Running, running, running, and Rosh Hashanah

I haven't had a minute in the morning to write a blog since last Friday, and I've been too dogged tired to do it in the evening.

Saturday we went to shul, and then I had a meeting at the Cove.  Sunday we left early to go to Guest Relations at Disney Springs to renew our WDW annual passes followed by time at Epcot for lunch at two Food and Wine kiosks and a 2 p.m. lecture on watermelon. Who knew you could eat the whole thing, the rind and all.  Then it was back home to make Rosh Hashanah dinner.

Monday and Tuesday it was up and out early for services that started at 9 a.m. and ended at 2 p.m. My choir went up to sing 7 times (12 songs total) on each day.  That was a lot of work, but it keeps you on your toes for the five hours.  On the other hand, when we got home about 3 p.m. and had a very late (and very appreciated) lunch, we both just fell asleep right after we ate!

Today is another crazy day.  We are leaving in a few minutes to go to the gym for our weight routines (yes, I'm committed to getting back to that after a 10 month hiatus due to back and shoulder problems) followed by a NARFE Board Meeting at the Beef O'Brady's in Lakeland, followed by concerts and dinner and picking up our pass holder Mickey cutting board at Epcot, followed by choir rehearsal at the synagogue for a big event on Saturday morning.  When we get home at 10:30 tonight, we will also be dog tired!

Running and running and running.

Last Thursday night we attended the VIP Passholder Event at Epcot from 9-11 p.m.  We actually arrived around 8 p.m. and ate dinner at two kiosks before riding Frozen Forever, Soarin', Living with the Land, getting our picture taken with BayMax and seeing the fireworks.  Late night fun.  More running around.  Here are some pictures.

Good Weigh-in for the week. Down 5.4 pounds!

We had a good NARFE meeting in the morning, did our grocery shopping, took an afternoon nap, and headed to Epcot for the late night VIP Passholder Member Night.

Even though I ate lunch and dinner out, there was a lot of walking According to my Health App on the iPhone, I walked 18,480 steps (8.4 miles!) on Wednesday and 12,135 steps (5.4 miles) on Thursday.  No wonder my muscles ache.  lol

I tried to log the calories in with my best guess yesterday and came up with 1516.

This morning my official Friday weigh-in is 265.8, the same as Wednesday morning. I'm VERY happy with that because it's a loss of 5.4 pounds for the week!  Amazing!

Although it's highly unusual for us, we are eating dinner out tonight at the ballroom for a special Movie Night event.  We have prepaid for a fish and chips dinner and the remake of the movie Overboard.  Susie and Ed are going with us.  It will be fun, but it will be a lot of calories.  Saturday all my meals will be at home, but Sunday we are eating lunch back at the Food and Wine Festival and then Rosh Hashanah dinner at home Sunday and Monday nights.  Mark and I are going to keep those meals "normal" with just the addition of apples and honey, round challah, and honey cake to make it a holiday meal.  Wednesday we have a NARFE board meeting in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon, so that means lunch and dinner out like yesterday.  So losing weight this week will be a huge challenge.  I will be satisfied if I can just maintain this week.

Here are some pictures from the James Museum on Tuesday and Toy Story Land and Epcot on Wednesday.

Mark with Lewis and Clark.

This sculptor, Dave McGary, was my favorite.  There were  many of his pieces here.  That's NOT fabric or deerskin.  It's meticulously and carefully panted BRONZE.  It really looked like fabric!  

Dinner with Susie and Ed in the museum cafe.

This artist was doing a demo in the lobby at 5 p.m. 

Sunrise driving to WDW.

Heading back to ride Slinky Dog Dash for a second time.  Could be my new favorite ride at WDW.

Heading in to Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival, first of four visits to get a pass holder magnet today and a Mickey  cutting board on the fourth visit.

Completely made of CHOCOLATE!  There are  six  of these displays every year.

Time to head home for now.

So busy but having fun.

I had no time to write a blog yesterday because we were so busy.

