cinnamon rolls

So my husband and I have just two weeks to go until we get to eat desserts again. I am dying for buttery yellow cake with chocolate frosting; soft, chewy, still-warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies; and really, anything that has chocolate and sugar. So far we have not broken down and had dessert, but several times we have been really close to caving. This weekend, we were tempted by a chocolate ice cream cake and gooey butter cake. I was willing to give in, but my husband managed to resist, so I held firm as well. It wouldn't be any fun to indulge if he doesn't do it too. The competition between us is probably the only thing that is keeping me going.

In keeping with the agreement that we can have breakfast foods, I have made cinnamon rolls a couple of times. Since I never thought to make them in time to let them rise, I have been using a quick cinnamon roll recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. The first time I made them, I foolishly thought I didn't need to read the directions thoroughly, so I spread too much melted butter on the dough before adding the filling, which made all the cinnamony sugar run out of the rolls when I baked them.

The second time though, I followed the directions exactly and the cinnamon rolls turned out better. (Of course.)

After the first batch, I realized I missed the yeasty taste found in regular sweet dough cinnamon rolls. This recipe uses baking powder as a leavener, and is almost more like a biscuit dough than a sweet dough.For the second batch, I increased the sugar in the dough by 1 tablespoon. I probably could have put even more in (because there is never a thing as too much sugar), but this little bit seemed to make the entire dish sweeter. One of the best parts about the recipe is the addition of cloves to the cinnamon and brown sugar mixture of the inside of the rolls. The ground cloves really sets off the cinnamon and is delicious.When I was growing up, my parents made cinnamon rolls for Sunday breakfast each week. While everyone else was digging in, I patiently unrolled the finished roll, put butter between all the layers, then rolled it back together to douse it with powdered sugar icing. That treatment is just as good now as it was back then.

There is just one roll left in the house. I wonder which one of us will get to it first.

The Total Money Makeover

In February, we visited my husband’s cousin and her family in Springfield, who are going through a Financial Peace University course at their church. My husband picked up their book and read a few pages. Who knew that this simple act would forever change the way we think about money.
Let me introduce Dave Ramsey. He’s a personal finance radio talk show host who has written several books, including Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover. He abhors debt in all forms and has created a process with components he calls Baby Steps, to eliminate debt from one’s life and build wealth. As soon as we got home from Springfield, my husband and I started reading The Total Money Makeover. This particular book discusses many money myths before tackling the Baby Steps and above all, encourages readers to “live like no one else so you can live like no one else”—live cheaply now so you can enjoy your wealth later.

My husband and I feel like we were already conservative with our money, but we felt like we were never getting ahead—with money going towards student loans (our only debt now that the last car is paid off), retirement, and college funds, in addition to our regular bills and expenses, we never had any money left over to pay extra on our debts. Ramsey’s method involves focusing on paying down debts completely before funding retirement and college. Ramsey also demands that people create and stick to a budget, something we thought we were doing but not really (we always knew all the bills that had to be paid, but we didn’t track our grocery or household item purchases). So now we have a budget, we both know how much we can spend on certain categories in a month, and we are throwing all possible monies at our student loans, which we plan to have paid off in 2010.

I can’t really explain how much my thought processes towards money changed in the course of reading The Total Money Makeover. Things I had accepted before as fact (like we will always have debt) were blown out of the water. Planning and talking about money is no longer a chore that I shove off onto my husband; we are now both actively involved in the process and know exactly where our money is going. With Ramsey’s plan, I don’t feel like I now have to make more money, because I am making my current income work for my family. It has been an amazingly liberating, mind-changing experience, to say the least.

For a detailed review of The Total Money Makeover, click here. Ramsey's writing style really draws in the reader and makes covering the material enjoyable. If nothing else, you can start the book and give the process a chance. You might be surprised at how much your life can change when we aren't worried about money.

stretching meat

In an effort to cut back on grocery bills, I have been investigating ways to stretch meat. We like to make double batches of everything when we cook, so that we only have to cook once, but get to eat twice, but I'm interested in getting a double batch worth's of tacos, say, by using only one pound of ground beef.

Last week, I made chicken tacos. Using only one pound of chicken, I added tons of chopped onions and green peppers (frozen from last summer), made all the tacos up with half of a usual portion of the meat filling, and added a copious amount of mexican rice with diced tomatoes. The tacos tasted great and we were able to make many more than usual because of the addition of rice.

