I ended up with a giant bag of  Doritos and a totally sketchy tuna salad sandwich.

It filled me up, which was all it needed to do…

After I got home, I finished off the butter cookies.

Then my fiance came over and we headed to church for the Lenten fish fry. $10 for all you can eat fried cod, boiled shrimp, fries, boiled potatoes, cole slaw, rolls, and salad? Yes, please!

Round one…ate all the fish, a bite of a roll, all the fries, and part of the slaw. Also, a side salad.

They also had lemonade, coffee, and tea available.

Round two…more fried cod and some of the boiled potatoes with butter.

The roll accidentally wound up on my plate and I didn’t eat it. But the cod was great–nice and thick–and boiled red potatoes are one of my favorite things ever.

Before we left, we stopped by a table in the corner and got a cookie each from some teens who were selling them for a mission trip.

On the way home, I realized I needed to go to Target, so we headed there next. It was a leisurely trip; we stopped in the book section and completed a Where’s Waldo? book.

After we got to my place, we put on The Princess Bride and I ate a lot of grapes.

Saturday morning I had a couple of errands I needed to run before we headed down to my parents’ house for the evening. The first thing on the list? Taking Heath to a rabies and microchip clinic held by a local cat rescue. His rabies shot “ran out” in late February and the cootie shot my fiance gave him didn’t take.

For a mere $5, we got Heath his shot, and also got to see him try to snap at the veterinarian’s assistant when he realized they were going to give him a shot. Fortunately, his Gentle Leader halter collar can double as a muzzle in a pinch. He was not happy, though; he refused to eat the treat they gave him until we were out of sight. I gave him a chicken and apple treat that I’d brought along for him, too, so he was doubly compensated for his trouble.

I spent part of the morning Googling pet-friendly restaurants in Raleigh so that the dog could come with us for lunch. We ended up at at Sonic drive-in, because it sounded good and we could eat in the car. I haven’t been to Sonic in a while, so I was unaware of this little development…

You can pay with your credit card or gift card outside! I thought this was terribly cool, but I realize that’s probably because I don’t get out much.

I knew we were having cheeseburgers for dinner, so I settled on a New York hot dog with tater tots and a Diet Coke.

Sonic tater tots are soooo gooood…

But boo for them for being out of the onions rings my fiance wanted, in the middle of a Saturday.

My hot dog was good, but I thought that between the spicy mustard, grilled onions, and sauerkraut, it would be more flavorful.

We got dessert there, too. I wanted a hot fudge sundae, but in addition to being out of onion rings, they were out of whipped cream. They also didn’t add the nuts I asked for. Oh well, still delicious.

Heath had a couple of tater tots and some water, but played it cool when I tried to take a picture of him drinking.

We decided to skip going to the pet supply store since we were on the wrong side of town and instead drove to Fuquay-Varina to donate five boxes and one bag of stuff that’s been hanging out in my den closet. I’ve been working on decluttering my apartment, and it’s bittersweet–part of me is glad that with every item I throw away, recycle, or donate, I’m freeing my apartment of some clutter, but looking at those boxes made me realize that they were full of things I never should have moved over from my old place. My philosophy now is to think hard about whether I want to keep something–when I move again later this year after we get married, is item x really something I want to take the time to pack in a box, carry out to the car, drive over to my fiance’s place, carry back in, and unpack? Or is it just going to go from being clutter at my place to being clutter at our place?

We drove to my parents’ house after we were done at the thrift store. I tried one of these lemon Twinkies immediately, even though I wasn’t really hungry. Should’ve stuck it in my purse to try later.

Lemon Twinkies? Delicious. I’m glad they’ll be around after Armageddon.

Dinner was chips, very addictive dip, baked beans, and the ginormous burgers my dad makes.

So good that I had to have mine with a bun.

After dinner, we had ice cream sundaes. This time there were walnuts and whipped cream! (And bananas!)

Sunday morning I slept in and got up too late to go to mass (it’s probably the last time I’ll be able to get away with that), but I did go to my class, and also dropped off a whole lot of plastic bags at the parish office that my fiance and I have collected. They’re going on to new/extended lives at the Catholic Parish Outreach food bank. Better there than under our cabinets!

After I left the church, I went to Fresh Market and Whole Foods. I came home $90 poorer and with more plastic and paper bags. Bah.

I decided to live dangerously and use the rotisserie chicken that I bought about a week ago in a Sunday afternoon salad.

I haven’t gotten food poisoning yet, so I think I’m in the clear.

