A Time For Everything

I had planned to have a post ready for Monday, March 10, but I just couldn't get the post written up and scheduled. The primary reason for that is because I was super busy preparing to be away on vacation.

Remember that cruise I mentioned exactly once a year ago? I didn't think so, but that cruise was this past March 9 through March 17.

We went on a eight day cruise to the Western Caribbean aboard the Regal Princess (image below) to celebrate my in-laws' 40th wedding anniversary. DH's sisters and one of their husbands was also on the cruise. We had a grand time relaxing and trying some new foods.

Image courtesy Wikipedia.

DH and I chose a cabin with a balcony this time around and that was super lovely. So three cruises, three cruise lines, three room types:

• Royal Caribbean with a port hole.
• Norwegian Cruise Line with an interior room.
• Princess Cruise Line with a balcony.

The small balcony was definitely the way to go, no matter what cruise line we cruise with in the future.

I'm leaning toward Princess Cruises again mainly because we can be cruise ready as far as boarding the ship well in advance of the sail date goes, and their Medallion system is awesome for ease of navigating the embarkation process as well as entering your cabin and any onboard purchases. I'll go into more detail later. But yeah. Other cruise lines supposedly have similar systems in place, but they may not yet be used as widely during the pre-cruise process or during the cruise itself. I'll have to do more research when we get ready to book the next one.

I have no preference between a seven-day versus an eight-day cruise. The seven-day cruise is contained within two weekends and a work week. The eight-day cruise needs an extra weekday.

In case you're wondering, the day of embarkation is Day 1. The last full day at sea is Day X of however long your cruise is. Ships almost universally return to the port of origin early in the morning, like five or six AM, and so that day is not counted on the "X-day cruise" line of information. That day belongs to the incoming wave of passengers.

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Cruise ducks are a thing!

Apparently, passengers leaving little rubber ducks around the boat for other passengers to find is a thing. I never even saw a rubber duck on my first two cruises. This time, I found two!! You're supposed to take a picture and post to social, tagging your cruise or the person who left the duck. Then you either keep the duck or re-hide for another passenger to find!

(People create Facebook groups for specific cruise dates--WHO KNEW?!)

I was tempted to keep the ducks, but I gave away my rubber duck collection years ago. (Yes, I had one.) And I really didn't need to start a new one, so I left them in a different place for another passenger to find.

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^ see the first magnet above ^

Cabin door decorating is also a thing. Not everyone does it of course, but I thought it would help me to locate my door from the lineup of identical ones along the corridor. Turns out I had a couple of easier ways to do that this trip, depending on which bank of elevators we approached our room from. Which is neither here nor there. We saw lots of different kinds of magnets, with messages like "My First Cruise," and "Our Retirement Cruise," or they were just cruise related images / sayings like mine.

DH also came across small magnetic white boards with poll questions on them of the "Coke or Pepsi?" variety, which he wants to do on our next cruise, lol.

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I'm gonna post again about our cabin at some point but I wanted to share this one thing--

I wanted our cabin to be cozy and have a taste of home. Basically, fairy lights. We have a string of fairy lights around three walls of our living room and they're on a timer. They provide nice evening illumination for watching TV and generally moving through the house. I wanted to recreate that ambience in our cabin, so I bought this willow vine light set to take with us and place across from the bed and around the TV set. The only problem was--no outlets / USB ports on that side of the cabin. We ended up hanging them above the bed instead so they could be plugged in. As I was taking them down, I realized I could have run the power cord across the ceiling using the handy-dandy metal hooks I brought, lol. Well, I'll know for next time.

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All right--that's all for now. I'll be back in a couple of weeks with some more random pictures from the boat and port stops.

Catch you later!

...short lived though it was.

But by the time you're reading this, Sonshine will have come and gone. I was gonna post this last Monday, but random things conspired to make me forget. Oops. :0)

But spending five days with my beloved Sonshine was wonderful. He did let me know, in no uncertain terms, that Texas was, sadly for me, no longer a place he wished to live. I'd been holding on to hope that he'd eventually move "home." But home for him is now across the Sound from Seattle proper. Of course, him being there and the Brown Eyed Girl being in Colorado gives us good reason to visit two very gorgeous geographies.