I've found several ideas and recipes online for things that we normally eat where the meat can be stretched:

• 1 chicken, 17 healthy meals--I don't even remember how to cut up a whole chicken, even though my mother has shown me over and over again.
• meatballs with oatmeal, cornmeal or rice
• black bean burgers--meatless but full of protein
• lentil and rice tacos--meatless again but I've never tried lentils that I know of
• sweet potato quesadillas--okay, this list is now meatless meals
• cornmeal everything--and I thought cornmeal was just for cornbread
• making meat into an accent instead of the main ingredient

If you are looking for new affordable meal ideas, you might want to check out this list of the Top 100 Blogs for the Frugal Gourmet.

The Simple Dollar

Over the past few days, I've been devouring The Simple Dollar, a personal finance website. It is not new, but new to me, found through the MSN Smart Spending blog. In my quest to find little things I can do to cut back expenses, The Simple Dollar has been a treasure trove of ideas.

Food:
--make ahead (and make a lot) breakfast burritos
--freezable skillet dinners
--homemade pizza--something I've always wanted to try
--crock pot meals--I have a few in my repertoire, but I would like more.
--individual oatmeal packets
--chicken nuggets--I heard years ago that eating the breaded chicken from the store was especially bad for you, but now that it is so expensive, I am looking forward to trying this at home. And this is totally simple and I don't know why I didn't think about it before.
--homemade bread--I already make bread, although I do not make all the bread we eat, but I may try his recipe for fun.

Home products:
--make your own laundry detergent
--using white vinegar as fabric softener
--making shampoo and conditioner

I haven't quite sold my husband on these four home products, but I want to try them for myself. As The Simple Dollar points out, if I make it myself, these things will not only be cheaper but they will be free of "industrial ingredients"--those chemicals you can't even pronounce. While I am not willing to go as far as he does and buy hormone-free milk and free-range chickens, I am willing to do things that will save me money.

These are just some of the posts I remember. There are so many others on just about every topic of personal finance. This is a great resource for anyone looking for ways both large and small to cut back their spending.

it's the little things

Every summer, I get a present from Jane Green. Yesterday I was able to place a hold on the newest Jane Green book, Dune Road, due out June 16. I can't wait.

For those of you who still need some convincing that Jane Green should be at the top of your reading list, I offer you a review of one of her older titles, Babyville.

When you’re living the life of a freewheeling young professional, where do babies enter into the picture? Bound in a comfortable but passionless relationship, Julia feels the solution to her troubles is to have a baby with Mark--the only problem is, she can’t seem to get pregnant after months of trying. When her best friend Sam was pregnant with her first child, she dreamed of leaving her job to enjoy stay-at-home motherhood. Now Sam is plagued with postpartum depression, and falling for a married man who makes her tingle in a way that her own husband no longer can. At a wedding, these two women meet Maeve, a television producer generating the best work of her career, who is struggling with her options after a one-night stand has resulted in pregnancy. Through these three intertwining stories, Green shows how pregnancy not only changes people’s lives, but also how having a baby changes a person's sense of self. Because of their unique situations, each woman has to not only reevaluate her priorities, but also modify her perceptions of herself and what she really wants out of life.

Written as a series of novellas, the stories will delight readers who love a London setting. With characters who could be your best friends, and situations so real that you feel every emotion, Green has again struck gold in her accurate portrayal of thirtsomethings. A definite must-read for fans of contemporary British women's fiction.

french obsession

For those of you keeping score at home, we had tv restored in our home last Thursday, just in time for the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy. While we did miss the ease with which we were able to watch tv with satellite cable, we realized we didn’t miss the noise or the feeling like we had to keep up with all the shows we recorded (and we recorded a lot). We have decided to cancel cable as soon as we get our digital converter boxes, hopefully within a couple of weeks.

So right now, we have cable to enjoy, but no prerecorded programs to watch, which becomes a problem when one wants to listen to something interesting (nothing on late night tv is interesting right now with Conan off for the time being) when washing dishes (we put a little tv/vcr in the kitchen when we got cable, and doing dishes became a million times more bearable). For the past couple of nights, I’ve been making use of the VCR and watching one of my old favorites, French Kiss. French Kiss (1995) follows Kate (Meg Ryan), an American in the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, as she travels around France, trying to win back her fiance, Charlie, after he dumps her long-distance for a beautiful Frenchwoman named Juliette, whom he meets in Paris while attending a medical conference. Kate thought she and Charlie were building the perfect life together in Toronto, and through the course of her journey, grapples with what she overlooked and lacked in her relationship with Charlie. On the airplane to Paris, Luc (Kevin Kline) happens to sit next to her, and uses Kate to smuggle an American grape plant into France so that he can start a vineyard with the money he gets from reselling an exquisite diamond necklace he stole. Having lost the necklace on the plane, Luc accompanies Kate on her trek to find Charlie, and helps Kate win Charlie back.