I had a couple of grape leaves that I found at Whole Foods.

And some grapes.

Then I got in bed to read a book and ended up taking a four-hour nap. Thanks, daylight savings time!

When I woke up around 8PM, I threw together a plate of food for dinner.

Grapes, two stuffed grape leaves, grape tomatoes, carrot sticks, Cotswold cheese, smoked salmon trimmings, and some chopped liver. I never realized that chopped liver was a real thing until yesterday.

I did manage to finish my book before bed.

And I tried some of this fruit-juice-sweetened lemon-lime seltzer. It’s…interesting.

I was sitting in meetings today from 8AM to 3PM, including a lunch meeting, so the eats were pretty random. Someone left cupcakes in the break room and I snagged two, and ate an apple crumble yogurt in the morning.

I also had another apple crumble yogurt, two pieces of apple pie, a banana, a big bunch of grapes…

Came home and ate about half of the leftover almond butter cookie dough.

Tonight: adventures in cooking both spaghetti squash and pasta…

• By the end of the year, king-size (or “sharing size” ) candy bars will be no more, at least as far as Mars Inc. is concerned. The company is revamping their line so that no candy bar clocks in at over 250 calories. Bad news for Snickers fans, since the 280-calorie bars will no doubt get smaller as a result. Don’t worry, though–regular-size bags of peanut M&Ms are already 250 calories. I’m torn between the personal freedom to eat whatever I want and the feeling that this will be a good thing for people like me who really like candy (The Wall Street Journal: Mars to make all candy bars 250 calories or less)
• I don’t have all the background on this article, but it looks like a grad student posted some signs around downtown Raleigh stating how long it would take to walk from one point to another, and after they were taken down the city council voted to put them back up as a test. I usually don’t venture too far downtown, but when I do, I park my car and walk, so I think these signs are a great idea. The city council will decide whether to expand or drop the project later this summer. (WRAL: Raleigh to test downtown walking signs)
• Health.com tells us via CNN how to fake a good night’s sleep. As the sort of dedicated insomniac who can’t get a full night’s rest without a sleep specialist and off-label medications, I feel qualified to assess their tips for not acting like a zombie, and I’ve got to say that I’ve only tried two of them.  But using light in the morning to wake up is one of the techniques I use now–I have an alarm clock with a lamp attached that gradually brightens as it gets closer to wake-up time. (CNN: How to fake a good night’s sleep)
• Speaking of lost sleep, it’s almost time to spring forward. A lot of folks are haters when it comes to daylight savings time, but I’m looking forward to it–the extra sunlight at the end of the day means long walks after work. I do remember as a child being annoyed that I had to go to bed when it was still light outside, though. This history of daylight savings time and the reasons it’s implemented are pretty interesting. It’s Benjamin Franklin’s way of messing with us from the past! (MSNBC: Shedding light on daylight-saving time)

Anyone else out there see the good in daylight savings time?

It’s about how she decided to spend a year improving her happiness level by focusing on one aspect of her life each month. I’ve only read the chapters where she got her apartment organized (January) and worked to improve her relationship with her husband (February) so far, but so far I’m enjoying it. Several of the things she’s working on in those two chapters are things I’m also working on.

Whenever I see the title it makes me think of Happiness by Grant Lee Buffalo, sponsors of tonight’s post title…

Yesterday was one of those workdays where I was busy all day, but at the end of the day I felt like I hadn’t done anything. It was mostly seminars and paperwork. Bah! But paperwork is important, too. I think.

I had my usual breakfast yogurt, chased by a banana and some of my almond butter cookies while I was watching aforementioned seminar.

Lunch was a big salad with tomatoes, rotisserie chicken, blue cheese dressing, and multi-seed crackers.

I’ve always liked putting crunchy things on my salads. When I was younger and we’d go to Golden Corral after church on Sunday evenings, I’d make salad(s) and put those buttery rectangular crackers that the put out for the soup on top. I’d crunch them up with they were still in their packages and then dump them on top.

My fiance and I were meeting for dinner and he got to my apartment before I did. When I walked in, he’d already taken the dog for a walk and was in the kitchen washing dishes.

No, you can’t have him. He’s mine.

We decided to take a walk to Gonza’s Tacos y Tequila, in the hopes that there wouldn’t be a huge line to get in. The first time we went we had no trouble getting seated right away and the food was so great that we were eager to go back. The second time we went, the parking lot was packed and the line was practically out the door with a thirty minute wait, so we decided to try another restaurant instead.

