It's Been a Long Time.

 It's been a long time since I posted on here, and a lot has happened.  Wow!  The Pandemic Year from HELL is almost over!  It's December of 2020.  And even though a lot of bad stuff has gone on this year, a lot of good stuff has also happened.

I have spent the last three years able to stay on a reasonable food plan using the Lose It! app on my phone.  On my husband's birthday, March 12, of 2017, I weighed 295 and began getting serious on this food plan. This morning, December 14. 2020, I weigh 192.2.  I have not been below 200 since the 1970s!!!  So I am quite happy about that, and it happened during the Pandemic Year from Hell!

Also Evey and Eric announced they were pregnant and our beautiful granddaughter was born!  Our first and most likely only grandchild is here!  Mark and I are finally a Bubbe and Zeyde.  We are over the moon and beyond excited!  Due to COVID-19 we drove very carefully for nine days across the country to an Airbnb and then quarantined for two weeks before going into their house to cuddle that sweet bundle of joy, Britta!  Oh, she's adorable and I love her so much I could burst! We are staying here with them for six weeks total, two in quarantine seeing them from afar and four when we can go inside the house every day. Then we will drive nine days to get back home.  But it is SO WORTH IT!

It might be another three years before I remember to post here again, but I just thought today might be a good morning to do a little catch up.  Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

The vaccine for COVID-19 is rolling out today, so may 2021 be a much better year for everybody.

the Good, the Bad, No Ugly

The Good news is that we are heading out to Fort Lauderdale this morning to board the Celebrity Silhouette for our 12 day cruise to St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Kitts and Nevis.  It's very exciting.  More good news is that on Thursday night we discovered the good friends of ours here in Solivita, Norm and Lynn, are also going on this cruise!  So they are picking us up at 7:30 this morning, and we are driving down together.  They have Anytime Dining and we have fixed seating Early Dining.  We plan to try to change to Anytime when we get on board today.

More Good News is that I have lost a little more weight.  This morning I have recorded that I weigh 245.6 before heading out.  I will try very, very hard not to gain much, or ANY, weight in the next 12 days.  Of course, that is so hard to do on a cruise, but if I gain, I know I can get lose it again quickly before the next cruise.

The Bad news is that I'm positive that the Diverticulitis has already returned.  I have felt slight twinges for several days, but yesterday it was quite bad.  This morning it's the same as yesterday, which was a relief. I feared it would be as terrible as the day I went to the ER on November 8.  It's pretty scary to have it back only one month later because I definitely did not eat anything bad and took no NSAIDs.  The Good news here is that I have a full dose of Flagyl with me that I asked my family doctor for on Thursday.  Since you can't have any alcohol while taking it because it will make you violently ill, I'm hoping to hold off on starting to take the Flagyl until tomorrow so that I can at least have a Sail-Away drink today and a glass of wine tonight at our dinner at the specialty dinner, the Tuscan Grille, which is our eighth night Hanukkah present to each other.

So, off we go.  I'm not taking my laptop, so no more blogs until we get back.

Singing at Disney Springs!

I never EVER thought I'd have a chance to sing at Disney Springs, but it happened tonight.  My synagogue choir was invited to sing Hanukkah songs at the store, Luxury of Time by Diamonds International, in Disney Springs.  The owner of the store is a member of the our synagogue, and he actually had to get special permission from the Disney Springs board to let us sing AND light actual candles on a real menorah.  The Rabbi lit the candles and led the blessings.  Then he accompanied our choir.  There were 13 of us singing.  We sang 8 songs, and with some talking in between, it took a total of 25 minutes.  The store even served grape juice and donuts to the audience and performers!  The store personnel were so gracious to everyone, and we had a huge audience of congregants and random people who just came in to see what was going on. It was AWESOME.

When it was over, Mark and I went to dinner with our friends Jonathan and Susan. Then we took a nice long walk down through the Christmas Tree Trail.  It was a great evening.

In the morning Mark and I had our check ups with our family doctor  She was pleased at my weight loss. In fact I hit 246 this morning, so that is a FORTY pound loss since Memorial Day  I am very happy.