I don’t even have to spill the ending for those who haven’t seen it, because since French Kiss is a romantic comedy, you can guess the rest. I came across this movie by chance one day in Blockbuster. In August 1995, my brothers went back to private school a week earlier than I did, since I was starting public high school that year. I relished an entire week to hang out with my mom without my brothers for seven hours a day. I believe it was my mom’s suggestion that she and I rent movies that we would be interested to see that wouldn’t appeal to the boys. French Kiss was one of them.

And so began my attraction to France and the French way of life. You wouldn’t know it from reading my blog, but I have a particular affinity for France. This movie kicked off years of daydreaming about visiting France, living in France, and doing things the French way. I took French in high school and read all sorts of books about living in France (Postcards From France was one of the early favorites). I studied up on Coco Chanel and dressing the French way. I read books like On Rue Tatin, about an American who also falls in love with France, moves there, and starts a cooking school in her home. I planned to grow up and live a happily ever life in France.

One of my dreams came true when my parents gave me a trip to France as a present for my college graduation. During my last semester at Mizzou, just to the left of my computer, I had five Paris postcards pinned to my bulletin board. When I complained about all the work I had to do in order to finish the year, my mom would remind me that I had to graduate in order to go to Paris.

In June 2002, my wish came true when my mom and I spent 12 days in France. The first time it hit me that I was actually in Paris was when we emerged from the Metro and stepped out onto a real Paris street, and I saw hundreds of red geraniums in window boxes lining the apartment building walls.

Watching French Kiss the other night brought all the fantasies of my younger days rushing back to me, and made me smile at the memory of myself back then.

so sweet

While researching information for my last post on Everyone is Beautiful, I came across Katherine Center's website, and on it, a quote from my post about her first book! Here is what is listed on her site:

“The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center was fabulous. Wonderful mom lit . . . I totally related to all her descriptions of early motherhood. Somehow the author so completely develops and maintains Jenny's voice; the book never strays from her point of view and her character. It was totally enveloping. You can't help but cheer for Jenny as she makes some good decisions in her love life.”
~St. Louis Library Girl

I feel famous. I know I'm not, but it's just the beauty of the Internet. So totally cool.

Since her site was soliciting reviews for Everyone is Beautiful, I emailed a link to my site. Katherine herself emailed me back and shared her own crafting accomplishments:
I also want to mention that I'm a quilter, too! And there are pix of the quilts I made my kids at Make and Takes today, in case you'd like to check it out! http://www.makeandtakes.com/katherine-center-interview-and-giveaway
Her quilts are beautiful and look vintage. I love how her creativity goes beyond the written word!

Everyone is Beautiful

Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center
Glorious, hopeful, inspiring bit of mommy lit sure to entertain anyone who has ever wanted to make a change.

Suddenly uprooted from her Houston hometown when her husband Peter begins a music composition graduate program, Lanie finds herself in Cambridge, MA with her three young sons, a shotgun apartment full of unpacked boxes, and her husband locked in his practice room, rehearsing. After a mom at the park mistakenly asks her when her baby is due, Lanie embarks on a mission to change her life. She starts by joining a gym, carving out some personal time during the only part of the day parents know they will have to themselves—when the kids go to bed. In addition to rediscovering her body, Lanie realizes that something will eventually have to be done to her marriage. After four years of sleepless nights and constant interruptions, Lanie and Peter have drifted so far apart, Lanie doesn’t know if they will be able to come back together—or when they would find the time. But something will need to change soon, or all that Lanie has been striving for could be lost.

Center’s follow up to her sparkling debut, The Bright Side of Disaster, is a glittering gem of a story. I enjoyed every minute of this novel. Center demonstrates once again that she knows beyond a doubt who her heroine is and provides her with such a clear, strong voice and enrapturing tale in which she can blossom, readers can’t help but fall in love with her. I was encouraged by the fact that Lanie didn’t really want to change anything at the core of who she was; she just wanted her exterior to accurately reflect who she was on the inside. Lanie needed tangible evidence of all the creativity that was swirling in that dormant part of her soul so that she could be repeatedly reminded of who she was--that she wasn’t just a short-order cook, a housekeeper, a washerwoman, a mom; she was a woman of value, just by being herself. And that’s the kernel of truth that all women can take away from this book.