Fortunately, last night there was only a ten minute wait, so we stayed. After we were seated, we ordered water and a bowl of queso with jalapenos in it.

We demolished the chips and queso. Maybe it was mostly me. The queso was uncomfortably hot because I’m a huge wimp when it comes to spicy food, but it was so good that I kept eating it after I’d finished off my water and was waiting for a refill, even though my mouth was burning.

Last time I was adventurous and got the enchiladas mole, but when my fiance and I taste-tested each other’s food, I super-loved the tacos carne that he got and ended up eating a whole one. So this time, I ordered my own tacos carne.

I got them with refried beans. They came in this little tostada and I picked it up and ate it like it was some sort of bean pizza until it got too soggy. This=not primal.

The tacos carne were delicious–so simple, but so tasty. I wish I lived in a house so I could have a grill that would grill steak like this. One day…!

My fiance and I tentatively decided before we ordered that we were going to “third” our food (as opposed to splitting it). So I traded him one of my tacos for a bite of each of his Mexican flag burritos.

I ended up with most of the excellent bean one that’s in the middle, topped with crema. The red one had steak and some sort of spicy sauce on it, and the green one was filled with chicken and topped with salsa verde. All delicious, but the bean one was my favorite.

One of the reasons I like Gonza’s Tacos y Tequila: the owner, or at least the guy who I think is the owner, has come to our table both the times we’ve been there to check on the food (and last night to joke that I was a spy because he saw me taking pictures of the food ), or said goodnight to us on the way out. Excellent food+reasonable prices+good service+management on the floor interacting with the customers=big win in my book. If you’re in Raleigh, you should definitely check the place out!

We walked to the store afterwards to pick up a few things I needed, and discovered closeouts in the ice cream section. I wanted some Ben and Jerry’s but since my beloved Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is off limits til after Easter, I decided to try the Cheesecake Brownie instead.

The ice cream part of it was cheesecake flavored and was wonderful, as all things cheesecake are, but the brownie part was just meh. (Didn’t stop me from finishing the rest of the container tonight. Oops.)

Today for breakfast I had this Dreaming Cow honey pear yogurt that my fiance’s parents brought me.

Then I had some more almond butter cookies.

And this sad lunch that I tossed together on my way out the door.

I had caffeine too late in the evening the first couple days of the week and it’s thrown my sleep off for the rest of it, so I’ve been getting to work later than normal and have felt more rushed than usual on the way out. Sad, ’cause I felt like I did really well with this last week, but there’s always next week to try again.

For some reason (well, because of the salami) I was extremely thirsty and despite downing several glasses of water, I had a hankering for something to drink. So I walked over to the drugstore and milled around for a couple of minutes trying to decide what to get. My old afternoon pick-me-up was a Diet Sunkist and a medium-sized bag of peanut butter M&Ms, which ran me over $6. Since the M&Ms are out until Easter, I decided to try some of that Pirate’s Booty that everyone’s always blogging about.

Big white sticker on the front=place where the 50% off coupon was. I scored my bag of Pirate’s Booty for 44 cents, so my snack was only $2.25. Hurray.

My thoughts on Pirate’s Booty white cheddar corn and rice puffs: the flavor could’ve been stronger, but I liked them. They reminded me of the white cheddar corn puffs I used to eat when I was little.

When I got home, I ate a quarter of my leftover chicken and a huge pile of grapes. Oh, and the rest of the Cheesecake Brownie ice cream.

Got an 8AM meeting in the morning, better head to bed…

Upon arriving at the office, I started working before my computer had a chance to boot up. I downed a yogurt in the midst of the crazy busy-ness, then scrounged around for something to eat for lunch when noon came around. I came up with the last of the grapes, which I’d unceremoniously tossed into my purse on the way out the door, and some pistachios.

Not exactly a balanced lunch, but I worked with what I had. I also had part of the giant homemade lemon Larabar that I made a few months ago. The mother-bar has been chilling out in my freezer in my attempt to dehydrate it some, but I brought some into work Monday in case I wanted to snack on it there. There’s no picture because it’s revolting to look at it.

After getting my meeting on for the early part of the afternoon, I had a real raw food bar.

I’d been avoiding the cherry Pure bars that were in the  multipack that I bought, but this one wasn’t nearly as tart as I remember them being. Not sure if they actually changed something or if it’s just my tastebuds. Either way, it was a good thing.

