I've got a lot of things rattling around in my head today and it's been far too long since I've done a quality bullet-point post. So here we go:

• This week is all kinds of crazy. I've got several big deadlines at work and my brother's college graduation is Thursday so I'm only in the office until tomorrow.



• My sleep schedule is so out of whack. I'm not sure what happened, but lately I've been not able to fall asleep until late. I toss and turn for like 30 minutes and then have some weird dreams and keep waking up all night. Needless to say, I've been exhausted.



• Workouts have been sorely lacking because of exhaustion and pure laziness, and it's been making me feel crappy. I have no idea when I'll have time to fit something in this week. I'm going to try my hardest for a short run tonight. It will be better than nothing.



• My general motivation and desire to workout has been nonexistent lately. Not sure what that's about.



• My sweet tooth has been in high gear the last several weeks and my desire to eat healthy food is at an all-time low.

I'd say all of the above qualifies as an "unhealthy spell" and I need to bust out of it. Realistically, I can't get back to normal until the weekend, when I can catch my breath, but I can try to be more mindful of the healthy food at the very least. I guess that's life and I've got to roll with it.

On a positive note, I started preliminary research on my next cruise last night. I've got my eye on a Southern Caribbean cruise through Royal Caribbean in January. The cruise leaves out of San Juan, a port I'm completely unfamiliar with, which means flights would be pricey and I'd have to figure out possible hotel and airport-to-port transfers. Lots of little logistics for me to figure out. Perfect for my complete and total type A-ness.

Anyone sail out of San Juan and have any tips? I've cruised before, but never out of an port that's not in the U.S. Are customs procedures different, is check-in or out different?

As I mentioned in my cruise recap, I promised a post addressing our stop in Haiti in light of earthquake last month.

Royal Caribbean owns a peninsula in Haiti. It's a smallish portion of land that they pay money to the Haitian government to operate. The "island" employs several Haitians and there is also a marketplace where local artisans can bring their works to sell to the tourists.





Cruise ships stopping in the port bring in a lot of money to the country.

After the earthquake, there were a lot of questions about whether cruise ships would continue to dock there. The port is about 100 miles away from the earthquake site and suffered no damage. Royal Caribbean decided it would continue to dock there and eventually released an official statements with their reasons for doing so.



Many people disagreed with the decision saying it was ethically wrong to bring a bunch of vacationers to an island that was clearly going through a lot of suffering.

Other people took the position that the vacationers were bringing in a lot of money to a country that needed it badly to help rebuild.

That's pretty much where I fell in the whole discussion.

But I wanted to take a minute to illustrate some of the things Royal Caribbean is doing to help with the relief efforts.

1. They are bringing tourists to the island to spend money.

2. There is a donations area on the ship where passengers can pledge however much they want to the relief efforts.




3. When in port, tons and tons of relief supplies are being unloaded off the ship. I saw palettes of water being unloaded and tons of other boxes that I assume contained food and other supplies.

4. On my cruise the night before we docked in Haiti there was an auction of three cruise experiences: meeting the captain and blowing the ships horn, touring the galley and the engine room. Each was sold for several hundred dollars. I believe one was closer to $1,500. All the money went directly to the Haiti relief fund.



In running news, I busted out a 10K on the dreadmill last night. It was not the most enjoyable run ever. My hip nagged off and on. Great for the first 10 minutes, nagging for the next 20. Great for the next 15 minute. Nagging for the last 15.

I also noticed a little bit of shin splint action going on so this weekend I might finally go get myself some new shoes. Maybe they will help with the problem.

I'm also not sure how my runs on the ship were so pain free and now that I'm home the pain seems to be coming back.

You know how it is on vacation, you're away from home and your routine. You usually prepare few of your own meals and just want to kick back and relax.

There's nothing wrong with kicking back and relaxing. We all deserve to do that every once in a while. But you can do that and still be healthy.

So I thought I'd share a few of the tips that I used on vacation to stay healthy.

1. Enjoy dessert! Yes that's right. I had dessert every night on the cruise. If you restrict yourself you will be miserable and not enjoy vacation at all. So don't deprive yourself of a treat if you want it.