Center also speaks through Lanie to all the women in the world who want to have it all—if in attaining everything, you lose your family, all that has been gained will be pointless. At the end of the book, Lanie achieves balance, and is able to bring all the different aspects of her life together—she is able to devote time to her body, her creative pursuits, her children, and her husband. Lanie has come to the realization that if she takes her husband for granted, thinking that they can pick up where they left off when the kids are older, they may not have anything left to salvage.

I think the countless ways Lanie’s three sons managed to make messes truly speaks to Center’s imagination. Their actions practically became another character in the book. As the mother of two little girls, I would not have dreamed children could come up with some of these ideas on their own. If nothing else, this book has prepared me for the mischievous minds of little boys!

PS—The chocolate cupcake with blue frosting was so tempting, I almost reneged on my dessert ban. This cover is also deliciously seductive. I might have to read it next.

formula baby

My baby drank formula yesterday. I knew this was coming for awhile, and I should be glad that I put it off for as long as I did. But, still, I feel guilty.

I’ve been nursing her for the past ten months. When she got teeth in December, she started biting me, which affected the quantities of available milk. Because really, who wants to keep letting your baby eat when she keeps biting you? But regardless of the pain, I stayed with it.

After the first of the year, my supply started to come back, even though it was nowhere near what it was with my first child. I must have been engorged the whole time with her, since we froze tons and tons of milk. We froze so much, we had to take some over to my in-law’s deep freezer. Months after she had turned one and could drink cow’s milk, they found a gallon bag full of milk cubes beneath some frozen taquitos. We had to just throw it all away.

So we have been able to make it through the past two months using the frozen cubes. But now the cubes are gone. Now the baby will have to drink formula. I’m much more okay with this in March than I was in December. Back then, I cried half the night at the thought of not being able to fulfill my motherly duty of feeding my baby. I wasn’t ready to give up this one thing that only I could do for her. I was always one of those people who was never going to give my children formula. But my body had other plans. My mom told me that nursing was only one part of being a mother, and how kids don’t even remember it. It took awhile for this to sink in, but it finally has.

Now I will continue to pump, as usual, which should give the baby milk about half the time when I’m at work. Formula will have to fill in the other days. She seemed fine after her first formula day. But then again, she has bitten me every single time I’ve nursed her since. Maybe that’s her way of protesting.

books that make us laugh out loud--Mama Makes Up Her Mind

For this month's staff picks list, we were asked about books that make us laugh out loud. I know there have been many books over the years that have made me laugh, but one that sticks out in my mind is Mama Makes Up Her Mind: And Other Dangers of Southern Living by Bailey White. In this nonfiction collection of Southern stories, White, a commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered, delightfully explores the eccentricities of life in the South. Rambling between hilarious tales of her relatives and the world outside her sleepy town in southern Georgia, White gives a humor-filled sneak peek to how the deep South lives. White captures each moment so perfectly, the reader feels they are sitting on the sun porch with her, sipping a mint julep, as she regales with her tales. White left her job as an elementary school teacher—“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”—to write full time. Besides being entertaining, this book’s stories are often just a few pages long, making it an easy read for those on the go.

I picked up this book when it was new in 1993 (when I was in middle school). Having some Southern roots myself, I was intrigued by this collection of true tales of the South. The first couple of stories grabbed me, and I was hooked. This book is hilarious because it is true. In those days before I could drive myself around, I often read in the car. I remember reading the line, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach," at a gas station and thinking it was so funny.

While I tried reading White's other books, they weren't nearly as good as Mama Makes Up Her Mind. But this book did get me reading short stories, a genre I had always ignored in the past. As a direct result of reading this collection, I picked up Amy Bloom's Come to Me: Stories (which I lost for awhile under our sofa, but that's another story).

why i'm weird

Back in November, I was tagged by Sue to list seven weird things about myself. (Unlike Sue, I asked my husband's help to come up with seven to reveal because I know there are plenty of weird things about myself, I just don't happen to think they are that weird.)


Fact #1--I hate eating hot food. If it's hot, I just have to wait for it to be cool enough to eat without burning my tongue, and normally I'm too hungry to wait. My friends in Topeka used to tease me all the time about how I wouldn't heat up my lunch and would just eat it cold.


