After the last week of COLD, COLD Christmas week weather, I was longing to jump ship and head right back to Palm Springs! It was hard to believe that we were lounging in deck chairs one day and freezing our butts off the next. Christmas was sooooo COLD! This year, we opted out of our huge seafood feast and BBQ'd for Christmas Eve instead. It was nice to have a home cooked meal for a change (did I really just say that??). After eating out, three meals a day for the entire vacation, we were longing for some of our own comfort food. Everyone made it for Christmas Eve and we opened a few gifts, had a few drinks, ate a lot of food and enjoyed Mom's homemade candy and chocolates. Christmas Day, we ate more, drank more and totally over did everything! So, on Boxing Day, I headed to the gym, with Megan, for "Turkey Buster". It was three hours of sweat and pain, but boy did I ever feel good afterwords. I did Zumba, Spin Class, Ripped Core, and then Yoga. By the time that I was done, I felt great! The strain of carrying my purse around for a week on vacation had started the whole neck pain thing up again and the Yoga was just the right thing to straighten it up. I should have known that a little thing like a purse was enough set things off, even lightening the contents of my purse didn't help, so I came home with a pain in the neck that even Simone could not diminish after a two hour massage. I didn't really want to start doing inventory right after Christmas, but we had to give up a couple of days of the holidays to get it done. That didn't help my neck pain either! I have decided that 2013 is going to be the year that I tame that beast. I have been living with this inflamation for too long. If I have to go to Yoga every day of 2013, then I am going to get'r'done. For me, that means, no blood sugar spikes that fuel the inflamation. Which means no sugar or white flour in my diet. While the acupuncture treatment was very effective to stop the sugar cravings, it only worked when I was going for acupuncture, and about three weeks after my last treatment, the cravings returned. Hence, I am going to have to go every month as long as I am still feeling the pull. Because Mike has to be careful about what he eats, I am going to execute a RADICAL change in both of our diets. Most of my New Year's Resolutions this week revolve around diet and lifestyle changes for 2013. I have also decided to make my Project Life album about the proposed "health" plan, in the hopes that by keeping a weekly record of our successes and failures (I expect it will take some doing to weed out the salt, sugar and white flour from our diet) it will keep me on track and out of trouble. Time will tell! Tonight for supper, I am making Fisherman's stew, as we are supposed to be eating way more fish. Mike does not know it, but there are olives in the mix. He would not eat it if he knew, so I chopped them up really small and hid the jar in the garbage. It smells good, but looks a little funny. I'll report back!