On the way home, I decided that I didn’t feel like cooking anything for dinner. I stopped at the store and grabbed a rotisserie chicken, some bagged salad, and some salad dressing. Add some tomatoes and cheese for the salad and the leftover parmesan asparagus from Sunday and ta-da…

Instant dinner! I bought one of the salad dressings that was chilled in the case above the lettuce, and it was so good that I wanted to go back for more salad, but I stopped myself. Why, I don’t know.

I went to take a shower and found a slug in my bathtub.

Takes me back to my college days, when my suitemates and I found a mushroom growing next to our shower. I have no idea how this little guy got into my bathtub–did the dog bring him in? did he come in under the front door?–but I helped him out of it.

And then I bleached the bejeezus out of the shower.

I resolved to be lazy this evening even though I was planning to straighten up my apartment a little bit. It’s the sort of evening that typically would involve a trip to Cook-Out for a milkshake. But since I’m off candy for Lent and can’t get my beloved Reese’s cup shake, I decided to make some gluten-free butter cookies.

The raw dough was awesome.

I nibbled on it while mixing these up, then stuck what was left over after I cut the cookies out in the freezer for later snacking.

The only cookie cutters I have are Christmas ones, which are not very appropriate for March. I did the best I could with the wonky metal star I had.

These were fantastic; I just wish I had some cream cheese etc. around so I could frost them.

Off to read myself to sleep…

Two Double Stuf Oreos – two of the cookies = Quadruple Stuf Oreo!

There was also lots of the chocolate pie that I made, and various other leftovers. And of course, lots of yogurt and pistachios.

Work got pretty hectic towards the end of last week, but fortunately it was after I took some time off on Tuesday to go eat lunch with my fiance and do some volunteering at the food bank. We went to Worth It Cafe in RTP, and I had some delicious multicolored chips.

And a fried green tomato BLT, minus the pepper relish.

They kinda dropped the goat cheese on the top half of my sandwich, so I had to steal a fry to spread it out with, and I ended up taking off half of the bread because it was so thick. I was also confused because I’ve never had a fried green tomato before and I didn’t realize it would be breaded. But it was a good lunch–adequate sustenance for three hours of throwing around canned goods in the dark recesses of the food bank!

We met up with my fiance’s family that night for a trip to Johnny Carino’s. I was pretty hungry and took out more bread than I’ve eaten in the past month in one evening while we were waiting to order.

I was going to order a house salad to eat before my entree came out, but just as the waitress got to me I decided to get the Italian wedge salad.

“Iceberg wedge, applewood smoked bacon, candied pecans, gorgonzola, roma tomatoes and apple slices. Served with roasted garlic ranch”

I wish this picture could convey how AWESOME this salad was. It was delicious. If I ever go back to Johnny Carino’s, I might just get this to eat.

But since I was starving, I did duty by my Italian pot roast.

I got the potatoes instead of the spaghetti and managed to put most of it away. It was spicier than I would’ve liked or I might have finished it completely.

I typically work at home on Wednesdays, but ended up at the office so that I could plow through some work that needed my colleagues’ input. After a long day, I headed over to my fiance’s place and we went out for a delicious Char-Grill dinner.

We split an order of fries…

And I got my usual–

–1/2 lb cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, onions, and mayo, hold the bun. I also got a chocolate milkshake because I hadn’t eaten much earlier that day, and because it’s always fun to order something low-carb and then top it off with a milkshake. We ate outside because it was beautiful out. Now it is cold.

We also played Fluxx, one of the games I got him for Christmas. I won and then did a victory dance, because he’s beaten me (at least) twice at Scrabble, once at Jack, and once at Guillotine. Hmph.

Since I didn’t work at home on Wednesday, I did it on Thursday. I put a plate of munchies together for lunch.

Peppers, spinach dip, a tomato, provolone, salami, and some grapes. Later I had a banana…

I always used to peel my bananas using the little pull-tab, but my fiance claims this is the way to do it. To my surprise, it works a lot better to peel it from the “bottom.” Hmmm…

I take advantage of my workplace’s flexible scheduling by working extra time nine days out of every two-week pay period so that I can take a Friday off every other week. And, as mentioned above, I work at home most Wednesdays. It’s a pretty sweet gig. But Friday I didn’t have anything planned for my day off, and I really needed to get some work done, so I went to the office and put in my 8.75 hours. I decided to reward my work ethic with a trip to Subway.

