Posted on September 12, 2011 - by Ashley Jackson

Oops (I Did It Again)

Once again I wandered away and left my blog all alone on the great big Internet. It’s been a long time and I’m not even going to try to catch up on what’s happened since I last updated, other than to say that I now have a boyfriend. I say this because it explains both my long absence and the sudden surge in dining out. Also, why I’m talking in first-person plural in parts of my post.

(It does not explain why I’ve gained 15+ pounds since the beginning of this year, when I was so happy to be below 150. That’s my own fault.)

—

So I’ll just dive right back into posting like nothing happened.

Today was the first day I’ve worked since September 1st. I took a much-needed vacation and it was pretty awesome. Hands down the best vacation I’ve ever had–I barely thought about work, and when I did it was to think, “Huh, I’m not thinking about work.”

Tuesday we took a trip downtown to eat lunch and visit the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. I Googled around to find a restaurant we could walk to from the museum’s parking lot. That’s how I discovered The Oakwood Cafe, Raleigh’s only Argentinian-Cuban restaurant. I ordered the marinated chicken, which was smothered in onions and came with mojo sauce on the side. I also got the kidney beans,  which were delicious, and an order of tostones, which I got just to try and probably wouldn’t order again (they were pretty bland).

But now I can say I’ve eaten at Raleigh’s only Argentinian-Cuban restaurant.

Then we went to the museum, where this pretty cool fish lives.

Fish was all up against the glass, like some sort of overly friendly aquatic dog.

We also saw this Buddha-esque frog.

The main reason we went to the museum was to see the Living Conservatory, in which are living a sloth and many butterflies, among other things. I had to take a picture of this sign…

Despite working for PPQ, I am not authorized personnel. Sad times.

Later in the day there were donuts.

It was prep for a trip to Myrtle Beach on Wednesday. We drove straight to Margaritaville to meet up with my mom, aunt, brother, and sister-in-law. (My dad hurt his back Tuesday night and wasn’t able to join us–boo.)

I went with the Cheeseburger in Paradise. Margaritaville’s good, but the burgers are huge (and overpriced)–I ended up taking a third of mine to my dad at the condo.

Thereafter there were many donuts, and lots of swimming, and a tutorial game of Shanghai rummy.

Friday the boyfriend and I hit up Woodhaven Pancake House (home of the WaffleCam). I got two pancakes, sausage…

…and an order of delicious homefries.

I ate maybe half of the pancakes and all of the sausage and homefries, and spent the rest of the day whining about how I ate too much.

We went to Barefoot Landing to do some wandering around, and I had a delicious Diet Mountain Dew.

Glass makes every drink taste better. Unless there’s glass in your drink. I can’t imagine that would make it taste better.

For dinner that night I had this delicious plate of nachos.

And that was my trip to the beach. Hurrah.

Now that I’m back from the beach, I’ve decided to go back to not eating tons of crap. I’m participating in our latest wellness challenge at work, but my goal this time is to train for my half-marathon in November, not count calories like it was before. Subsequently, I haven’t been making an effort to eat better, until today.

Tomorrow I will blog about tonight’s adventure with making primal almond butter pumpkin brownies.