Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 -- Mattie died 119 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2002. This was Mattie's first Christmas and that year he had some adorable Christmas outfits that seemed to capture his personality. This reindeer onesie was a real cutie, because on the back of it was a reindeer embroidery with an actual fluffy reindeer tail sticking out. I happen to love this picture because it seems to capture Mattie smiling. That year I took dozens and dozens of pictures of Mattie in hopes of introducing our friends and family to the essence of Mattie on our Christmas card. This wasn't the final picture chosen for our card that year, I will show you the one I selected tomorrow night.

Quote of the day: Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm ... As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others. ~ Audrey Hepburn

Today was our first full day at sea. Both the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea have been quite choppy, with the Sea reaching 7 to 12 foot swells. The ship is significantly rocking back and forth and if it weren’t for Dramamine, it would be a very unpleasant journey for me. Naturally Dramamine has its own draw backs, because it makes me feel very tired, lethargic, and want to sleep.


Peter started his day off very early at the ship’s gym to exercise. Peter loves the morning hours when most people are still sleeping and the ship is calm and peaceful. I am glad he is making time to do something for himself, which typically he wouldn’t do.

My mom and I started the day with an hour long high impact zumba class. This class is quite different from the one we took on the last cruise. However, this class reminded me of the class I take at home and knowing a good portion of the steps helped me significantly. Unlike the last class I took on the ship, today I was not lost.

After zumba, we moved onto a cha cha class. I stood in the line with all the men, and learned their steps while my mom, who was my partner, learned the steps for women. I was not fazed to be in line with the men, and they did not seem taken aback to have me there either. Most likely this was the case because we were all trying to learn the steps and the timing to the music.

All four of us convened for lunch, walked about the ship, and then attended a lecture series on Aruba. Aruba is our first port which we arrive at on Thursday morning. The lecture series was well attended and I am very grateful to the fact that the speaker was only given 35 minutes to present, because he simply read from his PowerPoint slides and made something that could have been rich and vibrant seem very plain and ordinary.

Being at sea provides many challenges especially when the ship has a packed schedule of activities that entice you to be ON and engaged all the time. Finding a way to relax is challenging for us in general but when we follow a schedule even on vacation, it makes unwinding impossible. We are at sea all day tomorrow as well! I am beyond frustrated with the ship’s internet service which is SO SLOW. I am lucky when I can upload a blog posting and it goes through. Because of the slow connections I have decided to forgo all email correspondence because I found I got too frustrated waiting for pages to upload. So this is a two day break from my blackberry and electronic communications, which if you know me well, this is almost impossible to ask me to do. My blackberry is equivalent to my security blanket, a tool that became vital to me when Mattie was battling cancer. So these 48 hours have been an adjustment, as Peter can attest to from watching and observing me.