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.