Any who, time with Sonshine is always prized so we spent five days mostly talking, but we also did puzzles, played some games, and just generally hung out. We even took him out to eat for his "half" birthday.

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On a sad note, my Dallas Stars just couldn't get through the Western Conference Final to the Stanley Cup Final. I have been soooo sad and disappointed for them. For me now, though, hockey season is over. I have had no desire to watch the Stanley Cup Final. (Nor listen to my podcasters break down what happened!) I just hope the Eastern Conference Champs, the Florida Panthers, win the Cup.

On a muuuuch sadder note, one of the NHL's favorite veteran players and hugely popular Dallas Star Joe Pavelski says he's retiring. My heart cracked a little when I heard the news. He's 39 now and that's considered old in hockey years. He'd defied the aging curve up until the last month or so of hockey, but it seemed to have finally caught up with him. I hoped he stays with us one more year playing in the bottom six, but that remains to be seen.

There were tears in the dressing room and tears across the Stars fan base at his loss. We're hoping that if he doesn't accept another one-year player contract, he takes a job in Dallas Stars management, consolation prize though it be for him.

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And finally, Happy Birthday Dad!

Today would have been his seventy-seventh birthday.

I've been debating audio books, but the cost has been prohibitive until recently. Apparently Kindle Direct Publishing offered an AI audio narration beta program. One of my writer peeps tried it out on a stand-alone title. She just did it, so she doesn't have any results to share at the moment.

I too have one audio book title in play via Apple only, published March 2023, and after some research, it doesn't look like I've sold a single "copy" of that audio book. Is that mostly because it was available via Apple only and that's not a platform conducive to audio book sales?

The question becomes...do I pursue audio anyway if I can distribute through all the major audio platforms (such as Audible)? At the moment, my cost would be $0, so that seems like a no brainer, doesn't it?

On the other hand it's a lot of work for a questionable outcome and I've got to re-do the first series first, so I think I'm going to have to pass for now and hope that costs won't be prohibitive later.

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Regal Princess / Princess Cruise Line

Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Next year, I'll be cruising once again. In celebration of my in-laws 40th wedding anniversary, they (the in-laws), along with one sister-in-law and her hubster, and DH and I will be cruising the Western Caribbean. I've been wanting to go on another cruise since the last one (right before the covid shutdowns!), and now I've got one booked. I'm excited about being on the boat but I'm very much not looking forward to the long lines / long wait to actually board. I have a plan though--I saved the walker I bought for my mom for just this purpose. :0)

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Let's do a quick check-in on my goals...but you know what? It doesn't look like my goals for 2023 were updated to 2024's goals. Huh. I had to go dig up the post. But onward:

• I'm still reading.
• I haven't gotten to pay off any cards because my inheritance is still waiting some information from a CPA.
• I have not lost any pounds.
• I'm still using Hinge Health and am doing yoga, alternating days.
• Healthier eating has been a challenge.
• I've not spent any time in a manuscript on a weekly basis.
• No housekeeping routine as of yet because of a shake-up at work, but my guest room is shaping up.
• Grandma has been sent her letters.
• I had a slow start to the reading, but I'm now in reading mode, so catching up.
• And I'm working on cross stitch patterns for my online store/s.

Not where I want to be in the Health & Wellness category, but I'm doing okay everywhere else.

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Stanley Cup -- Here We Come!!

I might have mentioned a time or two that my Dallas Stars have been a popular pick to win the-hardest- trophy-in-sports-to-win amongst the hockey writers that I read and pod-casters that I listen to since the beginning of the season. (It takes 16 wins to win the Stanley Cup, but could take as many as 28 games to accomplish.) Anyway...

The Stars were the first team to clinch a playoff berth, as they say, and now, DD and I are the proud owners of tickets to the second home game of round one, dates yet to be determined.

And that, dear readers, is that. Hope you're all well.

Catch you in a couple of weeks.