Autotrain Day!

Good morning and Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Mark and I had a relaxing day at the Cove all day Sunday followed by a day of packing and watching TV yesterday.  This morning we plan to head out about 10:30 to go to Sanford and board the autotrain.

This is our schedule:
Arrive in Lorton, VA tomorrow, Memorial Day, about 9 a.m.  Have lunch at Max's, one of our favorite kosher restaurants, do some shopping, and get to Cindy's house by dinner time.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be involved with Shavuot, staying up all night, and going to shul on Thursday.

Friday we are making dinner at Lowell and Emily's house with her parents and possibly also Cindy and Ken.

Saturday we will go to shul and then play Mah Jongg at Robin's house.

Sunday is the gala at Mishkan Torah to say goodbye to Rabbi Jonathan and Mona Cohen.  They are finally retiring as of August 1 and heading back to Montreal.  He is the longest-serving rabbi the synagogue has ever had.  Rabbi Saul and Phyllis Oresky will begin his term as the rabbi of Mishkan Torah in August.

Next Monday we are driving up to Long Island to visit Mark's parents' graves and have dinner with his cousin Arnie and family.  That night we will "check in" at the home of his high school buddy, Vinnie and wife Annette in Monroe Township, NJ for three nights.

Tuesday we will spend the day with Vinnie and Annette, mostly planning the cruise in October that we are taking together.  That night we are driving about 20 minutes north to have dinner out at a kosher restaurant with Leslie and Marc, Evey's in-laws.

Wednesday morning we are driving about an hour NW to visit friends Jonathan and Susan but will be back to take Vinnie and Annette out to dinner.  This is our last night there.

Thursday morning we will head back to Maryland for four nights at Cindy's house again.  It should be a few relaxing days and go to shul on Saturday again.  Sunday I am going to a wedding shower at Leisure World for the fiancee of Saul and Phyllis' youngest son, Ilan.  Kat and Ilan are getting married Labor Day Weekend, September 3.

Monday through Friday of the third week up there we are driving up to the Poconos to stay at Camp Vestment for the TNS Eastern Naturist Gathering.  It's a long drive up on Monday, four nights in a cabin, and a long drive back Friday.  We have to bring our owns sheets, pillows, blankets, and towels.  This will be the third time we have done this, and it might be our last.  It's expensive and camping isn't our thing.  Also the programming this year does not look at all interesting, but we have lots of friends going who keep asking us to come.  We have not done it in several years, so it will be nice to visit with those old friends, but the last two times we were there, it was COLD and mostly uncomfortable.  This will probably be our last time doing this.

Friday through Sunday night of Father's Day weekend we will be back at Cindy's house.  Those are our last three days in Maryland.  We will go to shul on Saturday and then have brunch with Lowell, Emily, and her parents on Father's Day before going to the Oriole game with them.

Monday, June 19, we will go to Lorton, VA to board the auto train for home.

I am taking my laptop, so I will probably write a blog now and then, especially if I have some interesting pictures to post.

I weigh 281.5 this morning.  I wrote it down in my notebook and my phone app because I'm always interested in seeing now I do on vacations.  There are lots of times when I'm eating out, but there are an equal amount of times that I'm eating all my meals at Cindy's house.  Hopefully, I can just stay the same.  I am also packing the scale, so I'll be checking that along the way, too.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, the official start of summer.  Enjoy!

Weigh in report a day late

I was super busy yesterday cleaning the house and preparing for a play reading club at our house last night.  That went very, very well even if two people did "forget" they said they would come.  We had 9 people total and read three 25 minute old radio dramas: a Gunsmoke, an Our Miss Brooks, and an Adventures of Sam Spade.  Everyone had a blast and had plenty of parts to read.  We actually met two new people who were great readers!  The side benefit was that all the stacks of magazines and papers piled up on the coffee table are now GONE!  Sorted it all out and threw most of it away.

Meanwhile, I weighed 281.5 this morning, a loss of five and a half pounds.  That did not get rid of all the seven I gained last week, but it wasn't bad.  I had the big dinner at the restaurant at Magic Kingdom on Tuesday plus I had almonds and a little donut for a snack at the play reading last night.  My calories yesterday were about 1700, and there's no way to know how many I had on Tuesday.

I did one thing very poorly at the restaurant, and it's something that I have thought about and talked about many times on this blog.  When I go to a restaurant, there are really five things that can come to the table: alcoholic drinks, bread baskets, appetizers, entrees, and desserts.  When I'm trying to lose weight, I have said time and time again that any TWO of those is all I should ever have.  So an entree and ONE other item, and if that item is dessert, only eat three or four bites at most.  Well, guess what I did.  That's right!  I had all FIVE and ate it ALL.  Yup.  That's how I roll.

Oh, well...water under the bridge.  There were nearly four miles of walking over 10 hours at the Magic Kingdom.  I was hurting pretty badly as we got back to the car at 11:25 p.m., so I figured that must have burned up some of that meal.

Today will be a normal Thursday. I 'll be playing Mah Jongg this morning and going to the Solivita free movie in the evening.  In between I will be putting clothes away and reading my book.  All my meals will be at home and planned perfectly.  There should be no reason to overeat. It will be a great day!

Here are pictures from the Magic Kingdom with our friends Barb and Al.

Met Al and Barb at Town Square and scored a rocking chair on the porch for a little while, one of my favorite things.

