself part of that group any more.

I walked about half an hour yesterday around the Glendora Pond.  We saw three people and three dogs that we knew, so that was fun chatting.  Also we saw two big gators moving very quickly through the water for fairly long distances.  One went into the rushes along the shore and one climbed up on the bank for a sunny nap.  Great viewing!  Twice around the pond is about a mile and a half and we did it in about 30-40 minutes, although that included the time to chat.  I felt pretty good about that. My back didn't even start to hurt until the very last little bit.

I ate only 1340 calories yesterday and logged it all in.  I am rewarded this morning with another pound and a half off, down to 276 even.  Yay!

Today is super busy.  We have a 2 hour rehearsal from 10 to noon at the Cove.  It's a tech rehearsal for the Cove Singers recital next Sunday afternoon.  Then we will run into Publix for a few things, head home for a quick lunch and a change of clothes, go back to the Cove to pick up Susan and Jonathan and drive up to Dr. Phillips High School for the Maccabeats Concert.  I bought 10 tickets, although there are now 12 of us going in three cars.  We made a dinner reservation for the 12 of us at 6:15 at Bravo Cucina Italiana, not far from the high school.  I just hope the big Italian dinner out does not undo my success.  I will be the driver, so no drinking.  That helps.  If I stick to no appetizer and no dessert, I might be okay, but the appetizers look so good....Sigh.

So today will conclude the cruise.  We went to Curacao and then had two sea days home.  Enjoy!

Docked in Curacao

That's the tallest building on Curacao.  They have a floating bridge that moves out of the way to let ships into the very protected harbor. Our ship was too big to go into the harbor, so we are on an outside dock.  

Flamingos fly over to Curacao from Bonaire, 35 miles away, to eat shrimp in these little ponds that used to be for harvesting salt.  They actually have their nests on Bonaire and feed in Curacao.  Interesting.

Our first stop was the Hato Caves.

Manzanilla tress were everywhere and are poisonous, so they are well marked.

There were 49 uneven, steep, stone steps UP into the cave.  I declined to do that, so Mark took the camera and went on ahead.  Here is a view from the top of the steps.

The cave is just one big room.  Runaway slaves used to hide in there.

View of our ship as we drove to our next stop.

We drove over the very high, very big Queen Julianna bridge going over the harbor entrance. It provided the perfect view of the classic look of Willemstad.

Good view of the floating bridge closed.  People can then walk from one side of the city to the other.  When the bridge is open, people take the free ferry.

Next we went to the Blue Curacao liquor factory.  The name Curacao is a country, so it could not be copyrighted.  Instead, they copyrighted the shape of the bottle.  All the colors taste the same, orange.

The product was established by a Jewish man, so he made sure it always had kosher certification.

Back over the bridge again with a view into the protected harbor.

The Curacao National Museum was our final stop.

They have a carillon, and our tour guide, Michaela, demonstrated it for us.

The bells for the carillon are on the outside of the building.

At the dock on our way back in to the ship.

Curacao seemed really, really LONG as we sailed away.  It was in view for over an hour or more.

A Billy Joel impersonator gave a great concert that night.

After the Billy Joel show, Mark and I went to listen to the pianist in the Ensemble Lounge.  His fiancée was sitting at our table and took this picture of the two of us.

On the sea days, we always went to the morning lectures.  First was Cathy Ace, the mystery writer, and then was a cooking demonstration.

Listening to our audiobook with some coffee in the buffet area.

After lunch I had a choir rehearsal!  Mark came to take a few pictures.

As always, in the late afternoon, we enjoyed the solarium indoor pool and the Persian Gardens.  Mark is relaxing in the aromatherapy room here. No one was ever in there but us.

It was our second elegant chic night.  I'm enjoying a Sidecar with my  Captain's Club Coupon.

Mark is having his Dewar's on the rocks.

Tonight's show was a big production show called Topper.  We liked it a lot. Here is a shot of my choir director, Rachel.  She is a great singer and actress and a lovely person, too.

After the show, we found these big chairs in the Martini Bar.  We took turns sitting in them only because they were very big and high enough off the ground that we can get in and out easily.  So many chairs on this ship were so low to the ground that Mark had to pull me out of them!

I called this my Big Girl Chair.

Our last sea day started with breakfast in the Tuscan Grille for the Captain's Club breakfast and then a walk  on the outside promenade deck.  The weather was perfect.

Then as always we went to lectures.  This was Cathy Ace's final lecture.

Our final time listening to our audiobook.  This time we brought coffee down from the buffet and enjoyed our balcony.

The production cast gave a matinee show of Broadway material.  This girl is singing "Popular" from Wicked.

Rachel and Nikola sang a duet from Rent.

Michael sang "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera.

Orlando and Ganna, our main dining servers, posed for us with Harold and Liese from Toronto on the last night.

After dinner our little choir sang their four songs on the steps of the  Grand Foyer.  After one last show in the theater, we went back to the cabin and got our luggage put out to prepare to leave tomorrow.

Waiting in the Tuscan Grille with Captain's Club members to be called off the ship and drive home.  It was a wonderful cruise.