The combined damage of my injury and cruise is around 9 pounds and a couple of inches. That’s 9 pounds and two inches gained between November 5th and December 20th. The breakdown is about 4 lbs and 1 inch due to the injury, and 5 lbs and 1 inch during the cruise. Overall, not as bad as I feared . . .

. . . but it does mean I am at 184 lbs . . . and it means a few months to get back in shape (no rushing for me; I still want to snack, eat well (if less), and not overdo exercising in trying to get back to my routine).

My estimate is 5-6 pounds loss in the next two weeks, and then four to six weeks for the remaining pounds. I will likely not stop there. I want to get down to 170 lbs . . . of course, the weight is secondary . . . I won’t care much about weight as long as I slim down. I’m already carrying more muscle than I did when I quit racquetball. Other than having had to donate a few t-shirts, it’s not a bad thing.

But these next few days are R&R days.

By Monday we plan to be back to our regular routine (plus a bit more exercise and a bit less eating).

I also need to finish the NaNoWriMo novel. I did some writing on the ship, but not as much as I wanted, and I might scrap it all, opting instead for a fresh continuation from where I left off. Before getting back to it, I am faced with the happy task of re-reading the story so far.

Speaking of writing, I got an honorable mention from my ‘Water Wars’ submission to Writers of the Future (mentioned HERE). If what I am reading is correct, that narrows me down to the top 5-15% of the entries, depending on the number of submissions.

Before readers start jumping up and down and yelling congratulatory cheers, here’s the breakdown on the levels:

You Suck
Honorable Mention
Silver Honorable Mention
Semifinalist
Finalist
3rd Place winner
2nd Place winner
1st Place winner

So, I cleared the ‘you suck’ level, but I am a long way from anywhere. However, I do get a certificate (which I will post once I receive it), and it does encourage me to send in another submission (before the December 31 deadline). Lest I appear unappreciative, let me say it’s nice to hear the story I sent out did OK.

I might even submit to other markets . . . eventually. First priority, closing out NaNoWriMo No. 2.

By the way, on the plane home I re-read my first NaNoWriMo novel. I found a few errors and a couple of things that needed fixing (inconsistent abilities/limitations), but overall it was still a fun read. All that proves, of course, is that I am still my No. 1 fan.

I have not loaded up the (Nikon) trip photos yet, but I did play with a few in Lightroom. Just some quick processing, but still better, and larger, than what I’ve been showing. As usual, you can click on them to have them open larger in another window or tab.

I want to thank readers for the kind comments I got for the posts I put up during the cruise . . . but, the reality of it is that most of the photos were saved highly compressed and small. They looked fine on the phone, but when I look at the posts on my PC screen, I find them really lacking.

These next are a sampling of the phone photos, some that have not yet appeared on any posts. Still not presented at full size, but most are better than what was previously shown.

As I said, not Nikon-quality, but overall not bad. Some are a tad over-processed, but I’ve already turned down the in-phone processing as much as I can.

Remembering these are from a phone camera has me repeating . . . overall, not bad.

Finally, while traveling I did not read any of the blogs I subscribe to because of the data limit I was under. I will make an effort of catching up, but I fear it will be a monumental task. I will likely opt to start reading posts from tomorrow on, and not worry much about what I missed. Not that I won’t glance at what was posted, but I might not interact as much, nor read as deeply. Sorry.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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. . .  my FP ward  . . . chieken shit.