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.

* * * * *

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.

* * * * *

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!

 

I love Christmas / fairy lights. I've shared that I have a string of red / white / blue lights along the chair rail in my office. They are set on a timer and are glowing and waiting for me when I get up in the morning.

Pulling down the Christmas tree is always sad for me merely because of the loss of the glow & ambiance in the living room.

So I decided I wanted to keep the warm glow to my living room. Now, years ago, I painted the living room with two colors and an interesting paint job and I wanted to put my new lights along the line that separates the two paint colors.

So I went from this...

Just FYI, the front wall is all blue.

And here's the result:

And I love the way it turned out.

Have a great week, my friends!

First and foremost, the WIP is no longer a Work In Progress. It's DONE. It came in 6K words over the requirement but it doesn't look like I'll have to chop chop chop. Whew! I really didn't know what was choppable.

Now it's time to get some sort of outline and/or synopsis going for the next WIP. Oh, boy!


I put my red, white, and blue fairy lights up this past weekend and enjoyed having them on whenever I was in my office. And I have enough of them that they cover three of four walls even having to go up and over the window. There is no chair rail on the fourth wall so no need / desire for lights on that one...



The first carb-fast was a success. I lost about an inch around the hips, but not much at waist or bust, but that's okay. On the other hand, I've suddenly noticed over the last few days how loose many of my pants and shirts fit, so something's disappearing from somewhere. :0)

Reward day (Sunday) was all it was cracked up to be.


So, yes, I ate that pint of ice cream and the bag of licorice. I had one box of those yogurt covered cranberries and three pumpkin cupcakes with frosting. I also had a coffee thing from Starbucks and a steak lunch (below) courtesy of DD. It was a gluttonous day, but well worth it. I was back on the carb-fast wagon Monday morning however and will be going for three weeks this time. I've also added back in my targeted exercise routines.



Anyway, have a great rest of your week!!

So with the dearth of grain-based carbs and sugars, my body is making adjustments and I can feel the drain as it works harder. I've been a bit foggy in the brain a couple of mornings as well as feeling a little extra tired.

The articles I've read assure me that this is normal. My body is now utilizing other things in the body and converting them to the fuel I need, especially my brain. While I don't like feeling fuzzy-brained or tired, it's nice to have evidence that things seem to be working the way they're supposed to and that eventually my body will adjust and I'll be back to normal...at least as far as that goes.

We all know I'm not normal. :0)

I have been struggling with consuming enough calories though; more than I thought I would and as a result of that and the extra-tiredness, I've cut back on the exercising so I'm not burning so many. So more brainstorming as to how I can add calories. I've added back the meatloaf...

I'm eating pretty much all the things various articles have said I should be eating on a low/no carb diet except for one or two. As we know from previous posts, coconut oil has a lot of health benefits. Many articles say it adds a nice flavor to tea or coffee, and it's fairly high in calories, so I'm going to try that. I've also been craving a nice juicy hamburger, so guess what's going on the grocery list this week?

One of the perks of going keto, supposedly, is the loss of cravings for carbs...and I love carbs so much. So I'm toying with the notion of that reward of ice cream. Maybe I shouldn't. Of course, everything in moderation, right? If I splurge on a pint of ice cream every couple of months, what's it really going to hurt?

* * * * *

While I haven't exercised every day, I did take advantage of the time and spent it writing. I'm not done with the book as I'd hoped to be, but I'm soooo close. Maybe at the end of tomorrow morning's three hours, I'll be able to say it's done. *fingers crossed*

* * * * *

Oh--guess what I found / bought last week...?

Four brand-new strings of red/white/blue fairy lights!! Remember my old strands had burnt out? My theory on that was that the third strand was different from the first two and they somehow shorted out as a result. Anyway, as the country gears up for Memorial Day and subsequently the Fourth of July, the stores have their sections of holiday-related paraphernalia, and there they were. So I bought them because I'm a weak, weak woman.

Any-who, have a great weekend and I'll catch you on flip side. Maybe with good news, maybe with pictures...

Take care!!

You know, my red/white/blue fairy lights in my office. That I love so much. :0)

These ones:


Are now down to this small section:






Everything else is completely dark.

Now I can't think that every single bulb blew. And this didn't start happening until I added that third stand--which was not the same brand as the first two.

So I'm thinking two things. My little fuses in each strand blew and I shouldn't mix and match strands because the voltage or wattage could be different.

And I have two choices. Either buy enough of the same lights to fit the space I want covered. Or remove the third strand and then go through the painstaking process of testing the bulbs in the remaining strands--after changing the fuses if possible.

Argh. Tough choice. Time is money, but those suckers aren't that cheap.