Three pounds

After a week-long cruise, filled with all-you-can-eat buffets, plus lunches and dinners that included appetizers, first courses, and desserts (definitely multiple on the desserts), I am happy to report a mere increase of three pounds. As it turns out, I didn't exercise as much on this cruise. Last cruise, I made a huge effort to go to the early morning exercise classes and spent time on the treadmill. This cruise, the yoga and Zumba classes didn't burn off what I ate. Ironically, I don't think the food was as good this time around, even though it was the same cruise line. So why the weight gain? Can I blame it on old age? Hopefully, healthy eating habits will get rid of those three pounds (and more!).

Photos 1-3/365 Catalina

I'm finally getting around to doing my version of a photo a day, week, whatever. My version is to post 365 photos this year. Since I don't want to start yet another blog, all the photos will be here. My ground rules are multiple photos from a day are okay. All the photos have to be taken by me or have me in the photo. And with that, here we go!

We went to Catalina for a little vacation. Both our companies were shut down for the holidays and I was determined to go somewhere, anywhere, lol. Since I had never been to Catalina, Mr. Fix-it suggested it and even though our trip coincided with new year's, we still got a good deal on our hotel.

Catalina is famous for their tile (well, their old tile), but there's tile everywhere so of course I had to take some photos. If the weather had been warmer, I would have considered renting a kayak, but since I was wearing multiple layers, a coat, and scarf, it was a little too cold for me to go out in the water. And last, but not least, I was amused by these sea gulls drinking from the fountain. Who knows how clean that water was since the drinking fountain didn't drain.

Busy, busy, busy

We've been so busy these past few weeks, we've hardly had time to catch our breaths (except for the past few days, more on that later). Work was crazy for both of us trying to get everything done before leaving for the Christmas break. I never got all my Christmas cards out so if you didn't get one, please don't feel slighted. I was happy I was able to get them out to most of the relatives on time. I was hoping Mr. Fix-it would get home early on the 23rd since we were traveling for Christmas, but alas, he came home later than usual.

Here's how our Christmas and the past week went:
Dec. 24, drive across the state, check into hotel, pick up mom, drive to airport and pick up J and B, go out to dinner (Chinese food).

Dec. 25, drive to Uncle B's (a little over an hour), then to the cemetery to visit Auntie M. Have lunch (Asian buffet) with Uncle B, Uncle J, and Cousin E. Visit for a while, then drive back (two hours-traffic sucked). On the way back, stop by Cousin D's. Her whole family was there, along with all our cousins and her parents. Visit for a while then head home. No dinner since we're still full from lunch (although they were having prime rib, one of my favorites and it was hard to pass that up).

Dec. 26th, have lunch and dinner with Dad (Chinese food, of course), visit a little with the rest of the family.

Dec. 27th, have lunch with Dad (dim sum, at least it was a different kind of Chinese food, lol), visit with family, have a traditional Christmas dinner with S and family. It was delicious and when I get a chance, I need to get some recipes from her.

An aside, lest my family is in a rut, we like and some of us crave the style of food we get when we go home for a visit. We ate a different restaurant each time and there were enough leftovers for a couple more meals.

Dec. 28th, head home feeling like there was too much visiting with some people and not enough visiting with others. I thought that Christmas would be less running around since Uncle T is gone, but it seems that whenever time was opened by his absence was filled by something new.

Dec. 29th, catch up on laundry, check in with a few relatives.

Dec. 30 to January 2, vacation! A real vacation!!! We decided to splurge (well, it was a splurge for us) and booked this last week. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. Of course, it took us (well, really, me) two days to even begin to relax. The massage helped, lol. Then it was time to head back home.

We didn't have any mini 2009 calendars (we usually keep one next to the computer) so I decided to make a little calendar to remind us of the fun time we had. I guess you could count it as my foray into digital scrapping. :)

I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week. Sigh. Reality, it sucks.

Happy New Year!

I hope this year brings you happiness, prosperity, and lots of fun! And if you've already got all three, how about more of the same? We're just relaxing over here. Hope the new year brings more relaxing times for us.