Chores at home. Haven't had THAT day in a while.

Usually we go to movies on Sunday morning, but not today.  We decided we really needed to stay home and do some chores.  Mark has a lot of NARFE work on his plate, and he needs to work on memorizing his lines for the play.   We both start our rehearsals for Arsenic and Old Lace tomorrow.

Rudy left on Saturday.  Ironically, it was a warm, sunny day!  As he was leaving the house around 9 a.m. to go to the airport and fly back to Maryland, he said, "The weather gods are laughing at me!"  Probably true.  It was cold or rainy every day that he was here. Maybe it will be nicer when he returns on March 11.

Yesterday we had a lovely, but busy day.  We went to the synagogue, and then we went to the Met Live opera performance at AMC Disney Springs.  This time it was Bizet's Pearl Fishers, which has not been produced at the Met in 100 years.  We can only surmise that that was why the place was PACKED!  Usually there are maybe a dozen or two people at these operas, so we walked in just a minute before show time.  We were barely able to find two seats together.  We could not believe it.  Then we both promptly slept through almost all of the first act!  Sadly, I also slept through the middle of act two and the end of act three.  I was ashamed of myself

When we got home, we headed over to Marilyn and Larry's house for a fabulous dinner party for eight. Marilyn plays Broadway hits on the piano, so after dinner, she played some songs and I sang along. I also played a few and we all sang along.  That was so much fun.  I haven't done anything like that in decades!

My weight is 280 this morning.  I continued to eat too much sodium and too many calories for the last few days.  This week I am eating lunch out on Tuesday and dinner out on Thursday.  That's it.  There is a good opportunity this week for eating right and also exercising. If I'm smart, I will take advantage of that opportunity.

Hosting Mah Jongg for the last time until April

First let me report that my appointment with the retina specialist went well.  My retina is hanging in there with the usual amount of floaters.  My budding cataracts did not bud much this year.  I said to him, "Well, that's good news that they didn't change."  And he responded, "They will. They always do."  Yay for future cataract surgery, I guess.  My pressure is perfect, so no signs of glaucoma.  He agreed with me that my eyelids, especially the right one, droops too much. It's most likely a condition called Ptosis. He has referred me to a lady doctor in Winter Park who specializes in eyelids.  Never knew anyone did that!  I am going to call today to set up an initial consultation, but I do want that surgery.  Dr. Membreno said that it's a three week recovery waiting for swelling to go down, but that most people get excellent results.  I am really bothered by it, especially on the right eye where I can see the eyelid all the time. Unfortunately, my ridiculous schedule is making it hard to even find three consecutive weeks where I could just recover and then have a follow up appointment.  Maybe in November....

We had an excellent rehearsal at the synagogue last night, so that was nice.

This morning I will have 11-12 ladies here playing Mahj.  I set up three tables for it because I thought we were going to be 12-13.  One cancelled, unfortunately that was Debbie, the lady who taught me.  She's going to Universal Studios today, I think.  Now one other lady forgot she had a hair appointment this morning.  She may or may not come after the hair appointment.

 Anyway because of play rehearsals and cruising, I can't host Mah Jongg here again until mid-April, so I'm happy that nearly a dozen ladies are going to be here playing this morning. I love it. Next week Mark and I start three-mornings-a-week rehearsals for Arsenic and Old Lace.

My weight is down that extra pound from the sodium on Tuesday. I had a great day yesterday, eating all my meals at home and doing some small amount of walking around in stores.  The only indulgence was after the rehearsal.  We have been driving our friends Jonathan and Susan to rehearsal with us, and it has become our tradition to stop at Twistee Treat on the way home.  I had a caramel milkshake.  So yummy.  Even so, I was about 276, so I am not upset.  Today I will eat all my meals at home; tomorrow, too, probably.  Our next meal out should be dinner Saturday night at a friend's house.  She's having a dinner party for 8, and I'm bringing the salad.

Ophthalmology

At 10 a.m I have my annual check up with the ophthalmologist because of that retina that peeled off in 2012.  For the first year I went every few months, and then every nine months, and last time he put me on an annual basis.  Hopefully, all is well with that; it always has been. He also assesses the cataracts that are just starting to form.  I don't find much problem with night driving, so I don't think the cataracts have changed much.  I also plan to ask him about my drooping eyelid.  Sometimes on my right eye, I can barely keep it home and not from sleepiness!  It is really distracting sometimes.