There’s tuna somewhere on that sandwich. And “American” cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and mayo. It was a pretty pathetic sub–I had more tomatoes on the above-pictured Char-Grill burger than I did on my entire footlong–but oh well. It was good enough. I ate half of my footlong for lunch and popped the rest in the fridge, double-wrapped so as not to offend any co-workers.

Some of the many pistachios I ate last week…

I ate dinner at work, because I was staying until 6PM and I was hungry. I wanted some Doritos, but the new crappy vending machine didn’t have any, so I settled for some salt and vinegar chips.

I finished the evening by eating four orange cinnamon rolls.

Oops.

After a busy weekend and a busy workweek, it was nice to have a relaxing weekend. We took some electronic equipment to the recycling center, visited the used book/music/game store, and went to Zaxby’s for lunch.

We’ve been trying to figure out how to dine out without spending as much, so we’ve been getting water at restaurants and splitting an order of fries. At Zaxby’s, we figured out that instead of spending $5.99 twice on two five-piece chicken tender combos with fries and Texas toast, plus the cost of ordering sodas, we could order a la carte–a 10-piece order of chicken tenders, one order of fries, an order of Texas toast, and water. We got all this for a little over $10, and the fact that it was inexpensive doubled the deliciousness.

We stopped at Whole Foods on the way back and discovered something that made me extremely happy…

My beloved yogurt! Turns out that when I thought it had been discontinued, I was on the Canadian site. Apple crumble Liberte yogurt appears to be alive and well in the United States.

We got some other favorites of mine at Whole Foods–a chunk of Cotswold cheese and a container of smoke salmon trimmings. We made dinner out of it.

And then we went to Dunkin’ Donuts, because I have an extreme donut addiction. I got a maple frosted, a glazed chocolate cake, and a “lucky mint.”

That lucky mint donut was the best donut ever. I ate it and the maple frosted that night, and the cake donut the next morning before church.

On the way home from church I stopped at Fresh Market, on a quest for more flavors of Liberte Mediteranee yogurt. I found lemon! Yay!

I also got some grape tomatoes, garlic hummus, delicious grapes, freeze-dried veggies, and dried peaches. Plus some salami and carrot sticks, that made up lunch…

I also got a container of banana pudding. It was about twice what fits in this bowl…

And it was pretty good, except that it needed more Nilla Wafers (there were only two!). Also, it had a LOT of bananas in it–my family’s banana pudding has a lot more pudding to it. Still delicious!

For dinner, my fiance and I made steaks (from Aldi), twice-baked potatoes, and asparagus with Parmesan cheese.

Wasn’t sure how the asparagus + cheese was going to work, but it was excellent.

This morning I had my first Liberte lemon yogurt.

The verdict?  It was good, but I’m going to put it in the same class as the french vanilla–I wouldn’t eat it every day.

Lunch was a big bunch of grapes, some carrots and tomatoes, hummus, salami, and a Babybel gouda.

I found gouda Babybels for the first time at Whole Foods–I’ve been wanting to try them for a while. But I usually eat smoked gouda, so these didn’t taste right to me.

Around snack time, I mixed some cottage cheese and peaches together in the only dish I had available.

And as the afternoon wore on and turned into evening, I had some crunchy veggies.

My fiance came over for dinner and we’d hoped to visit Gonza Tacos y Tequila again. Our first trip there was great, but the second time we tried to go it was going to be a half hour wait, so we headed to another restaurant for dinner. I’m very happy that Gonza’s is doing so well–they’re packed pretty much every time I go by, if they’re open–but I wish they weren’t so crowded that we couldn’t get in! We tried again tonight, only to remember as we pulled into the empty parking lot that they’re closed on Mondays.

But that’s okay, because Five Guys was waiting for us just a few blocks away!

This is the same thing I order at Char-Grill, but Five Guys does it much better. Except they keep forgetting to put my side of mayonnaise in the bag. I get it; it’s probably confusing that someone orders a low-carb option with cheese and mayo, but I’m not necessarily doing it to be low-carb…I just don’t like bread.

After my fiance got me some mayonnaise, dinner was excellent. And then he bought me the last two lucky mint donuts they had at Dunkin’ Donuts…

…but then he wouldn’t help me eat them, so I ate one and am saving the other one for tomorrow.

Okay, I’m all caught up now, and I’m falling asleep…good night, blogworld….

This is certainly not the most shocking item of the list of things I haven’t done, but: I’ve never hosted a party before. Fortunately, my fiance is old hat at this, since his family apparently has Oscar parties every year.

We asked everyone to bring something to share, and we encouraged Oscar-themed dishes.

