A Weekend of Wedding Stuff and Food

I've been trying to think of non-wedding and non-food topics to blog about, but since nearly the entire weekend involved food and wedding stuff, apparently, now is not a good time to try to come up with new blog topics.  I'll start with food and do wedding stuff later in the week.  So I was successful with no chocolate on Weds, Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  Today was one of my two cheat days (the wedding food tasting).  I even said no, when my BOSS offered me a Samoas cookie (which by the way I love).  I told her I'd given up chocolate for Lent so she tried to give me a shortbread cookie, but thankfully, I don't like those so no cookies for me.  Go me!  I was at an engaged couple seminar all day yesterday and they had banana bread, that looked fabulous, but sadly, I passed on that too thanks to the chocolate chips.  Thankfully, there was also some delicious pumpkin bread and zucchini bread that I could choose from.  And yes, today was my cheat day, but I didn't cheat too much.  I had one cookie that contained chocolate and one other dessert had a tiny bit of chocolate in it.  So there may be one more cheat at the St. Pat's party, but then I did not allow myself any more cheats.  I'm slightly concerned that I seem to be loading up on pita chips, and yes, you guessed it, hummus, since giving up the chocolate.  I guess there are worse things I could be eating, but let's just hope my sodium levels don't skyrocket.  Okay, that's enough babbling about food.  I'm really going to have to start thinking or else after the wedding, I'll have nothing to blog about besides food and I'm sure you all can only take so many food blogs.   

Bye Bye Chocolate

So I did it, well, I made the decision to do it anyway.  I decided to give up chocolate for Lent (with the two aforementioned exceptions--see my previous blog if this does not ring any bells).  I was successful on day 1.  I got rid of most of the chocolate in my house minus the candy bowl, which I have successfully avoided.  Someone even offered me a chocolate covered marshmallow on Wednesday and I politely told her that it looked delicious and I would love one, but I gave up chocolate for lent.  She was very kind about it.  Of course the day before Lent, was just awful.  My awesome fiancé knew I was going to try to give up chocolate for Lent and I wanted one last hurrah so he went to Mrs. Fields and bought cookie cups.  Yum!  Additionally, I "might" have consumed some eggless chocolate chip cookie dough Tuesday night.  We do have the food tasting on Sunday so that may be 1 of my two cheats, but given that I'm not a HUGE fan of chocolate cake (I prefer white cake), I may not even end up cheating.  If things actually go well between now and Easter, I wonder if I can finally successfully cut back on my sweet treats on a more regular basis--or at least until the wedding ha ha.     

To Chocolate or Not Chocolate?

So once again I am considering giving up chocolate for Lent.  I eat a lot of sweets, like too many.  I have a bad sweet tooth.  I was fairly successful last year, more successful than any previous years.  I did allow myself three cheats (I know, I know, that's not really successful if you cheat three times, but someone told me you can cheat on Sundays so if that's true, I only cheated once).  But give me some credit, I passed up chocolate on Valentine's Day last year.  And I work at a place where there is a lot of chocolate on Valentine's Day.  The cheats were:  food tasting (on a Sunday), a wedding, and my annual St. Patrick's Day party (Sunday).  We have our wedding food tasting on Sunday and I'm hosting my St. Pat's party the following weekend so I thought well, maybe I could just give up chocolate for the second half of lent.  That's better than nothing, right?  Then I thought, why not just do like last year and allow myself my same cheats (no wedding this year, but I do have one dinner event that will likely include chocolate desserts, maybe I can get some willpower for that and only cheat twice).  So by the time you read this, I should have made my decision, but I actually wrote this blog ahead of time even though it won't post until after Lent has begun.  To be on the safe side, I have removed most chocolate from my house.  There are a few Hershey Kisses lying around that someone gave me for Christmas, but I think I'll be safe around those.  If they were chocolate chip cookies or brownies, we might have a problem on our hands.  :-) 

Potholes_____ (Fill in the Blank)

I'm getting a little fed up with all the potholes around here.  There is one street very close to where I live that I have to take to get to most places (work, the gym, the grocery store, etc.) and there are so many potholes that even if you drive around one to avoid it you end up hitting another one.  So here is my pathetic attempt at being funny.  You can pick which "definition"  you like best.

