Meet my new friend, Wii.

Part of my vacation was to finally play around with the Wii console I bought, oh, almost two years ago....we set it up after Easter dinner, but this is the first time I've made time to do some exploring.
I'm hooked.
Me, anti-exercise girl.  I was actually looking forward to using the damn thing today.
And I clocked in 1 hour and 37 minutes of aerobic activity!!  I have the Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports and Wii Resort.
So far I've used the Fit Plus and Resort the most.
I went cycling, did a lot of stepping without falling completely off the balance board, did some super hula hooping--don't laugh, it really makes you sweat if you keep going--did some rhythmic boxing, some running in place....and some canoeing.  I can definitely feel it and I certainly worked up a sweat.
I'd love to try to use it during the week, even if it's just a half hour.

So far I can only handle the beginner boxing thing--the advanced got too confusing!  And I couldn't keep up, so I'll just keep repeating the beginner stuff for a while.

And while the canoeing may not seem too exciting, it got my upper body moving in a way that hurt for days...it's getting easier and less painful.
I have consistently failed anything related to balance, so it's pretty funny to watch my little Mii weaving all over the place.  I have gone off a few cliffs....
There's still way more to explore, but it's interesting.
After doing some research about statins, CRP and diet, I guess I just have to suck it up and really police myself.  I don't want to take any more drugs if I really don't have to, and if I can get this stuff under control with consistent exercise and diet, then I'm really going to have to get serious about it.  I know I've probably said something like that repeatedly over the course of this blog, so at what point do I buckle down and stick to it?
Here's to attempt 3,562....

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

Ahhhh April vacation.

Made it to this one hanging on by my fingernails!

Just got back from a couple of days on the Vineyard, one of my favorite places in the world.  This time we actually stayed at the Kelley House!  And did lots of beach walking--all over South Beach and then by the Gay Head cliffs in Aquinnah.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous--in the 80s on Monday and Tuesday and sunny right up until we boarded the ferry home.  Funny how close the island is, but you can feel like you're miles away from home.  I think Mr. W needed the break more than I did since he's currently napping at 1:30pm.

How can I eliminate the word "busy" from my vocabulary?  I can't tell if I'm using it more because I really am busy, or if I'm using it to cover up for the stuff I haven't gotten done yet....but last week was busy.  Lots of stuff going on at school, lots of stuff needing to be graded.  Mr. W marched in the Patriot's Day Parade this past Monday, and he looked quite handsome in his uniform.  Tall too.  The parade started at 9, so I made it just before 9, not realizing that most of the streets would be blocked off and I wouldn't be able to park at the firehouse.  That caused a lot of speedwalking, but I managed to catch the start of the parade and then the ceremonies at the North Bridge.  We met up with Sis-in-Law afterwards for lunch and then headed for MV.
The day before, Mr. W got tix to the Red Sox game, so we went with Aunt L and Sis-in-Law.  They won and it was a great game. Awesome seats too.  Did dinner afterwards--all in all, a great day.

Been trying to restart my previous commitment to working out more regularly since my most recent bloodwork showed my CRP elevated still at 8.  3 is bad, so 8 must be really bad.  Sigh. Dr. N left a message saying she wants to put me on statins to help lower the CRP, but I found a lot of anti-statin articles that had some pretty scary side effects.  Exercise and diet will help if I can be consistent with them, so I think I'll start there and redouble my efforts.  There are so many things that can increase the CRP, cancer included.  Problem for me is my sweet tooth...I love sweet stuff, and the gooier the better.  Double sigh.  So I finally got my Wii connected and have been playing with it.  I am so uncoordinated though--I've failed all the balance tests!  I like it though, and I did feel like I got a workout when I finished.  Between that, walking and the bike I should be ok.  I think I'm supposed to call Dr. N back, but I'm avoiding it....she didn't mention whether or not I was undetectable, so I guess she's not taking that as seriously?  I'm supposed to have a WBS in either May or June, so I guess I will have to call her back to set that up.  Not looking forward to doing the LID again, but if I can use thyrogen shots instead of the 6 week slow withdrawal from levothyroxine, I can survive.

I think I'll go suck down a salad for lunch.

Where is my mind?

Maybe I left it in Turks and Caicos?

No, it was absent prior to the trip.  How else can I explain the terminal E/B confusion?

I'm on a brain fritz again.  Right now I am unable to find my datebook.  I think I saw it last week, but I can't remember where.  For some reason, I stopped writing my daily to-do lists.  I can survive for a few days without the lists, but if I go too long, I'm overwhelmed.

Right now, I've managed to overwhelm myself.

I thought I had a hair appointment today at 5pm.  I'm pretty sure I wrote it in my large datebook that stays on the kitchen counter so Mr. Wonderful can figure out what is going on.  I went to the salon, and no one was there.  I waited for half an hour and then gave up.  I did use the time to make a grocery list so I wouldn't be lost at the giant Market Basket.  Somehow I still managed to forget the sour cream.

Anyway, that's my tale of woe today.  I wonder when I was supposed to get my hair cut?  Sometimes I wonder if I put so much effort into keeping it all together at school that I'm too worn out to keep it up at home.  Sigh.
What drives me nuts about these memory issues is how they come and go...the inconsistency just messes with my head and complicates things unnecessarily!  Groan....

Update:  Ha!!  I am not losing my mind.  Well, not completely.  I located my datebook under a pile of stuff still not put away from the TCI trip.  Unfortunately I hadn't written anything down in it about my hair appointment.  I called the salon, and it turns out my appointment was moved to tomorrow night at 5:30 because of a conflict the hairdresser had.  Now I can't remember if she ever called to change it...