2. But what the size! You don't need five cookies or a huge slice of cake. Keep dessert portions small and savor them.

3. Fill up on fruits. In warm tropical locales, there's lots of delicious fruit that isn't always in season at home. It's sweet and delicious and juicy. Plus really good for you.


4. Exercise when you can. That doesn't have to mean going to a gym. I walked a ton on vacation and took the stairs everywhere I could. I supplemented that with the gym, but walking around a lot is great exercise.

5. Protein in the morning. My normal routine is cereal in the morning, but on vacation there were delicious veggie omelets every day and I found they kept me so full.

6. Try new foods. By trying new foods you can get all kinds of different vitamins and minerals that might be missing from your normal diet. Plus it's fun to expand your food horizons. I tried falafel for the first time.

Recap video:


Full of pictures and video I shot on the trip. Good if you just want a quick overview of the trip. The rest of the post is full of more pictures.

At the time of my scheduled post from last Friday, I was chilling at some random Best Western in Orlando. As far as hotels go, it was nothing special, but it had a free airport shuttle and free breakfast and Hotwire had hooked us up with a pretty sweet price at the last minute.

I was happy to be out of D.C. and the "Snowpocalypse."

Our couple days in Orlando were pretty uneventful. We didn't have a car, we had no plans since we hadn't expected to be there until Saturday afternoon and tickets to Disney/SeaWorld/Universal were way more than we wanted to pay for some random entertainment.

We did hit the Florida Mall to pick up some sunscreen and check out M&M World.




Saturday night we were in a gorgeous Sheraton Suites, the hotel we had originally booked. The BF and I spent some time Saturday walking around outside, enjoying the nice weather.




But Sunday was when the fun really started.



It was still chilly at Cape Canaveral until we headed south to some warmer temps.

Our first day spent at sea we relaxed. Lounged by the pool, ate some good food and had our first formal night.



I think the BF looked rather handsome all dressed up.

Day Two was our first port of call: Labadee Haiti, Royal Caribbean's private island. There's been a lot of criticism of Royal Caribbean for continuing to stop in Haiti after the earthquake. But that's another story for another post.

Labadee was our beach day so more time for relaxation.



Day Three we went to Jamaica where we toured a gorgeous botanical garden.


And climbed a waterfall. Not too many pictures from the waterfall climbing because I didn't have a waterproof camera. From all the reading I'd done, it didn't seem like the water would be all that deep, but there were times when it came up to my waist. Sadly, the deeper than expected water killed the BF's iPhone.


Day Four was the day I was most looking forward to: Grand Cayman Island. GC is supposedly a gorgeous island and very wealthy compared to the two other places we'd been so far. I was looking forward to swimming with stingrays at Stingray City and touring a turtle farm.

Unfortunately, the weather was bad. Winds at something like 28 mph and very choppy waves. The tender boats weren't able to make it out to our ship and sailed off.

I was so upset, but tried not to let it ruin the day. Instead the BF and I tackled the rock climbing wall.



Let me tell you, that was a workout. My arms were aching when I had finished.

The next day the weather was much better for our day in Cozumel.



We had a final day at sea where the weather was overcast and chilly, but it was a nice relaxing day before we headed home on Sunday.


And I came home to this:




Back to reality and winter.

First off, I want to say a big "Thank You" to all of the guest bloggers from last week. They covered some great topics so if you missed something, I definitely encourage you to go back and check them out.

Also I want to say "Welcome" to anyone who found my blog through one of my guest posters! I really enjoyed reading through all of your comments. And just as soon as I'm done playing catch up I'll make sure to drop by your blogs and say "Hi!"

Vacation was wonderful and after all the stress from two weeks ago about how we were going to get to Florida and avoid the snow, it was much needed.

I promise to give a better recap later after I've sorted through the 400+ pictures I took, but here are some quick highlights.



I managed to get in three treadmill runs without any hip pain!

Running on a treadmill on a moving boat that is rocking back and forth in the water is not easy.

I ate tons and tons of yummy food and somehow managed to not gain a single pound. Post on tips and tricks for not gaining weight on vacation coming later this week.

I climbed the rock wall.


I didn't sunburn! Major thanks to the SPF 50 for that one.


I promise more wonderful details later, but right now my car is buried under about four feet of snow and I have no food in my house. Off to shovel and grocery shop. What a wonderful welcome home present for me!