Warming up a bit today.

We have had quite a cold spell lately.  Nothing compared to the north, but 40s at night and high of low 60s during the day.  Finally yesterday it hit upper 70s in the afternoon, and I was able to swim at the Cove pool.  I had a nice time working with four musicians, coaching them and critiquing, at a friend's house before eating a packed and planned lunch then swimming.  In the evening we had Barb and Ed over for the fantastic crocked pot corned beef dinner because Jonathan and Susan were sick. Dinner exceeded everybody's expectations.  Wow.

Of course, the meat tasted quite salty, and as I predicted, I am up a pound and a half today to 286.5.  I sort of expected it, but I will admit that it was depressing to see.

The antidote is to stay on track and be rewarded with a nice drop tomorrow.

Meanwhile here are the last of the cruise pictures, started off with a few pictures from last night.

Mark is using his new electric corkscrew that Evey sent him for his birthday..  Worked like a charm.

Sailing in to St. Maarten or two days, but we didn't arrive until 3 p.m.

Meanwhile, we had almost a whole day at sea and went to another lecture in this series.

Enjoyed some time relaxing on the balcony.

Saw four ships in the distance as we came in to Phillipsburg, St. Maarten.  The big ship on the left is  Oasis of the Seas, and we docked directly to her left, sharing a dock. We were the only ones left the next day when we  left.

Enjoying a specialty coffee and listening to the solo guitarist in Cafe  al Bacio as we finished docking.

Enjoying the glider chairs outside on deck five as the final docking procedures were made.  Then we were among the first off the ship to start our little overnight excursion.

We had no trouble getting a cab, and we were in cabin 21 at Club Orient.

The cabin had a full kitchen!

View from our porch. Very easy walk to the beach, but it was so windy out there that we felt like we were being sand blasted.

Instead we read our books on the lounge chairs on our patio.

Nice artwork on the walls of the cabin.

Loved the cork clock!

This is the first hermit crab that I ever saw in the wild.  We had dinner at the big sit down restaurant at Club O at night, a full day of swimming and enjoying the beach the next day and lunch at the Perch Bar on the beach before taking a cab back to the ship.

Nap time on deck 5.

Sailing away from St. Maarten, but we'll be back next year.

Interesting weird piece of art on the ship.

Glass bowl on display that was blown at the Corning show on deck 15.

The final two sea days were calm and warm, so we finally were able to walk out on deck.

At 3 p.m. we went to the Captain's Club High Tea.  The string duo  entertained us.

One of the many desserts served at tea.

Another free cocktail at the Captain's Club cocktail party.

Introducing our new captain.  The previous one left to go to NYC and be announced as the future captain of the brand new ship, Edge.

Staff Captain (second in command) gave a great talk about the ship and navigation.

Another nap in the Persian Gardens.

March 12 was our last night on board and Mark's birthday.  We celebrated with dinner at the specialty restaurant, Tuscan Grille.

Evey arranged to have a cake delivered after dinner!

Early in the morning, sailing back in to Fort Lauderdale.

Erin Go Bragh! Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I apologize to whoever is reading regularly (although I suspect there is no one in that category anymore!) for not writing yesterday after I just said I was going to start writing every day.

My calories have been great every day so far.
Tuesday 1202
Wednesday 1222
Thursday 1250

My Lose It! program is allowing 1684 calories to lose two pounds a week because it still thinks I weigh 295.  I want to keep them as near as 1200 as possible to have a more rapid weight loss at the start.  When I was losing so successfully back in 2009, I also keep the daily calories close to1200 as often as possible.

Today I currently have 1567 programmed because it's St. Patrick's Day, and we are having company for dinner and a big crock pot Corned Beef with cabbage, carrots, and potatoes along with a homemade asparagus soup, challah, wine, and dessert of mini green cupcakes, honeydew melon, and green grapes.  Because dinner will add up to approximately 1307, I am obviously going over my self-imposed limit.  To keep within the program's limit of 1684, I will only eat a yogurt for breakfast (80 calories) and a little cheese sandwich (180) until dinner, so it will be a little like Yom Kippur, fasting most of the day with a big dinner at the end!  LOL!

This morning I weighed 285, so I'm pleased with how the program is going so far.  There will be a lot of sodium in today's dinner because of the corned beef, so I might not see a big drop tomorrow, possibly even a little bit up.  I'm not worried about it though because Saturday I will eat all my meals at home, so the calories will be back to the 1200 range.

Our friend Rudy arrived Tuesday afternoon, as planned,  Mark and Rudy always have fun talking!

I played Mah Jongg yesterday, and that was a lot of fun even though I did not win even one game.  Some days are like that.

Meanwhile, here are some more pictures from the March cruise.

We went to St. Kitt's on day five.

It was pouring down rain when we left the ship, (on the left), but it stopped quickly.

As we drove to the train for our shore excursion, we passed Brimstone Hill Fort, which we visited last year.  It was the site of many battles between the French and the English.

Eustis, our bus driver.

We took a two hour train ride on an historic narrow gauge railway that used to be used for transporting sugar to the port.  It covered about 2/3 of the perimeter of the island.

Free drinks on board.  I had a pina colada and two daiquiris.

These girls sang a cappella in each car along the way.

Great coast line views as we traveled, especially where the Caribbean and the  Atlantic meet.