Last Friday I had a visit to the gastroenterologist to follow up my ER visit from the diverticulitis.  She wants me to have a colonoscopy in January once the colon has completely calmed down, so that is now scheduled for January 30.  I had blood work done for her, and it shows my white cell count is still slightly elevated.  My primary care doctor wrote me a prescription for more Flagyl, the antibiotic of choice for this sort of infection, to take on the cruise just in case.  I'll pick it up at CVS tomorrow.  That makes me feel a lot better just knowing I'll have it with me.

Mark and I both tried out for the Solivita Theater Group's spring play, Senior Follies.  We both got parts, so now we have to learn a lot of lines.  Guess that's what we will be doing on this upcoming 12 day cruise.  We leave Sunday for Fort Lauderdale to board the Celebrity Silhouette.  I plan on spending a ton of time just trying to memorize lines.

Tonight we light three candles.  Mark is putting the candles in our menorahs, so it's time to finish this blog and go light so we can have presents and settle down for the night.  It's been a long day, but a most wonderful day!  Happy Hanukkah to all.

Great week with Evey and Eric

We had a fabulous time with Evey and Eric over the Thanksgiving week.  We did everything we planned except go to the Science Center.  That day we were all tired from our three days at WDW and the day at Legoland, all of which were super fun.  We just stayed home and did a lot of catch up on some things around the house that day.  Then we went out to dinner at Celebration Town Center.  Thanksgiving was lovely and off they flew home the day after.

Because of my illness, I lost 8 pounds in that week and then stayed the same throughout the week that Evey was here.  I was very excited for that.  Then this morning I hit another milestone.  I weighed 249.6 this morning.  I have not been under 250 since 2013!.  I was 245 at Evey's wedding in 211, then I gained a bunch and lost a bunch so that I was only 236 in 213.  So hitting 245 is my next goal and then 235.

235 might take a very long time because a lot of cruising is coming up and then the big trip to Asia in the spring followed  by Passover immediately after.

I would like to lose ten pounds by the Asian trip, which would be super easy to do if there weren't five cruises between then and now!  lol  Well, the goal is not to gain any weight on any of the cruises,  but I don't know if that's possible.  On the 14 day Canadian cruise I gained 5 pounds, but I lost them in 5 days after we returned.  Then I put them right back on sadly.  The trick is not to put them back on if I gain them again.  We have the first one on December 9.  It's a 12 day cruise with the drink package, like in Canada.  All the other cruises do not have a drink package, so buying every drink definitely means less drinking!  If I gain weight on the 12 day cruise, I'll have to be super careful after it because we have a bunch of dinners out with friends at Disney and then in just 8 days we have the New Year's Eve cruise coming up.  There's just so much cruising in the next three months!

Just checking in quickly

I have not been a good blogger, and I'm not going to try to write details about everything that's been going on now to make up for it. I'm just going to hit a few highlights without any photos.

The cruise was great but COLD.  I gained five pounds on the cruise and then lost them quickly when we returned.  Then I gained them again and lost them again.  Story of my life.

After we got home, I got back on track for weight loss, and we got back on our rat race of activities at home.  It was also so nice to be back in the warm air!

I got a fifth attack of diverticulitis last Thursday and had to go the ER.  This was the worst attack I've ever had.  The really weird thing was that I don't know what I ate.  All the other times I knew that I had eaten popcorn or nuts.  This time I did not do that.  At the ER they took a CT scan, so they know it was diverticulitis.  They gave me Cipro and Flagyl and sent me home for a few days of rest and liquid diet. I spent four days in my recliner, and I just started eating regular food on Monday.

It did cause some more weight loss though!  That's a side benefit that I hope continues.

This morning I was 255.6, which is the lowest I've been in a long time.

That means I have hit another little milestone goal, my weight at Lowell's wedding in the summer of 2014.  I haven't been this low since then, so I'm pretty happy about this.

Yesterday I also got a cortisone shot in my right shoulder.  The last one was last December 4, so I got nearly a year out of it.  That's amazing.  So far this one hasn't kicked in.  In fact, I would say that this morning my shoulder actually hurts more than it did before the shot, but I think that will go away. I'm looking forward to many months of full mobility and no pain like before very soon.

