We had a little storm up here...

One Saturday I woke up and headed out to this amazing spa to meet my friend Rachel. I grabbed a strawberry yogurt on the way (single serving!) and had 2/3 of a Zone Bar and a handful of the little Kashi crackers.

At the spa, there was a Korean restaurant, so I shared some food with my friend - I had 3-4 beef dumplings, a few bites of beef, a few bites of rice, and some of the veggie sides that come with Korean food - ban chan. Oh, and a glass of watermelon juice - that was my big indulgence!

After soaking, steaming, scrubbing and massaging, we decided to stop by her parents' home, where she is staying for a while - her dad is very sick with pancreatic cancer and she is helping her mother care for him. Your prayers for him are very appreciated! Unfortunately, right after we picked up some dinner and parked in the drive, a HUGE tree crashed down and totaled her car! Ten minutes later, all the lights went out. No one could drive me anywhere, cause the tree was blocking the drive, there were no street lights, there were roadblocks everywhere because of other trees that had come down and there were live electric lines. I stayed over, but my poor friend and her family were having to make all sorts of very difficult decisions about her dad's care...I tried to be helpful, a voice of reason laying out options and helping them make lists of questions to ask doctors on Monday morning.

They wanted to order heros from an Italian restaurat for dinner, so I had shrimp parm, off the bread. 4 jumbo shrimp,  battered, covered in tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese...and we sat around the table for such a long time, that I ended peeling the crust off the hero roll and eating it with butter. And I ate babka, a coffee cake with R and her mom later...and again the next morning. I finally subtly requested to cook everyone eggs, so I managed to bring out some protein - we had scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese. I had a few crackers with cream cheese and tomatoes, cause I didn't want to have an untoasted bagel, and a few slices of cheddar cheese - remember, the power was out! Thank goodness for gas stoves.

I finally walked to the center of town this morning, and caught a local bus to NYC and finally arrived in Port Authoruty. I was so tired and stressed I wanted to treat myself with food, the way I am used to, and I considered several options, some better and some worse, and concluded I just wasn't all that hungry. When I finally got home, I cuddled up on the couch and finally ate a chicken egg roll and the few teaspoons of Thai rice and curry that were left over from Friday night...will have some dinner later.

My spa day was meant to take me away from my work stress, but it didn't really work - I was thinking about it the whole time, but thinking about how to be better. I also need to take down some of the details from my last post - I'm nervous I may have overexposed my professional life. And spending the evening and night at my friend's house, while they were dealing with such difficult issues - not relaxing! (I don't mean to be insensitive, just accurate - it was stressful for me to be around people at such a difficult point in their lives - deciding if they are going to try and prologue their family member's life, if it is what he would want, or ...it must be MUCH MUCH more stressful for them!)

When I got to Manhattan I thought about going shopping for the ever elusive work clothes, but decided since I was getting a fill on Wednesday, I anticipate another major drop, so shopping next weekend will be much more fun!