The trip to the guide dog facility on Wednesday was so much fun. We learned a lot about how the dogs are bred, raised, trained, and ultimately given to a person as a guide dog. The puppies need socialization, so anyone can come and play with them between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. several days a week. After around 8 weeks old, they are given to a family to raise before being returned to the facility between 14 and 18 months old. Then they spend an intense 6-8 months in training learning up to 40 commands before being paired with the perfect person to being their career. It's impressive. We were especially impressed with commands like "Find my car." Hey, we could all use a dog to do that!
There are only 12 centers like this throughout the entire USA. This one is the Southeast facility and serves people in all the southeastern states of the U.S. People with visual handicaps come and live in the dorm there for about a month, free room and board. During that time they are trained to work with their dog before going home with it. At that point the dog is their own forever. When the dog gets too old to work, the owner can keep it "retired" and get another dog for work. There is NEVER a charge for any of this! These facilities work entirely from donations, and the Lions Club is one of their biggest supporters. It's truly an amazing program.
In the evening, we had a great time going to the Lakeland Center for Young Frankenstein. That center is HUGE and includes an arena, a beautiful theater, a convention center, and a fourth space that I can't remember. It's outside of the main part of town, so it's surrounded by huge parking lots. Very nice. They set one of the big convention rooms up as a restaurant on show nights. We had a big buffet dinner. I ate only hot veggies and salad with cheese. Mostly because they didn't serve any fish, only three kinds of meat. I skipped the corn on the cob and the rice. Mark and I did share one piece of cake, but I tallied up all the calories carefully and still stayed within my allotment for the day. The show was a HOOT, following the movie closely. What really surprised us was that this theater only presents each show ONCE. It seems like so much work to set that staging up and do it only once. Oh, well...
Yesterday was also a great day. After attending my cancer support group, I spent the whole day at the pool. Mark and I ate lunch out, and we both ate appropriately. Dinner was at Lakeside for free wine followed by the movie In Time. We didn't care much for the movie, but at least it was free!
Today I have to get back to some real work in the house. Passover is coming, so today's plan is to reorganize the pantry to make space for the Passover food. I'm also cleaning the fridge, purging old stuff, and trying to make some room in there, too. It's pretty hopeless in there, I think. Mark shopped yesterday for the week, so there's more than usual. He's making a huge, gourmet dinner for SIX this coming Wednesday night at our home. We're excited about that, but the food is taking up sooooo much room in the fridge. Our plan is to shop on Monday morning for most of the Passover stuff up at the one kosher market in Longwood, then go to the Publix close by up there for some more stuff. Whatever we don't get Monday, we will go out next Friday to our local Whole Foods and Publix to get. Then we still have time to order online from Avi Glatt in NYC for the rest. That means I need to make space in this kitchen TODAY!
I was pleased with the weight loss for the week. I have dieted enough times to know that the first week is the easiest because a lot of water weight is lost. I walked 32 minutes yesterday at my fastest pace yet, almost a 20 minute mile. I went 1.52 miles in 32 minutes. I hope to get to the gym and walk today also. My calories have remained under 1500 each day. I'm very happy with the tight control I've been able to keep. Let's all pray I can keep it up through Passover, always a difficult time for weight loss.
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