We had a fabulous time at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg.  Mark was in heaven.  His plan is buy a membership to support it.  We actually had Subway salads for lunch on the way and stayed to eat dinner in the museum cafe.  They had a quinoa bowl with charred veggies and arugula.  It was far better than we expected it to be.  We also ordered tortilla chips and dips (salsa and guacamole).  I ate a lot of chips with salsa, but not guacamole.  I don't like it.  Yuck.
I was concerned that I would put on some water weight due to all that sodium. I did not, but I just stayed the same.

Yest,erday we left at 6:30 a.m. to head to Toy Story Land for one hour with limited attendance. It was a new thing called Passholder Playtime.  Amazing.  We told Slinky Dog Dash twice, and I loved it.  It might be my new favorite ride!  We rode the Space Aliens and Toy Story Mania as well.  At exactly 9 a.m. a ton of people showed up, and by 9:05 a.m. the line for Slinky Dog was an hour long. We literally just walked on!  It was worth it to get up early.

We went to Epcot, got our Passholder Magnet, and were logged in for our first of four visits towards getting a Mickey cutting board.  It's tiny!  I joked that you could only cut one cherry tomato at a time on it.  lol

After that we went to Winn Dixie, Trader Joe's, Walmart, home for a late lunch, the gym, ate an early dinner, and ran off to SOJC for choir rehearsal, which got me home at 10:30.  EXHAUSTED.

But it didn't stop there.  Between 2 and 4 p.m. I had sat at the computer booking flights for our Asian trip.  I got frustrated trying to do the SF to Hong Kong and HK to Shanghai parts, but I was able to use my American Airline miles to book the Orlando to San Jose part and the Tokyo back home to Orlando part.  At 10:30 I got on the phone with Evey and with her help and expertise, we found appropriate flights (much better ones than I was finding on my own, Thank you, Evey) and got them booked, too.  I shot those email confirmations and itineraries to our travel agent and to the Visa Central people in Houston who will be adding that to our application process for the China Visa.

Now we just have to book the hotels!

Wow,  As Evey said last night, "I guess we're really doing this!"  Yes, we really are.

Weight-wise, I have had a good week. I"m 265.8 this morning, so that was very exciting.  We are eating lunch at Beef O'Brady's for the NARFE monthly meeting in Plant City and then dinner at two of the Epcot Food and Wine kiosks.  I'm sure there will be a ton of sodium in those meals, but I'm hoping the calories won't be too far over my allotment and that all the walking and sweating will work those calories off.  We shall see tomorrow at the official Weigh-in.  As of now, I'm showing a five pound drop for the week, so I really hope that is still true tomorrow morning!

I had planned to post some pictures of the museum and Toy Story Land, but the computer is not uploading the pictures from my phone for some reason.  It's been trying for half an hour, and I just cancelled that.  I'm trying a second time, but it's time to go very soon, so I don't know if there will be time to get that upload finished. I'm sure it will work eventually, and I'll put up pictures in a future blog.  If you are a Facebook friend, you've already seen them anyway.

Upcoming fun for Mark in St. Petersburg.

Tomorrow's blog should feature a lot of pictures from today's visit to the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg.  It is a relatively new museum, opening just this past April.  Mark is very excited to go!  We are making it a Tourist Tuesday (and it's actually on a Tuesday!) by going with good friends Susie and Ed Goldberg.

I won a LOT of Mahj games yesterday, 4 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.  It was a good day for me.  But everyone won at least once, so that made it a good day for everyone.

I ate only 1200 calories yesterday and dropped another half pound, down to 266.5 this morning. I also went to the gym and lifted weights for the first time since last November.  I stopped going when my back went out last October and my shoulder was bad.  I went only one day last November, but the shoulder hurt too much and I didn't go back.  Recently, I read an article about muscle loss in seniors.  It encouraged weight training to maintain what muscle we have because aging alone is going to deplete it.  It got me thinking that I'd better get back to the weight machines.  I didn't do every machine or many reps or much weight, but ti's a start.  And nothing hurt. My back and shoulder all took it very well.  My plan is to do it three days a week when Mark goes.

No SeaWorld.

The forecast put us off yesterday after all.  We kept watching the TV local weather, and it just looked like there was a high probability that we'd be walking around SeaWorld feeling wet and soggy all day.  There was also a high probability that the night time fireworks/water pageant show that we especially wanted to see would be cancelled.  So around 1:30 in the afternoon we decided to stay home.  At around 9 p.m., Mark checked the weather app, which showed the Orlando area under heavy thunderstorms and rain.  We feel we made the right decision.

