Rosemary Beach

On the IPOD "Orange Colored Sky" by: Natalie Cole


Ugh! I feel like I've been holding back for a week, but it is a scary world out there and it was just better to not expose that my entire family was out of town!

So last Friday night my brother Adam, his wife Audra, my brother Andrew, his girlfriend Natalie, Mike, my Mom and I set out on an adventure to Rosemary beach, Florida. My mom rented a house there for all of us to stay in to celebrate her 70th birthday, which was in March but this is when we could all get away. We drove there; 3 cars, 14 hours, at least 3 hours of blinding rain on the way there, not exactly fun, but we made it at about 2pm Saturday afternoon (this is why the timing on the shot last week was so important...didn't really want to pull over on the side of the road with my mom in the back seat!!). I have been looking forward to this trip for months, I was also slightly nervous about it (a large amount of very strong personalities = disaster.) But I had gotten myself ready with the mantra "I will not be engaged!" And I held my ground pretty well.

I decided to let the diet go for one week and to enjoy this time with my family. I went into it knowing that the hormone shots were going to make me bloated and hungry and guess what, they lived up to it. I'm still carrying about 5 pounds of water weight and I'm not thrilled about it but hopefully in the next week it will all even out. The best thing about the trip was my morning run. Every morning I got up around 5:30 or 6:00 and ran on the beach. I'm not a big runner but running on the beach is different, it is like a meditation. The sand between your toes, the waves crashing against your feet, and the sun rising above your head. It still takes my breath away when I stare out into what looks like a never ending horizon of water. For that hour, I allowed myself to be in my head. This week I'm going to delve into all of those thoughts...my plan was to write blogs while I was in Florida each day and wait to post them until we got back but on the first day my husband gave me this look and said, "I need you to be here, that can wait." Well what are you supposed to say to that??? That is why you got two very short blogs in the last week. although the recipe part was true I did make some awesome dinners on the trip!!

To be honest, I am being extremely hard on my self about the 4-5 pounds staring at my face when I step on the scale, but I'm hoping since my hands hurt when I squeeze them together and my ring is tight, that it really is just water weight! I posted some more pictures from the trip on my facebook page. And today I'm going to post a video of the ocean that is pretty calming. If you are not my friend on facebook feel free to add me! This was a really emotional trip for me and I can't wait to share my thoughts with you...stay tuned!

xoxo chef a