Potholes=one of life's great mysteries.  If we can build bridges and tunnels to connect far away places to each other, how come we can't stop a few holes from forming every year?

Potholes=a conspiracy with the tire companies

Potholes=a conspiracy with mechanics who do alignments

Potholes=your tax dollars at work (when they finally get fixed)

Potholes=just another thing to complain about in the winter

Potholes=an obstacle course for the average driver

Potholes=an explanation for random pains in unusual places (I hit one last week and it hurt!)

Potholes=one of the strangest blog topics in Cat's blog yet

Have a good one everyone and watch out for those potholes. 

Oh What the Heck, Here's Another Wedding Post

So as you may recall, I went shopping with 5 of my 6 bridesmaids back in December.  We (eventually)_ found a dress and life moved on.  If I remember correctly, the dress they tried on in the style we picked was a dark blue (that's what was in stock).  We ordered it in a color called lapis (first time I'd heard that word, maybe I need to get out more).  Anyway, I didn't love that shade of purple.  I really wanted a darker purple (like eggplant or plum), but this dress didn't come in that shade.  Oh, well, such is life.  We'd finally found a dress, I guess I couldn't be picky about colors.  This was more of a medium purple.  Or so I thought.  You see in the catalog they sent me home with, the picture of the lapis dress looked medium purple, but when I went to get a swatch a few weeks ago, it was much darker.  So I was confused.  I know swatches and catalogs aren't always exact matches so after much pondering and confused expressions, I e-mailed the four bridesmaids who I knew had ordered their dresses and asked if I could come see the dress.  Being the nice people they are, two of the girls e-mailed me back quite quickly and I went to see one of them on Friday.  And it is a dark purple.  Yay!  I was so happy.  It ended up being what I wanted.  :-)  The bridesmaid who I visited said she liked the color.  Double yay!  So I guess sometimes some things just work out nicely.  If only all wedding planning could work out so nicely. 

A Blog NOT about Food for a Change

So I'll give you a break from food for a post or two and move back to wedding stuff.  I had my first fitting on Saturday.  The store was BUSY.  Apparently, not only are a lot of people shopping for wedding gowns at this time of year, but they are also shopping for prom dresses.  I'm impressed people are getting prom dresses this early.  I did not buy either of my prom (junior or senior) dresses until April or May. Of course we also had our prom later than a lot of schools.  Anyway, at the rate things are going the alterations will cost more than the dress.  I got a good deal on the dress so that's part of the reason the alterations seemed so high.  I needed a bustle put on (fairly standard for most dresses I believe and that wasn't too expensive) and the straps were a little big so it wasn't much to fix those, but a hem is $175.  Yikes!  But I was NOT wearing 3-4 inch heels.  Not happening.  If I did I'd be taller than my other half and he wasn't thrilled about that.  I don't blame him. Plus I don't know how to walk in heels that high.  I don't want to fall down the aisle.  I'm klutzy enough as it is.  So that took care of fitting one.  Fitting two is in another couple of months.  If I lose weight I may need to have it taken in, which would be nice.  On the other hand, if I don't lose weight, I could save some money and not need it taken in ha ha.  Since the fitting was coming up, I went and got shoes a few weeks ago.  I won't say where I got them, but let's just say the store was BUSY (and it was a week night) and finding shoes was not an easy task.  The shoe piles were a "bit" disorganized.  But I found some.  I also got a swatch recently to send to the florist (a.k.a. my fiancé's uncle).  I have no idea what I want for flowers so my (helpful, kind) friend Megan sent me some pics.  I also found one in a magazine so we'll see what he comes up with.  I'm glad I have helpful friends.  :-)  So that's the latest in wedding land.  Have a good one!    

The Last Half Day of Vegan Week

Day 7 of vegan week was a partial vegan day.  To make it a full week, I only had to go vegan for half the day.  So basically my plan was to have a vegan breakfast and lunch, but not dinner.  That turned out to be a good thing since my fiancé and I had a date night planned for that night.  I ordered a salad with chicken on top.  It came with some much missed honey mustard dressing.  I also ate two rolls, with delicious cinnamon butter.  Oh, and before we went out, I had a nice glass of milk.  So while, minus the goat cheese, vegan week was a success, I'd never make it as a real vegan.  I'd miss going out to eat, dairy, and of course my sweets and seafood.  I would however, be willing to do an annual vegan week.