We were both a little disappointed that we didn't get to go, but as Mark said, "I would be disgusted if we went and it got rained out."  We watched the whole show on YouTube instead!

It was definitely the right decision for my food choices. I ate all my meals at home, and I'm down TWO more pounds this morning to 267.  I was actually very surprised at that.  It's nice, but it only puts me back to where I was on July 26 before we went to California.  So now I can try to lose some NEW weight.  lol.  Well nothing is really new until I get under 200, which I'm not even trying to do, but I'd love to get under 250.  Somehow that sounds better to me.

My lowest weight, back in early 2010, was 205.  My breast cancer surgery was at  220.  My move to Florida was at 250.  I've been as low as 233 here in Florida, but I didn't stay there long.  It was in early November of 2013, the last year that I did Starliters, and that involved a lot of dancing and a lot of being out of the house so no time to eat. lol

Today all my meals will be at home again.  I am playing Mah Jong at Susie's house in the morning and at Luanne's house in the afternoon.  At 6 p.m. Mark and I both are going to the SOJC choir rehearsal.  We are leaving a half hour earlier than usual because I'm afraid of the end of the Labor Day weekend traffic since it was SO BAD on Saturday morning.  Mark has to go tonight because we are working on songs for another choir member's birthday Shabbat on September 15.  We are also having an unusual Monday night rehearsal to try to make up one that was cancelled.  At any rate, I'll have no time to overeat today!

Tomorrow I cannot say the same.  We are heading out to the new Western Art Museum in St. Pete with Susie and Ed.  We will be eating lunch in the museum cafe and dinner at a Denny's.  Denny's won't be bad, but it's about 700 calories.  I have no idea what lunch at the cafe will be.  I hope it won't be too bad.

269. Heading in the right direction.

We tried to go to shul yesterday.  We were on the road over an hour, but we didn't get there because the traffic was insane.  We realized we weren't going to arrive until 20 minutes before it ended, so we turned around.  Labor Day Weekend traffic?  I don't remember it ever being that bad, so maybe it was an accident.  We don't know, but we left at 9:55 and got home at 11:15 having gone no where but out less than half way to the shul and then back home.  Crazy.

So instead, we had a lovely relaxing day at home all day.  I ate 1200 calories and dropped another pound.  That's a good day in my book.  We watched two Disney animated films, "Big Hero 6," and "Toy Story."  I actually slept through all of "Big Hero 6" when we went to the theater, and "Toy Story" was familiar but also there were lots of scenes we didn't remember.  It was a fun evening.

There were a few moments yesterday when I wanted to cheat on my diet.  I was really having some cravings and thought hard about eating more bread or breaking into the last Tortuga rum cake that I saw in the pantry, but I didn't do it.  I was able to tell myself no and mean it.  For me to brush off the Bad Idea Bear is a huge accomplishment.  lol

Today we plan to go to SeaWorld for the special evening entertainment.  This is actually the very last day that they are running this night time show, but we were never able to schedule a day to go until now.  Unfortunately, there's a 90% chance of rain all afternoon, although it's supposed to be over by 8 p.m.  We are going to check on what time the show is.  Maybe we can still go out there close to that time and miss most of the rain.  Or maybe the forecast will be wrong.  That happens.  It's summer in Florida.  Anything can happen.

270. I'm pleased.

I am pleased to be 270 this morning.  I did overeat challah at dinner, so even with the exercise calories from water aerobics, I was over my allotment for the day.  So to be down a pound this morning made me happy.

I'm still up about three and a half from August 3 when we flew off to Evey and Eric's house, so once I get back to the mid-260s, I'll be VERY happy. If I can stay in control through our many meals in restaurants and holiday meals throughout September, I'd be very happy to drop 10 pounds for the month and go up north on October 3 at 260.  I would ECSTATIC.

We are heading out to the synagogue for services in about half an hour.  Then we will have an easy day in the house, readying and watching TV.  There will be no exercise, but my calories should be good. I'm currently planning only 1100 calories, but that might change in the afternoon if I get hungry.  But I'm SURE it will not be over my allowed amount of 1483.