Fact #2--When I brush my teeth, I brush them for a really long time. I usually walk around the house because I don't want to be standing in the bathroom alone for all that time. I should time myself sometime.


Fact #3--I used to take naps under my parents' dining room table. In college after I would eat dinner, I would immediately vacate my parents' dining room chairs (because they are so uncomfortable), grab a pillow, and crawl beneath the table, where I had a perfect view of the tv. I would pretend to watch tv until I fell asleep, usually by 9 pm. I blame all those late nights writing papers.


Fact #4--I was once a hair model. At some high school event, I won a free haircut to a salon in NKC. The stylist I just happened to get was promoting some line of product (cannot remember which one now) at a hotel off the Plaza, and needed models to demonstrate the products. I had my makeup professionally done, and then had to sit on a stool while the stylist did my hair. I got lots of free products, but it was hard sitting there, trying to smile, while my hair was constantly being flipped in my face.


Fact #5--During my childhood, we attended lots of different churches. I once tried to keep track but I lost count at 14. They were all Protestant, and ranged from Presbyterian (I was christened at the First Presbyterian Church in North Kansas City) to nondenominational. Add this to the fact that I spent 12+ years attending a Lutheran school, and you can imagine my mix of beliefs. And now I am a member of a Southern Baptist church...


Fact #6--I have had the same email address for 10 years. I came up with it during my senior year seminar. In that class, I talked to people I never hung out with. One guy thought I looked like Katie Holmes, since Dawson's Creek was big at the time (our teacher let us bring in episodes to watch during class--I have no idea why). So when I set up my email address in spring 1999, I chose my nickname, katie_h.


Fact #7--I have to make my bed every day. When I was little, I got into the habit of laying out my sheet and blanket very perfectly with no wrinkles. Now I can't stand the thought of getting into an unmade bed which has had all day to get dirty with the bottom sheet exposed. Sometimes I'm even late to work because I have to make my bed before I leave the house.

unfortunately

time for a game? just do a web search of the phrase "unfortunately, _______" but put your first name in the blank.

from Jenny at allsorts by way of ginger at home

*unfortunately, Kate wound up having a pretty huge whomping allergy attack on the way to the airport

*unfortunately, Kate was taking a shower at the time

*unfortunately, Kate doesn't really seem the neatnik type, does she? (ha! I laughed at this one.)

*unfortunately, Kate is adopted, and he is left alone

*unfortunately, Kate doesn't have built-in syntax color-coding for Markdown (who knew there was a text editor named Kate?)

*unfortunately, Kate didn't make things any better

*unfortunately, Kate is so compulsive about her cleaning (so not true for this Kate)

it always amazes me what people put on the internet

what to do with my time

We have been without tv for six days. We came home from work last Wednesday night to find our satellite cable/DVR box completely busted. It has been giving us fits for awhile, getting stuck when we try to pause live tv and watch things we've recorded, but it finally bit the dust for good. Our lovely satellite company said it would be 2-3 business days before a new box could be delivered. We hoped it would arrive before the weekend...but we got home on Friday to discover the box had not come, and we were faced with a weekend without tv.

I don't know of a time when I have ever been without tv. I've always had basic channels at least; in college I got my first taste of cable, but when I moved into my first apartment, I used rabbit ears because I was too cheap to pay for even basic cable just so I could watch the Gilmore Girls on the WB. We only decided to get cable after we were married because we were tired of fuzzy channels (and it was a welcome distraction during the early baby days after A was born).

Now the antennas are buried in the basement, and we figured we could last a few days...
We didn't watch anything the first two nights. Friday night, I dug out my DVDs, the ones I never have time to watch because I'm always trying to catch up with all the shows I've recorded during the week. I had a nice throwback to my Topeka days, when I watched Chasing Liberty for the first time with Lissa. On Saturday night, I continued the review, starting season one of The O.C. with my husband. We started talking about all the crazy things that happened in just the first season of that show, and now we want to watch all the episodes. (Our rehashing led me to this article, since I didn't even remember that Marissa died when my husband mentioned it.)

And really, now that we've had a few days to go cold-turkey, we don't even miss having tv. Sure, it's nice to easily check out the weather forecast, but we still have the Internet for that. It's nice not to feel like we have to watch tv or we will get behind; we feel free to do other things. It's been a relief, actually.

And it has made me see that I really can live without cable and without a DVR. (Everyone out there is saying "Duh!!") For the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about giving up cable because they are raising their prices (and so we can put the money towards our student loans). This little experience has only renewed our dedication. Once we get our digital conversion boxes, we will be pulling the plug.