A few hours before the party started, I whipped out a pound of bacon, my giant bag of pitted dates, and a wheel of brie.

Wonder triple powers, activate! Form of…

Cockroaches on War Horseback!

This was the first time I’d made these–the dish is really called devils on horseback–and they all got eaten fairly fast. Win?

My fiance wanted peanut butter M&Ms, so I made up an Oscar-ish name for them.

Minnie balls…Minnie ’cause they’re chocolate, like Minnie-from-The-Help’s pie, balls ’cause of Money Ball…I know, I was reaching here.

The Artist lent itself to something black and white, and is there a more delicious black-and-white food than Double-Stuf Oreos?

We also had the pies that I made…

…which looked awful, but tasted delicious.

We grabbed a cheese ball, some pretzel sticks, and some crackers, and I not-so-cleverly named them…

My cockroaches on War Horseback looked adorable.

If you didn’t look at them too long, that is.

Our guests brought extremely loud chips and incredibly crack-like dip…

Deviled eggs, a la The Help.

Rice Krispie treats decorated like baseballs…

…a veggie tray, grapes, lemon bars, hot dogs and bratwurst (Moneyball!), croissants (Hugo!) and deli meat and cheese…

…I might have forgotten something. But it was all delicious.

Our party featured fantastic door prizes!

And an Oscar pool that I totally lost, despite having seen all nine best picture nominees.

The following is just a sampling of what I ate.

I had to almost single-handedly finish off the second chocolate pie over the course of the past few days, and I also took out as many of the lemon bars as I could. But I didn’t eat any of the M&Ms!

I think I’ll finish catching up on posting tomorrow…I worked at home today, but it was a long haul, and I’m going into the office tomorrow to finish up some work even though it’s my Friday off. That just means I’ll be able to take some other day off, so I don’t mind. But I want to get in early, so I’m going to try to hit the hay at around 10PM, if I can stay awake that long…

—

Saturday morning I nibbled on the remains of a bag of salt and vinegar kettle chips.

Then I had some grapes and played with the new setting I discovered on the camera I’ve had for two and a half years.

Super macro!

I got distracted while straightening up my apartment and forgot to eat lunch. Ha ha. My fiance came over and we did some shopping for our Oscar party and then went to Arby’s for dinner. There would be a picture here, but I forgot my camera. But I got the “max” size roast beef sandwich and it was awesome. Arby’s is so stingy with their meat these days! Remember the five-for-five deals they had back in the day? Those were good times…

Saturday night I made two chocolate chess pies for the party, and used the leftover filling to make a small crustless pie for sampling purposes. It was great, and I’m really, really glad I put in 2 1/4 cups of sugar instead of the 3 cups the doubled recipe would’ve called for.

Sunday morning I broke out some plum and fig Liberte.

I hereby approve of Liberte plum and fig yogurt, and declare it better than the old plum and walnut variety!

I had a meeting at church that lasted so long that I didn’t even have to break out the book I had stuck in my purse between the time it ended and the time mass started. Immediately after I left church I called my fiance to tell him we were never going to let our kids act the way that the parents sitting on the same pew as I was let their kid act. Seriously, kids like this kid make my ovaries cringe.

But then I went to the library to pick up a book and while I waited for it to open (along without about 20 other people–awesome!), I saw a cute little boy who was really excited about going to the library and very well-behaved.

After I picked up my book from the holds shelf and self-checked it out, I went to Char-Grill for a bunless burger.

Skipped the fries since I had no one to share them with and didn’t want to get a drink.

Then I checked out my pies. I was worried they hadn’t set all the way, but they were fine.

I checked my ballot for the Oscar pool one more time before my fiance arrived…

And then we started going into serious party-prep mode. I used painter’s tape to make some horribly awesome entrance decorations.

We broke to go to the store for some not-quite-last-minute things, and also to get some Dunkin Donuts munchkins for a snack.

Then we got our decorating on, hard-core.

And…I’m going to save the rest of the post for later, ’cause I have a dinner date!

I had my first bad night of sleep in a long time Friday morning. I woke up at 2:30am and had that old familiar feeling that I wasn’t going back to sleep soon. I got up and read some news and blogs for a couple of hours, then managed to back to sleep for a few hours before I headed off to work a little late. In my haste to get out the door I left my camera sitting on the desk, but at least I remembered to pack some food to eat at work!

I started the day off with a mango Chobani, then went ahead and broke out my lunch early.