The end of the line, back on the bus for a short ride back to the port.

We had some down time after dinner that night and read books in the  library for awhile.

Barbados was our next port.  We went to Harbor Lights on Carlisle  Bay.

We all got a free drink on the way in.

We were on the first bus, so we had our pick of chairs.  Later every chair was filled!

We didn't get to swim because it was too rough.  Lifeguards eventually put out a red flag, and we watched several rescues. After we got back to the terminal, Mark bought rum and rum cakes.

Since we had our bathing suits on, we swam in the solarium pool before  dinner.

Dinner with our table mates, starting on left going around the table back to me: Rod, Judy, Dave, Evey, Brina, Brian, Mark, me.

We skipped the theater production show (already saw it last year) to go to the Glass Show.  Always spectacular!

We are finally done cruising for awhile!

Until I opened my blog this morning, I did not realize that February 23 was the last time I wrote.  I don't even know why!

Well, there's probably no one looking here anymore, but I'm going to get back to writing more regularly now anyway.  I never created this blog for other people.  I started it for myself to keep me on track on my diet when I felt that I was losing my motivation.  It worked for a long time, right up to the breast cancer and the move to Florida.  Then those events and the start of all of our cruising have caused me to completely abandon healthy eating.

This latest cruise on the Celebrity Equinox was from March 3-13.  We went with good friends Dave and Evey Herschler and their friends Rod and Judy from Wisconsin and Brina and Brian from Delaware.  We were a fun group, that's for sure!  It was 10 days with stops at St. Thomas, St. Kitt's, Barbados, and St. Maarten overnight plus four sea days.  We were very busy!

I left for the cruise on March 2, going to Fort Lauderdale the day before, weighing 288 and returned at 296.  Yeah, I was stunned because that is finally one pound OVER the amount in the doctor's office on April 8, 2009 when the surgeon told me I was likely to die.  Well, I had breakfast on the cruise ship on Monday and lunch at Earl of Sandwich on the road home followed by a reasonable dinner and no late night snacking.  Tuesday I ate all three meals at home, 1200 calories total.  I then dropped all eight of those pounds in two days, weighing 288 again this morning.  Boy, did that make me feel a lot better.

I have nine pounds to go because our first cruise of this year, back on January 5, I weighed 279 when we left on the first cruise, the Carnival Magic.  This was a lot of weight gained in two and a half months, but cruising will do that to you!  Haha!  And we booked two more cruises while on this one! We booked 12 days on the Celebrity Silhouette for December 9 or 2018 to the Caribbean, including two islands I have not done yet, Grenada and Dominica, and the big Asian cruise on Celebrity Millennium for March 30, 2019 from Shanghai to Tokyo.

Well, I'm not whining or complaining.  I had a blast and enjoyed my food and drink, but now it's time to get serious.  There are still 7 cruises booked between October of 2017 and March of 2019, so it is in my very best interests to lost a lot of weight before those happen.  LOL!

So my next goal is to get back to 279 before the first cruise in January.  Nine pounds could take three to four weeks.  So my goal is to be 279 by April 12.  That's four weeks and also the second day of Passover.  Passover can be a problem for weight loss, but I can do it!  In fact that's how the big weight loss started back in 2009.  I was at the doctor's office the morning of the first seder, so that weight loss began by eating right at the first seder.  That means I can do it again!

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from this most recent cruise on the Celebrity Equinox to St. Thomas, St. Kitt's, Barbados, and an overnight stay on St. Maarten.

Cool and drizzly when we boarded in Fort Lauderdale and the weather stayed that way for the first several days.

Concierge class room on deck 10!  Very big, lots of storage, very beautiful

Enjoying some time on the balcony before sail away.

Hi Dave!  His cabin is two down from ours.  All four couples were  in cabins right in a row.  Very convenient.

Sail Away party was moved inside due to inclement weather.  Very high winds!

First drink of the cruise!

Sail away was unusual.  This was not their usual dock.  There were very high winds at cross purposes from where we needed to go.  We are a very big ship heading straight for that beach and the houses there.  It was dicey, but we made it.  Unfortunately, the people in the house panicked, took video, and posted it to YouTube, and complained to Celebrity that we almost hit them and ran aground.  It was a week of work for the officers and Celebrity, including having divers go under to inspire the hull, to prove that all was well.  When we returned, we were at a different dock!

We went to a lot of lectures during the sea days.  This was the first one on the  first sea day.

Listening to our audio book on the aft deck until the wind and cold drove us inside.

On the second day, I happened to be in the same elevator as our captain, Captain Costas, who left through the middle of the cruise to go to NYC and be announced as the future captain of the brand new ship, Celebrity Edge!

Jayne Curry, one of our favorite headliner performers, was our entertainment on the second night.

Then Dave sang at karaoke.

Day four and we are docked in St. Thomas.

This si the first time we have been docked at this dock, which seemed a bit closer to Charlotte Amalie.

We took a cab to the synagogue.

Sand floor

A little museum of the history of the synagogue is in the back.

Then we walked back in to the town and found a watch repair shop.  Mark needed a new watch strap, and they had it and put it on very quickly.  Perfect.

Carnival Fascination was docked over at the other dock where we usually have been.

Mama hen and three chicks walked by.

View from the cab heading back to the ship.