Monday Miscellany aka Random Thoughts

I woke up with a bunch of thoughts rumbling through my head, and this seems a good place to which to put them. So this is pretty much a brain-dump post.

Firstly, and really the big one, I am sad, terribly, terribly sad, that a dear friend is struggling thru her fourth bout of cancer, this one located in her brain, and I am increasingly concerned that it is not going to end the way we all are fervently hoping it will. 

She and I met when we first moved here to the coast eight years ago, and I consider her one of my closest friends in spite of the relative newness of our friendship. She is not of the same outgoing ilk that I am, and has often joked over the years that were it not for my persistence is setting up walking dates, we would likely not be friends, as she is quite the introvert, with most of her friendships going all the way back to her elementary school years. LOL - you see, we extroverts can be quite persistent! So, I just kept asking and she kept saying 'Yes.'  🙂

During COVID she began her third battle with cancer, and we would FaceTime several days a week so she could talk through her treatments in detail, which seemed to help her continue to remain fighting strong. Once done with chemo, she/we had a nice long few years to just be non-cancer focused friends, during which our spouses became quite good friends as well.

About six months ago she began to struggle with her speech, which I noticed with alarm during one of our walking dates. She saw her doctor shortly thereafter, and was diagnosed with brain cancer. At this point she is not responding well to treatment, and I am slowly losing hope, though I sure as h#ll am not sharing that with her.

She is also a grandmother to a two year old little boy. That more than anything else is ripping my heart to pieces. 

Sometimes life is just hard, hard, hard.

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So, OK, to now drastically change channels, we had a really nice weekend, particularly on Saturday night when we enjoyed a fabulous guitarist that we've seen often. Often enough that she recognized us and playfully interacted with us thru-out her performance. Which was so, so much fun. 

And, nicely, I liked the way what I wore out this weekend is fitting after losing 13 pounds, with about 7 vanity pounds still left to lose.

I also used a portion of the Barnes & Noble credit I received last week to add a new one pot cookbook to my repertoire. And already I'm excited about making the two recipes below, both of which are squarely in my wheelhouse of lots of fresh ingredients for, hopefully, maximum taste.

And finally, before I head out into the sunshine for some light yardwork followed by a five mile walk around our local harbor with my husband, this is what I've been reading:

The two on the far right were excellent. The one on the left is a bookclub selection from a new group I just joined, and I'm not quite sure about it or the club just yet. My own, 20 year ongoing bookclub, which above Crying in H Mart was read for, is rather discerning at this point. So I'm pretty spoiled, and thus not yet confident The Frozen River is going to live up to standards. We'll see!

Please feel free to drop any Miscellany you are pondering or planning here as well. Happy or sad, either way.

It's Always Good To Come Home, Plus The Weekend Ahead

 

We much enjoyed our trip, and the weather was beautiful, but even though we're currently about 15 degrees cooler here in coastal Orange County, it's good to be home.

And . . . I returned home two pounds lighter, so just eight pounds to go to reach my goal of 115 pounds!

I achieved the weight loss by working to maintain the same mindset on the ship that I work to maintain here at home. Firstly, cruise ship fare is cruise ship fare, even on a somewhat elevated line like Oceania Cruises. It's prepared in mass, and it doesn't come to the table piping hot, ever, so it's not worth blowing my caloric budget on, at least in my opinion. Plus, we walked miles around the deck almost daily, and never, as in never-ever, used the elevator, so we climbed a good number of stairs each day.

This was our fifth cruise to the Caribbean, though most of the islands we visited were first timers for us. I did, however, decide that in spite of enjoying ourselves, this is likely our last cruise for the foreseeable future. In comparing our three days in Miami pre-cruise, to our 11 days at sea, at this point in our lives I find that I really prefer the ability to speed up or slow down as we wish, without having to mind the clock to ensure we return to the ship on time. Plus, any ports that involve tendering are more stressful on both the front and back end, and stress is something I 'm continuing to try and minimize as I age.

So, I cancelled our previously booked August Iceland cruise. Doing it by land is now the more appealing option, though I'm still a bit undecided as to whether that will occur this summer. Summer is our funnest season here in coastal S. Orange County!