Walking up main street, Mark and Al were talking about the names of the people on the windows above the stores.  They were all people important to Disney in the creation of the parks and the studios.

We rode Haunted Mansion and then had our pictures taken by the photo pass  person.

Skipper Canteen was our dinner venue.

Riding Jungle Cruise

WDW days

I haven't written in nearly a week.  I was going to wait until tomorrow to make the official weight report, but I have a lot of pictures to post already and more will be taken today.  We spent about eight hours on Sunday at Epcot for the Flower and Garden Festival, and today we are spending about the same amount of time at Magic Kingdom with friends Barb and Al.  We will have dinner at the Jungle Cruise Skippers' Canteen, ride four or five rides, and stay for the new fireworks show at 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, I have behaved myself for the most part this week, so this morning I weighed 280.6.  That's down six and a half pounds from Wednesday.  I am not too worried about tonight's dinner out because I am eating my breakfast and lunch at home and there will be miles and miles of walking to mitigate the dinner calories.  If the sodium in dinner doesn't get me, tomorrow's official report should look pretty good.

Yesterday I finally got an eye exam to get new glasses.  I picked out pretty new frames, so I'm looking forward to getting them and being able to see better.  Without my glasses, I am only 20/400!  That's ridiculous.  With my new glasses, I will be about 20/40, which is about as good as it can get for me anymore.  They didn't announce what I was with my old glasses, but I know he made the new prescription much stronger because they said the lenses would not be as thin and light as the current ones are.  These are two and a half years old, so I REALLY needed a new prescription.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the Flower and Garden Festival on Sunday.

Always like to find the Stitch topiary.  This year it was outside the big gift shop, Mousegears.

Lightening McQueen from the Cars movies.

Cruz Ramira, a new character for the upcoming third Cars movie.

I always love the floating gardens in the lake.

At certain angles and times of day, the reflection of the flowers on the banks into the water of the lake is amazing.  This is always my absolutely favorite thing to look for at the festival.

Crabless cakes for our first little lunch entree.  Delicious.  

Eating our next entree from the UK pavilion back by the concert area.

Salmon tartare on cheese-herb biscuit and a lemon scone.

I think the British maze would be more challenging if I was shorter!  LOL

Ultimately, our goal was to attend the Herman's Hermits concert.  Peter Noone is still an awesome performer.

While looking at the dragon topiary in China, Mark noticed the exhibit on Shanghai Disneyland, so of course we had to spend some time in there!

Eating Chinese veggie spring rolls in Norway.  Is that even allowed?  LOL

Mark really wanted to find these guys in Mexico, and we had almost given up.  The Three Caballeros are his favorites.

What a happy guy once we found them!

Today's official weigh-in, sadly same as yesterday.

This morning I still weigh 287.

I admit I was stunned when I got on the scale.  I was so sure there was going to be a good loss, if nothing else at least water from sodium retention.  I ran to the bathroom almost every half hour all evening as we watched TV and up every hour during the night.  No reward for that this morning.

I did over eat slightly in the late evening.  I was great up until 10 p.m. and would have had only what I programmed, 1364 calories, if I had gone to bed at the usual time of 11 p.m.  Well, we ended up watching the end of the Baltimore-Detroit game, which was 8 to 8 in the 10th inning at 11 p.m.  We started watching it and it went until 12:30, a real nail biter with the Os finally winning in the 13th inning, 13-11.  During that time, I ate a sugar free popsicle, two clementines, and a spoonful of almond butter, all of which added an additional 235 calories for a total of 1601.  My water aerobics burned 266, giving me a net calorie intake for the day of 1335.  It was all low sodium food, too, which made me think a pound or two would be gone this morning.  Not the first time I have been wrong about this.

So today starts a new day.  Like yesterday, there will be water aerobics.  Tonight there will be a choir rehearsal.  In between, all my meals will be at home, and hopefully no additional snacking at the end of the day.

Losing control; needing to find it.

I last reported a weight of 280 last Tuesday morning before heading out to the convention.  That was the beginning of seven straight days of overeating, and during those seven days, I have gained seven pounds.  Ridiculous.  Tomorrow will be the official weigh-in report, but there is no way that I am going to drop all seven pounds today.  287 was the reported weight on April 26, so I have undone three weeks worth of work in one.  It's so depressing to see how fast I can gain weight back.

I ate out a lot of meals this past week, which I knew would happen and reported in advance.  Unfortunately, I did not exercise control or restraint in the restaurants or other meals that presented opportunities for overeating, like Friday night with the delicious, home baked challah our friend brought..  Also once overeating starts, I get out of control at home.  I started roaming the kitchen and eating too much of whatever I could find, like Corn Flakes out of the box last night.

Regaining control is very difficult once it is lost.

Today I have the opportunity to get back on track.  I have no meals to eat out for five straight days, and I need to really make the most of that opportunity.  Sunday we will be eating lunch at the Flower and Garden Festival kiosks, and Tuesday night we are having dinner at the Skipper's Canteen at Magic Kingdom.  Those two meals could absolutely undo everything I might lose in the next five days, but I shall report that weight next Wednesday no matter what.  Tomorrow morning I will report my weight, and that will be the official weigh-in number for the week.  I fervently hope it will be at least one or two less than this morning.

Meanwhile, I am going to attempt very hard today to get back on track.  We are going to water aerobics this morning and then up to BJs to buy our usual paper products.

Here are some pictures from Mother's Day brunch and Epcot on Sunday.