Friday October 16, 2020

View from my room @ 6:45 am:

The high rise buildings all along the boardwalk here in Virginia Beach are not attractive from the beach but man the view from the 19th floor is stupendous! Mike is already out with Justice at 7 am - he takes him out first thing every morning now. I am getting spoiled!

We are staying here all day but it will be raining this afternoon. Hopefully we can still sit on the balcony and not get wet. The room is in a brand new Hyatt and is a studio suite with a mini-kitchen. What a step up from the last two places!!!!

Here is Neptune along the boardwalk:

Have a safe, healthy And social day!

ETA 7:15 view:

Weight: 153.8

I feel a lot heavier. Glad I faced the scale, though.

Liz-I had to check in because I'm loving your travel photos!

Boy, 2020 sure has thrown a wrench into our plans. Even our last-minute smallish plans. October was going to be a busy month for me between taking a weekend to visit friends who moved to Kansas City and going to see my uncle in Phoenix. You might recall that my uncle had to be placed in a memory care facility and between trying to get him acclimated there and covid, we had to cancel that trip. I realize now I may never see my uncle again. I suppose he probably won't know the difference. I'm sad, however, that I may never see my cousins/aunt again, either. But I am also really hoping things improve in time that my mom gets to see her brother.

This weekend is when we were supposed to be going to KC. Babysitter plans got all messed up but luckily my parents came to the rescue...only to find out yesterday that our friends had covid exposure and now must quarantine for 14 days. Booo. But thankfully so far they are healthy and symptom-free.

So instead we get stuff done around here. Rich has a new car that cannot fit in our 3rd bay currently. We need to get motivated to clean out the garage. Get motivated! That is definitely something I need more of!

I finally scored a set of the adjustable dumbbells that have been quite hard to find since covid. My gym still isn't offering childcare so I just need to cancel that. The limitation to the adjustable dumbbells is that Rich and I cannot use them at the same time. But I do have two sets of lighter weights that will probably go pretty far for my needs.

In the meantime, 2 toddlers is hard. I already have a lot of stomach issues and I now think they are exacerbated by stress. By the time the girls are ready to go down to bed (and cranky) I literally have a stomach ache. I may have to take up yoga or meditation. I worry about everything all the time. And 99% of it is out of my control. I'm trying to do better. But it's honestly a HUGE problem for me. If any of you have any cool meditation or yoga ideas, I'd love to hear.

Bonnie, I think you're doing great considering everything on your plate. I think you deserve an A. :)

And about meditation/yoga, I don't think I would function very well for very long without my morning 20" meditation and (usually) 30-40" of yoga at home (no more live yoga classes for me until this damn pandemic calms down).

The good thing is that I don't have to attempt to do meditation or yoga "perfectly," because neither of those things is about "perfection." And as it turns out nothing else in life is about perfection either. :) There's only getting up, suiting up, and showing up. And that's my current plan.

Liz, your beach pictures make me feel calm. I can smell the salt air.

Bonnie, I feel your pain. We should have flown down to Mexico City for a blow out party to celebrate my Bff and her 60th birthday. Instead we're spending the weekend in Door County, which is lovely with fall color, but certainly not a long weekend in a fabulous world class city.

We ate outdoors last night with the temperature hovering around 40degrees. We sat on blankets we brought along, and then used the restaurant's supplied several lined blankets. I wore my Irish sweater, 2 pairs of socks, had a handwarmer under my blanket in my lap, coat, hat gloves... And we weren't the only ones. Our table had a gas fire pit, so that also kicked off some heat. It was bearable at first, and then pretty comfortable once we were eating. When we were here in August, I wore a summer dress and a light wrap to this same restaurant.

This morning it is bright and sunny, it's 42 right now, high of 48 predicted! Unseasonably cold. But here we are ....

Not sure what our plans are, probably visit some wineries that we didn't visit last time we were here, a walk in the state park, looking for a warning place to eat...

Have a great time! Our temps here dropped over the last hour from about 75 to 60 with a very chilly north wind. At least it isn't 48!

Lots of posts on my Facebook feed of snow in my neighborhood. It maybe chilly here, but at least it's not snowing!

My company had an office in Hampton Roads next to Norfolk so I used to go there a lot. There is an old area of Norfolk called Ghent that was neat and had great restaurants. But it's about a half hour from Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach was very touristy as I recall! She-crab soup was great though!

Super touristy! My son went to Old Dominion in Norfolk for 3 years so I know the area fairly well. Mike hadn't been here though. The view makes up for it and we are going to a really cute restaurant not far from here which has the best she-crab soup ever and we can eat on the porch. BTW, it is spookily quiet here due to Covid but it makes it easy to stay away from people.

Then you know! Have some soup for me!

LIz, your pics are lovey! I love the Neptune statue. The hand on the sea turtle looks abnormally large. Must be the perspective!

I spent a week in Virginia Beach when I was 13 - so 43 years ago. All I really remember was getting stung by jellyfish and then getting a green plum square in the eye when we were playing war in my friend's neighborhood lake/pond. From Virginia Beach I went back to NY to stay with my aunt and uncle. I remember vividly flying into NYC that summer during a huge electrical storm that blacked out NYC. My plane was one of the last to fly into the airport.

Nice to "see" you, BB!

Weight is pretty stable at the high end of currently acceptable.

I continue to learn more about my eating behaviors. I am loathe to admit, but must, that I have a food reward system firmly in place: "Whoo hooo! The work day is done! Yes, you DESERVE a few chocolates!" or "Look at what you just completed! That took a lot of work and commitment. You are so dedicated. Maybe a spoonful of ice cream?"

Another tactic in my arsenal of disordered eating is this one: "It's only a piece of chocolate (or small cookie, or spoonful of ice cream, or a handful of nuts). It won't really have any consequence. Go ahead. You know you really WANT to." Both of these methods of thinking are significant daily obstacles.

I am a bit concerned that something is going on with my eye that had the cataract surgery. I occasionally still get a strange line of darkness on the very right side of my vision and sometimes it feels like the new lens is shaking. Yesterday my vision was blurry in that eye, but today is better. No clue.... Maybe something scratched the cornea? It is a little red. I put in some left over drops, just in case I might be battling a little bit of blepharitis.

Oh, I fessed up to Ron about part of my medical visit. He laughed and was completely good natured about it. I think he is baffled because he thinks I'm so good looking. How can you not love THAT!?

DD -Enjoy Door County! Shirl - When will you go to the Farm to see the new calves? Diane Mc - Where are you????? Ann - Don't be a stranger... David - miss you... Diane S....love your musings about aging!

Be well.