Until then, I'll be enjoying my last few days with the DVR...or at least I will be, if it ever arrives. We were supposed to get the box today, but UPS "missed" us. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

Lessons in Heartbreak

Lessons in Heartbreak by Cathy Kelly

Set in New York City and Tamarin, Ireland, this novel follows the lives of three women: eighty-year-old Lily, Lily’s granddaughter Izzie, a 39-year-old model booking agent, and Izzie’s aunt Anneliese, who is adjusting to life on her own after her husband of 30 years leaves her for her best friend. When Lily suffers a stroke and is in a coma, she utters a name—Jamie—that means nothing to her relatives, but through several flashbacks to her training as a nurse during World War II, readers are swept into the terror of 1940s London, complete with bombings and air raids, to discover the meaning of the name. While Lily lies in a hospital bed, Anneliese struggles with depression, triggered by her husband’s betrayal. In New York City, after being on her own for many years, Izzie falls into a relationship with a charming, earnest millionaire, who turns out to be married and more attached to his family life than Izzie at first realizes. Told in alternating chapters, Lessons in Heartbreak provides three stories of infidelity from both sides of those involved—the married wife and the other woman. Fans of chick lit and Irish novels will be delighted to find another wonderful book filled with strong female relationships and thoroughly explored secondary characters from Cathy Kelly.

This was a great book, the kind of great book that you hope never ends because you just want to keep reading more. I was fascinated by the flashbacks to London during World War II, because I am usually not a historical novel type of reader. Her WWII facts were right on, and actually gave me something to talk about with my husband, an amateur WWII buff (when I mentioned V-2s, I had to admit that I didn’t know what they were, but he was happy to provide an explanation I could understand). Maybe I should try reading more historical fiction.

This novel was a welcome return for me to Cathy Kelly, whose previous book, Always and Forever, I thoroughly enjoyed, and who I discovered in the popular Irish women’s fiction anthology, Irish Girls About Town.

no cookies for 6+ weeks

We always seem to have something sweet in the kitchen--usually cookies, but sometimes cake and brownies, too. We almost always spend at least one weekday evening baking in the kitchen. Lately, to maximize our time, we've taken to making triple and quadruple batches of cookies, meaning that since we don't start baking until after the girls are in bed around 8:30 pm, we are up half the night trying to use up all the dough.

Well, not anymore, or, at least, not for six weeks--I have given up desserts for Lent.

I didn't come by the decision lightly. I remember the last time I gave up chocolate for Lent, in 2006, and had to pass on some wonderful ice cream cake that my mother-in-law had gotten for Valentine's Day dessert. I still remember how hard it was to say no that day, when my pregnant self only wanted sugar and chocolate. But, as my husband pointed out, since we seem to have gone through two (three?) tubs of Crisco (the all-important fat component in our favorite cookie recipe) in as many months, it was probably time to cut back, if only for health reasons. (I just have to say in our defense that a lot of baking was given away around Christmas time, so it’s not like we really consumed all that lard. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.)

And I hope I’m not seeming disrespectful towards Lent with my sweets ban. Since it’s something I need to cut back on anyway, I figured I might as well use this as a major push towards cutting back permanently. I once read something about Lent that said how the whole idea of fasting for Lent is that you give up something you shouldn’t be doing anyway, and that after Lent you should keep abstaining from it. To give something up for Lent just to pick it back up on Easter Sunday is completely pointless. So while I do plan on eating dessert again, I really want this to be a line in the sand that I won’t be doing it every day, that it will be in moderation (something I’ve been lacking for awhile).

In order for me to be successful, I roped my husband into this as well, which he was totally up for, because I knew if he kept baking cookies, I would keep eating them. I also laid some ground rules for myself, so that I could still have a little sugar and not go crazy. For instance, I can still have breakfast sweets like cinnamon rolls and waffles, and I can still drink chocolate milk and hot chocolate, things which I don’t have every day. But I cannot eat cookies of any kind, or any desserts in general.

For the first few days, I was really hungry at night. I had a bowl of cereal one night and some toast another to help me through. At work, I’ve just had to turn from the homemade cheesecake and cookies that my coworkers have brought in. But after the first couple of days, it has been getting better. I’ve been drinking tons of water (a holdover from being sick last week) and am coming to enjoy the hungry feeling at night, knowing that I’m not going to give in.