Finally, Evey and Eric will be landing in Orlando tomorrow night and stay through the day after Thanksgiving.  We will be checking into the new DVC resort, Copper Creek, on the grounds of the Wilderness Lodge. They will spend two full days in three of the Disney parks while Mark and I attend two full days of D23 celebrations of Mickey's 90th birthday.  We'll meet up late Sunday night at the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks.  Next Monday we are going to Legoland; Tuesday we are going to the Orlando Science Center and other things around town; Wednesday we have a long day of fun things planned at Disney Springs.  Then we have nine people here for Thanksgiving dinner.  I absolutely have to be fully recovered from my diverticulitis by then, but I fully expect to be so.

I do not anticipate trying to write any more blogs until after they leave the day after Thanksgiving.

December 9 we begin our next cruise, 12 days on the Celebrity Silhouette to the Southern Caribbean.

So that's a quick catch up blog.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Celebrity Summit, here we come!

We had a great visit with Vinnie and Annette, dinner at a diner where we all chose to have breakfast for dinner, and then dancing at the masquerade party. It was fun dancing the Electric Slide and the Cuban Shuffle because those always seem to be part of Sail-a-way parties.  We got to practice them last night. We also danced one slow dance and four other fast dances, so I felt like I burned off all those home fries from dinner!

By 10:15 we were checked in to the Comfort Suites in East Brunswick, NJ.

We just finished having breakfast, and now we are back in the hotel room putting the finishing touches on our packing.  Mark is davening while I'm writing this blog.

Soon we are driving over to Leslie's house, which isn't far from here, maybe 10 minutes away.  She's going to let us leave our car parked in front of her house and drive us to the port.  According to Mapquest it's only 36 minutes up to the port from her house.  By 12:30 we hope to be eating lunch in the buffet of the Celebrity Summit.

I've been excited about this cruise for days, but finally last night, after getting into the hotel room, Mark said, "Well, I'm finally starting to get excited for this cruise."  Yay!  Now we are both excited for the cruise.

Heading to NJ

In an hour or so, we will head north to NJ.  We are having some socializing time in the home of our friends, Vinnie and Annette, then an early bird dinner, compliments of Vinnie, followed by a masquerade dance party at their clubhouse, before checking into the Comfort Inn near the Gaertner's house.  It should be a great day.

Since this is a masquerade dance, Annette said wear a mask but no costume. I brought a cat mask from home that used to be Evey's and Mark bought a Zorro/Lone Ranger type mask yesterday at Walmart.  While we were at Walmart, we tried on some Halloween masks.  Those pictures are below and were pretty funny looking.

Cindy got home about 3:30 yesterday, so we had a lovely time catching up on everything.  It surely wasn't enough time, since we had to leave at 4:45, but we'll see her again on the 21st after the cruise. Then she'll be here every day that we are.  Yay!  I love Cindy SO MUCH!

Dinner at Lowell and Emily's house was awesome.  The food was good, too good. I ate too much.  I am so predictable.  I ate exactly what I said I would with a few exceptions.  First, he offered to make special cocktails that he had invented called a Solstice.  It was a form of Cosmo, which he knows I like.  How could I insult him by turning this down?  It was delicious, so three of us had one, and he had Jameson's Irish Whiskey for his dad.  So thoughtful.  We checked out their new gorgeous, gigantic, recliner couch in their basement and how they have fixed up and beautified their little backyard.  Their house looks beautiful.  We had fun playing with Ozma and gave her a squeaky hedgehog like Kiwi's.  I ate what I planned for dinner, but I ate at least twice as much challah as I programmed, and before I ate any meat, I used some of the Kerrygold reduced fat butter on half of the challah.  Delicious.  Then Emily had thoughtfully purchased a sugar free Angel food cake for dessert, an excellent choice, but calories I had not programmed either.  When I got home, I needed some food to take my night time Advil with, so I had two Oreos.  All in all, I think I had about 1900 calories, which is 500 over my daily limit.   That should not be enough to gain weight. It should be a nice maintenance number.

My weight this morning was up only half a pound to 261.5, which could just be sodium from the deli wrap or hidden salt on the chicken cutlet that was cooked in the store.  It's hard to say.  Anyway this is the last morning that I will weigh in until October 22 after the cruise.  It just so easy for me to gain weight when I'm actually trying not to but when I'm not in the house.  I would be grateful to come back from the cruise not higher than 262!  That's for sure!

Enjoy these pictures from yesterday. I have decided to take the computer, and if I can post a blog along the way on the cruise, I certainly will. I might even have time to post one tomorrow with pictures from today with Vinnie and Annette.