At least I'll have the gray covered tomorrow and won't look too freaky for Easter.  

Whew! 

TCI 2012

What a great trip!!  I pulled off the "surprise sister for her birthday" trip to Turks and Caicos, or at least she's letting me think I did.

Look at me I'm almost 40! 

I had a blast.
We were on the beach by lunch the day we arrived.  We went Saturday morning and came back Tuesday night.
Ok, things didn't start out that well when Mr. Wonderful dropped us off at Terminal E like I thought--international flights always go out of E, right?   Then, after he was gone, and we were wandering around the terminal, I realized that we should have gone to B.  *&^#@).  Sis wasn't very happy, and I was panicking about what this could mean for the rest of the trip!  We trekked all over the airport but made it to terminal B, had some breakfast and got on a plane loaded with toddlers.  There were sooooo many babies! Who knew that TCI was such a baby haven?
So we were at the beach restaurant for lunch, checked in by 2:30 and headed for the beach.

Grace Bay

We sat there for the next two days.  And it was heaven.  From 10 am until sunset.  Paradise.  Heaven I tell you. 

The water was gorgeous.  There was nothing to do except read, watch people meandering up and down the beach, and occasionally go in the water to cool off.  

The water was such a beautiful shade of blue, and it kept changing with the sun and clouds.  There were tons of things to watch--kayaks, Hobie cats, stand up paddlers, parasailers, snorkelers...it was a never-ending stream of activity, but peaceful at the same time.

The sunsets were breathtaking.  

We strolled the beach and found the supermarket. 

After we paid $5.50 for this bottle below at the resort's "convenience store".  It was $1.79 at the market.  Prices in TCI are pretty high.  

Aside from sitting on the beach, we also had some great food.  First, we had lunch and dinner at Hemmingway's, right on the property.  Fell in love with the Chop Salad and Chicken Curry wrap.  Mmmm.  Sampled tons of seafood.  We also had a fun dinner at Grace's Cottage at the resort next door to ours.  It turned into Sis' birthday dinner once we saw that one option on the menu was a bottle of wine for $2600...no, we didn't order it, but we did turn dinner into a splurge.  And the food was phenomenal.  

This was the appetizer known as Grace's Trio--a scallop, some lobster spring rolls, a little salad and the container of stuff...we weren't sure if the container was actually a dipping sauce for the roles, or if it was a sampler of conch chowder....there were two spoons on the plate, so we figured it was chowder.  But we were never completely sure, so we probably made quite a scene--did we eat the dipping sauce like a chowder?  It was, um, confusing.  :)  

We also sampled the local brew, perfect on a hot day in the sun with conch fritters and fries. 

But not too much because it was over $6 a bottle! 

Our room had a distant view of the ocean, but our room was actually a small apartment complete with a full kitchen, washer dryer, screened in porch, dishwasher, living room, dining room....beautiful!  I'd go back again.  

View of part of The Sands at Grace Bay.  Great thing right now is that there is nothing on either side of this particular resort, so the beach feels roomy and uncrowded.

It was such a great break from life for a couple of days.  Sis said it was exactly what she wanted, and said she felt so relaxed.  We did a pretty good job with the sunblock too.  Well, she did.  Me, not so much.  I totally forgot on the third day to put sunblock on my face.  I don't know why, I just did.  I went out into the sun with my sunglasses on and stayed in the water for a couple of hours.  And then I went under the umbrella for the rest of the day.  Imagine my surprise at the end of the day to see giant (and I mean giant) raccoon eyes, bright white against flaming red.

So not pretty. 

I took a picture  the morning we were leaving--my face was soooo swollen and sore!  The rest of me was ok--no sunburn anywhere else Thank God, just on my face and neck area.  Sis thought this pic was funny.  Ha ha.  Ouch. 

I've burned badly many times over the course of my life, but never like this.  I wonder if it was just a stronger sun, or if my lack of thyroid/meds/screwed up hormones came in to play and made it worse?  Or am I just trying to pass the blame?  

I've had lots of interesting comments over the past few days, but I don't want to remember them.  Let's just say that a group of gasping teens is not a great way to start the day off on your first day back at school.  (lol) And to think they asked me if I'd tan....

It's better today, if you can call peeling an improvement.  

So, overall, without the sunburned face, I'd give the trip a 10.  Add in the sunburn, a 9.  It was great to just hang out for a couple of days with Sis and celebrate with her.  After all we've gone through over the past few years, this was perfect.  Happy Birthday to you!  

National Foreign Language Week 2012

I mentioned this a couple of posts ago, so I figured I'd update.  I survived the week!  And we actually did some stuff that has potential for the future.
I have to give kudos to the teachers in my department who put in the extra time and effort to plan some activities during the week, and all were done after school with no compensation (take that anti-teacher people)--we had three after school foreign film days in German, Chinese and Italian, complete with food.  Funny how Nutella was a key ingredient in all three....We had dance lessons for salsa, tango, flamenco and bachata for Spanish, and French had a food fest that was amazing.  Some kids wore flag colors and stuff related to their heritage--I wore my bright Kelley green Irish rugby shirt.  Any excuse to throw on jeans!
We ended the week with Public Declamation--21 kids declaimed in Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and French.  We had three students open the declamation with a song in Fillipino to represent just one of the languages spoken by kids at school.  5 posters were submitted to a state-wide contest about language learning.
So, all in all, I was happy with how things went.  It's a start, and hopefully it can continue next year.  I liked the dance lessons--they were fun and the kids were adorable.   I was dead by Friday, but it got the department some attention.