Below is a list of the cruises we've done. This is primarily for me to have someplace to keep the list other than at Cruise Critic, so my apologies if it's less than stimulating to review! 😄 

04/2025  Caribbean w/Oceania

08/2023  Alaska Inside Passage w/Celebrity

06/2023  Greek Isles w/RCCL

12/2020  Mexican Riviera w/Princess

02/2020  South America Circle w/Princess

09/2019  New England & Canada w/Holland

05/2016  Grand European River Cruise w/Vantage

12/2015  Ultimate Caribbean w/Celebrity

02/2012  Hawaiian Islands w/Cunard

03/2011  Panama Canal Transit w/Cunard

05/2010  Alaska Inside Passage w/Princess

01/2010  Australia & New Zealand w/Princess

11/2008  Mediterranean w/Cunard

06/2007  Baltics w/Celebrity

05/2006  S. Caribbean w/Princess

04/2005  E. Caribbean w/RCCL

10/2004  Pacific Northwest w/Princess

06/2003  Mexican Riviera w/Carnival

06/2002  Alaska Outside Passage w/RCCL

08/2001  W. Caribbean w/Carnival

04/1997  Mexican Riviera w/RCCL

The morning after returning home we had a fence installation scheduled, the final project of the 18 month long remodel we launched into immediately upon closing on our home in Fall of 2023. So that took care of most of Wednesday (I stick around to deal with the myriad of micro decisions that always arise), other than a quick dash to Trader Joe's for some essentials.

Yesterday, Thursday, I made a menu, and did a thorough grocery shop, stopping in at Aldi's, Trader Joe's (again), and Ralph's. Ralph's was solely to chase loss leaders - I picked up 20 Kind bars for $1 each, and three salad-in-a-bags that were discounted to $1 due to being close to their use-by date. I ate an entire bag of salad on my own yesterday, half for lunch and half for dinner, as my husband had a men's fellowship dinner event, and I never cook for just myself.

Additionally, I forced myself to make two unpleasant returns on Thursday, yesterday - a damaged  Caribbean travel book to Barnes and Noble that was 60 days past purchase. I discovered, too late, that every few pages of the book had printed blurry, though I did struggle through it for purposes of our trip. I received a store credit in exchange, which I'm more than happy with considering their store policy is to limit returns to 30 days.  

The second return was to Pacific Sales Appliances for an unneeded $35 set of hoses for a recently purchased washer/dryer set. Even though we had brand new hoses installed as part of our recent whole-house repiping, Pacific Sales forces all customers to purchase new hoses, subject to return if their appliance installer determines on site that they are not needed. In our case, the installer determined our current hoses were just fine, but he forgot to leave the new hoses with me so that they could be returned, necessitating a series of frustrating calls to their worthless corporate customer service line. Because the installer neglected to log the unused hoses back into their warehouse, the normal process, I had to go visit a Pacific Sales location in person to plead my case. Which I did yesterday, and which, nicely, resulted in my refund being processed.

Whew! A lot of effort for $35, but the principle of the whole thing kept me moving forward - I will not be taken advantage of lightly!

Today should be much more pleasant. I'm leaving shortly for a walk to the beach from our home, then I have a boutique to attend that's being sponsored by my women's club. After that my husband and I are leaving to have dinner with my daughter and her partner . . . he is such a good cook!

The rest of the weekend will be comprised of two longer beach walks, one of which will include a stop for lunch, a winery dinner & music event at 'our' winery, a fun vintage street fair, and spiritual services for us both on Sunday.

I spent some time on our vacation thinking about the concept of living the soft life whenever and wherever possible, so I wanted to ensure our first weekend home was lovely and vibrant, a concept I'll go into more in an upcoming blog posting.

Bon Voyage!

After 36 action packed hours in Miami, we are off to the Caribbean for the next week and a half. It’s a lovely 78 degrees here portside currently, and we are already unpacked and enjoying our first cruise libation. After the last year and a half of remodeling, we are ready for this trip!

Our 36 hours in Miami included dinner at a lovely Italian cafe, a Bay view boat tour, five miles of scenic walking, and a guided food and cultural tour in Little Havana.

I brought along my trusty cruise shorts, my fail safe way of maintaining my weight. As long as they fit, I know my weight remains stable. As often as we’ve cruised, we’ve learned lots of tricks to avoid weight gain - try on those da@n shorts every morning, always use the stairs, walk several miles around the deck in the AM, have normal-sized breakfasts and lunches, and save the cruise food splurges for dinner only. So far, so good!