I ate a lot at Cape May Monday night, but I actually lost a bit by Tuesday morning.  I was actually 275.6 yesterday morning, but I'm up a pound this morning.  I had a LOT of sodium yesterday.  We had the Big Catch Salad at Beef O'Brady's at our NARFE Board meeting yesterday, and it was very, very salty.  I had dinner at home, an excellent dinner under 300 calories.  Unfortunately, there was only a small bowl of the main dish that Mark made with nothing to go with it.  He always supplements his dinner calories with some walnuts and a glass of wine, but I prefer a salad and green veggie on the side. Unfortunately, we didn't have those.  And even more unfortunately then, I grazed the rest of the night.  I ate the rest of the bag of walnuts, half a bag of ancient and stale ballpark peanuts, a banana, and 4 little cups of sugar free jello plus hot tea with honey.  I have no idea how many calories were in the nuts, but I always eat a banana at night and the jello had almost nothing in it.  The worst part about the day was the sodium in the lunch salad and on the peanuts. I even licked the shells for extra salty goodness.  So I was not surprised to be up one pound today.  In fact, I was glad it was only one pound.

Today I plan to eat breakfast and lunch at home.  Dinner is still up in the air, but if we end up eating out then it will only be at Denny's, which always works well for me.

 The only other thing on my calendar for today, besides the morning eye doctor appointment, is a rehearsal at the synagogue tonight.  That should be great.  We did get some potentially bad news from the synagogue yesterday.  Our fabulous young rabbi, Hillel Skolnik, is probably leaving soon. He has the opportunity to take the position in Cleveland at his wife's childhood synagogue.  Her family is still in Cleveland at that shul, so all they travel a lot back and forth.  I'm sure they'd love to just live closer to her family.  Still, it is very sad for the rest of us because he is outstanding and he sings in my choir!  I shall miss him very much.

A good report

This morning I am happy to report that my weight is only 276.6.  I am thrilled that I dropped from 280 since Friday morning when I weighed in after the cruise.  I behaved pretty well every one of those days since, although I doubt if my calories were any less that 1500 to 1800, certainly not stringent.  Still, I bet there was plenty of water weight that I just lost, and now it will get harder.

Our friend Rudy arrived yesterday evening about 5 p.m.  He apparently brought the cold weather from up north with him.  It's going to be in the forties over night and the low sixties every day while he's here.  That's so sad because he likes to swim in the pools when he gets here.

I had expected to eat out only six times in the month before the next cruise, hoping that I could drop about eight pounds by then.  Of course, I also said that we had two sets of company in there and who knows what will happen.  So dinner out tonight just happened.  We made a reservation for dinner at the Cape May buffet at Disney's Beach Club Resort.  Rudy wants to take us out to dinner somewhere at Disney, and he has not been there before.  We were surprised at how many of the restaurants in all of the parks and the resorts were available only 24 hours in advance.  Must be a real slow time this week over there.  We love Cape May and have been there a lot.  It will be nice for him. Maybe I'll behave myself there.  The last time we went was with the Solivita Disney Fan Club, and I did pretty well that day.  I really did not overeat, plus we walked a lot that day, too.  If I'm smart, we will walk around over there today, too, although it's going to be pretty darn cold by the time we get there.

Meanwhile, this morning we have an appointment with a lawyer to talk about setting up a trust instead of a traditional will.  Then in the afternoon I am playing Mah Jongg with my neighbors.  That's all followed by dinner out, so it should be a wonderful day!  Hope anyone reading this blog is also going to have a wonderful day.

Nice day.

Yesterday went as planned.  I ate right, went to the gym for the first time in about a year to lift weights, and walked 40 minutes past some ponds.  We actually saw a big gator on the bank enjoying some warmth.  The rest of the day we just watched TV.  

This afternoon Rudy arrives about 3 p.m. for a week.  We need to go shopping for a few things in advance of his arrival.  Our other activity today is to gather all of our important papers together because tomorrow morning we finally have an appointment with a lawyer to create a trust to help the kids inherit without hassle some day.  

Great dinner last night with friends

We were so busy yesterday that we felt like our vacation was truly over!  LOL!