Tuna salad, using the mayonnaise I made Thursday night. The mayonnaise tasted and smelled strongly of olive oil when it was on its own, so I was worried it was going to be a bust, but mixed into the tuna I couldn’t taste it at all. Which is how I like my tuna salad. It also had pickles and shredded cheddar cheese in it. I had it on some new gluten-free seed crackers that I bought on a whim at the store the other night. These actually taste like crackers. Unfortunately I left the bag at work so I’m not sure what brand they are.

Afternoon snackage included a banana + pistachios and a peach Chobani late in the afternoon. My boss came around at 4pm and told everyone we could leave if we wanted to because of the tornadoes, but I decided I was safer at work than in my apartment.

The bad weather was over pretty quickly and once it was gone all the tornado watches went away, so I headed to my fiance’s place for a trip to Target and dinner. I wanted to grab a couple Chobani Greek yogurts at Target to hold me over for a few days until I could get to Whole Foods to buy some more Liberte yogurt. I stopped buying them last year even though I love them (seriously, BEST YOGURT EVER) because they’re around $1.25 each and I was trying to save money. Money’s not as tight now and I’m paying pretty much the same price for Chobani as I would be for Liberte, so why not get the kind I like more?

We grabbed a couple of Chobani yogurts from the sale case, and for some reason I felt compelled to go check out the actual yogurt section at Target. Lo and behold, they had my beloved Liberte yogurts! My fiance put my other yogurts back while I loaded up on a couple of weeks’ worth of THE BEST YOGURT EVER (and also a couple of Fage yogurts, because they had recently been price-dropped into the same price range).

My tiny Target does not have these wonders; it barely has a grocery section. Hmph.

After Target, we went for a late dinner at Cap’n D’s, which was hoppin’ on the first Friday of Lent. Right after we arrived, they ran out of tartar sauce, ice, and sweet tea. Also, we somehow got our order ahead of the two families that ordered before we did. I got my usual #4–three-piece fish with fries and coleslaw, plus a Diet Coke.

Afterward we split a piece of chocolate espresso cake that we got at Target, because I wanted a reward for going candy-less for three days.

This morning I had a delicious strawberry Liberte Mediterranee yogurt. It was just like a remembered–thick and smooth, like eating strawberries and cream.

Mmm…

I noticed while I was loading up on yogurt at the store that they had switched out the plum and walnut flavor for plum and fig, and added a coconut variety. I also noticed the lack of apple pie yogurt, which was my favorite kind–it had apples, cinnamon, and raisins and tasted like heaven in a #5 plastic cup. Unfortunately, a little Googling tells me that Liberte discontinued the flavor recently, which makes me sad in the face.

I’m going to spend the day straightening up my apartment and getting ready for tomorrow’s Oscar party! I’ve already filled out my ballot…

My plan to front-load my eats into the earlier part of the day worked, to the point that I actually executed it; pretty much the only time all day I was hungry was in the late afternoon when I was on the way home from work and to dinner. I got to work in time to eat a mango Chobani with some walnuts crunched up on top of it before heading off to a four-hour meeting that started at 8am.

(Un?)Fortunately, no one brought any donuts to the meeting. I would’ve shamelessly eaten and enjoyed at least two. Mid-morning I had half of an apple pastry and a miniature cinnamon roll, then chased it with some grapes.

For lunch, I had some salami and provolone on pecan Nut Thins.

I bought a box of the almond Nut Thins when they first came out, but didn’t like them enough to get them again. I decided to get a box the other day so I could have cheese and crackers and was happy to find four or five different varieties on the shelf (including ranch!). I didn’t grab the pecan version for any real reason, but after getting over the initial “these don’t taste like crackers!’ phase, I’m cool with them. Not totally primal, but they’ll do for me.

I took a walk after I finished eating, then got back to work. My mid-afternoon snack was a bunch of grapes and a Diet Dr. Pepper.

I have some irrational need to spend any one dollar bills that I have on the vending machine. Normally I’d buy some peanut M&Ms, but I decided to give up candy for Lent because I have a serious candy problem. The Diet Dr. Pepper was kinda like a fake sugar patch for my candy addiction.

In all seriousness, I really have decided to give up candy for Lent, even though everyone does it and it’s kinda the go-to thing to give up. I eat a LOT of candy at work; I eat it mindlessly if it’s around in large supply; I replace meals with it…I don’t want to stop eating it completely, because I do enjoy it, and because I believe that pretty much any food is fine to eat at least once in a while. But I do want to break the habit of being pretty much gluttonous when it comes to eating it. I was going to try to figure out how much money I would have spent on candy between now and Easter and donate it to the food bank, but since a lot of my fixes come from the office candy bowls, I’m not really sure how I’d figure that out. I’m not good with the math. It’d be easier to just donate whatever’s leftover in my food budget for the month. I’m also going to try to take a 15-minute walking break in the afternoons to just chill out and think when I start hitting the mid-afternoon slump, because that’s about when I start stuffing my face with miniature Reese’s cups every day.

I decided to do all this a couple of days ago, so it has nothing to do with the fact that I weighed myself last night and discovered that I now weigh 171.8 lbs. I knew I’d gained back most of what I lost in late 2010/early 2011 but I thought I was still around 165, so it was a bit of a shock since I’m pretty sure the heaviest I’ve ever been is around 175 lbs. I guess what shocked me most is that I still fit into all of my size 10 pants, and last time I was close to this weight I was a size 16. Do my awesome calves really weigh that much?

Anyway, this is why I’m going to try to get back into the habit of walking during my lunch break at work, and in the evenings after work once it gets lighter a little earlier in the evenings.

I stayed at work a little late, then met up with my fiance and went to Five Guys for dinner.

Lately I’ve been eating my burgers bunless most of the time. I like being able to actually taste the toppings and the meat, and since I don’t really like bread anyway, I’d rather ditch it and eat extra fries. I started ordering burgers without buns at Char-Grill, but a couple of visits ago to Five Guys I asked them if they do it, too. And they do. Tonight they put my cheeseburger on lettuce and topped it with onions, tomatoes, and more lettuce. I paradoxically put mayonnaise on it. It was all good.

Since a regular order of fries at Five Guys gets you a cup full of fries plus at least another cup’s worth thrown into your bag with your order, we just got one order of fries and split it. I’ve decided I like both the burgers and the fries at Five Guys better than at Char-Grill. But I still love Char-Grill, too. And Cook-Out. Can’t I be in love with three burger joints at once?

After dinner I tried to make my own mayonnaise for the first time. I’ll let you know how it turned out tomorrow…

Today was a work at home day. It’s also Ash Wednesday, which is why there’s not much on here today.

I had part of a Diet Sunkist shortly after I got up so that I wouldn’t get a caffeine headache, then had a black cherry Chobani Greek yogurt around 9am.

Black cherry is the best flavor of Chobani, hands down.

I took a long lunch and went to the noon Ash Wednesday mass, then came back and had a slice of this weird prune walnut log thing I found at Trader Joe’s.

And also some pistachios, because I’m running low on snackage.

My fiance came over after work and we headed to Raleighwood to finish off our quest to see all the Oscar best picture nominees.

Raleighwood is pretty unique, at least around these parts–you sit in swivelly chairs pushed up to tables or bars and they serve you food while you watch a second-run movie.

My options were pretty limited, but I love fish and chips and probably would’ve gotten it anyway.

We got some onion rings to start with and I had a handful (ew) of them. They came with ketchup, which I’ve never seen before, but I tried dipping them in it and thought the results were yummy.

In fact, the onion rings were the best part of the meal for me. The rest of our food came out after they’d dimmed the lights, so I didn’t take a picture, but it was pretty standard breaded fish fillets and french fries. I skipped half of my fish and ate all of the fries and part of the coleslaw. But the food, I think, isn’t the reason most people go to Raleighwood, and I was pretty happy with the experience, especially since we were home by 8:30pm! The movie was way better than I thought it would be, too–it even made me cry once or twice, because I can’t sit through movies about animals without crying.

It did make me think of this, though: the Amazing Horse!

So, now we’ve seen all nine of this year’s Oscar nominees for best picture, an adventure we started on our first date back in June with Tree of Life and then started on in earnest in late January. We even saw four of them at four different theaters in one afternoon for my fiance’s birthday! And we managed to see all but two of them in theaters (Midnight in Paris and The Help). We independently rated them on the whiteboard in my den for purposes of comparison because we’re both big geeks.

What’s pretty cool is that if you take out Tree of Life, which my fiance liked best but which I thought was pretty bad (I’ve nicknamed it Brad Pitt and the Dinosaurs), and Hugo, which he liked better than I did, we rated the remaining seven in the same order. And we both put Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at the bottom. Because it was awful.

I’ll post individual thoughts on the movies and which one I think is going to win closer to the Oscars–don’t want to give it all away before our big Oscar party…!

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