After doing chores like paying bills, doing laundry, and generally catching up on work all morning in the house, we went to the Cove for our three hours of volunteering in the library from 1-4 p.m., did some quick shopping at Loewe's and Publix for things we needed immediately, and then dinner with MD friends Debbie and Ed.  Mark made a slow-cooker recipe, spaghetti soup, for dinner.  I added hummus and pita chips and mini-franks in blankets for appetizers followed by the soup, salad, and challah for Shabbat dinner, and cookies and fruit for dessert.  The traffic was horrible, so Debbie and Ed were about half an hour later than planned for dinner, but everything was fine anyway.  We sat and talked and talked until 11 p.m. when they finally decided they had better head back to their timeshare.  What a wonderful evening!

Also this morning I am happy to report that I did not gain any weight yesterday.  I ate a very small breakfast and lunch and saved all my calories for dinner. I didn't worry about what I ate for dinner, so I was pleased to be the same this morning.  Actually I was down about half a pound!  Very nice.

Since we didn't go to bed until nearly 2 a.m., we both slept in until 8 a.m.  We had already decided we couldn't get ourselves to shut this morning, so we just didn't bother setting the alarm.  Today we will go to the gym, take a walk, and then play catch up on TV shows that we missed on the cruise.

Tomorrow afternoon Rudy comes for a week!

Also, here are some pictures from our second, three-day cruise that we added on to the Travel Club New Year's Eve cruise.

Waiting to be escorted off the first cruise and back on the for the second one.

We were given a complimentary lunch at Bistro on Five as back-to-backers.

We got to the Thalassotherapy pool right after lunch, before anyone else had  discovered it.

Sailing away from Fort Lauderdale again.

Sunset leaving Fort Lauderdale

First night of the new cruise and we had a table for two in the dining room.

On the Nassau day I had a mani/pedi.  We did not go onshore, which was fine because it was cold, blustery, and rainy all day.

Leaving Nassau was very rough.  

We never had a day in Nassau like this before.

Evening chic, formerly formal night.

The next day we were in Key West, which was cold and rainy until after lunch.  The ship gave out blankets on deck!

After lunch, it was still quite breezy, but the rain stopped and it was in the low 70s.  Very nice.  We walked off the ship and went here.

Me and my new friend at the aquarium.

It's a mini-miracle

I did not gain any weight on this cruise.  I'm not sure how that was possible.  I didn't feel that I was doing anything in particular to make that happen.  I ate what I wanted and drank lots of fruity alcoholic drinks all day.  I didn't even go to the gym or even feel like I walked that much.  That makes it a miracle!

I left for the cruise at an even 280 and returned the same.  Wow!  Now I admit that 280 is a HORRIBLE weight, so now I'm going to try really hard to lose about eight pounds before going on the next cruise, which is February 6.  I just looked at our calendar, and this month there are only six times when we should be eating either a lunch or dinner out.  Most all of the meals will be at home, and we will also be busy with appointments or rehearsals three mornings a week for about 3-4 hours. That's a lot of busy activity, which means less time to eat! On the other hand we have Rudy here for a week followed by Mark's cousin Ron for the next week.  Although we have not planned any meals out, sometimes company insists, especially Rudy!  We shall see.  It would be great if I ate mostly at home.

Our cruise was excellent.  We really enjoyed hanging out with Susie and Ed and occasionally running into other people from Solivita on the cruise.  We didn't even leave the ship in Nassau, so that was a great day of fun on the ship with not many people on board.  We always like that.  The second three day cruise was calm and low-key for us because we didn't know anybody.  We enjoy the back-to-back experience because it's relaxed in the morning while everyone else is worrying about getting off.  Then once we get back on, no one else is on board yet, so you get the run of the ship for awhile.  There were 11 of us doing back-to-back this time.  For the first time they gave us a complimentary lunch at the small specialty restaurant, Bistro on Five.  That was a $20 lunch, very nice.  We were in  Concierge Class this time, which gave us a bottle of champagne on the first day of each cruise, apples in the room all the time, nice tubes of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and lotion in the bathroom. There was priority boarding the first time, too.  I loved the balcony and the slightly bigger room.  It was surprising to me how much I actually used the balcony.  It's way too expensive to book Concierge Class or even a regular balcony very often, so I made the most of it this time.

Here are a few pictures from the first cruise.

Spillway party 

Mark brought us the bottle of champagne and glasses from our room to drink at the New Year's Eve deck party.  We drank the whole bottle!

Susie, Carol, and me at the Solivita Meet and Greet party.

We have never done room service before, but we had it for breakfast on this cruise.

Breakfast on the balcony in Nassau.

Susie and Ed in the Rendezvous before dinner on the last night of the cruise.