I'm back, bebeh!

I’m back after a two-week lapse, so here’s a super long post to make up for lost time! Huzzah!

After my last post, I began a week without chocolate, which wasn’t bad – but more difficult than expected. Do I really eat that much chocolate?? I slipped up a couple times toward the end of the week, but they were honest mistakes:

- I bought a bottle of Frappuccino on the way to work, which wouldn’t have been cheating, except…it was mocha flavored. I drank it and felt guilty.

- I had dessert duty for Sunday night dinner at my parents’ house. I had a busy weekend, so I planned to stop by the grocery store & pick something up instead of cooking. Without thinking, I bought BROWNIES and ice cream. I ate one and felt guiltier.

- Then I ate a giant Hershey bar. Nope. Just joking.

Hilarious highlight: I got desperate for something sweet during that week, and the only dessert in my house –save for fat-free pudding- was a frozen Weight Watchers chocolate ice cream bar. Off limits. So, I decided to bake these.

The only problem? I didn’t have lemons or limes. I didn’t have milk. My ingredients were generic Splenda, egg substitute, questionably old powdered sugar found in the back of my baking cabinet, and some quinoa flour. That’s right, quinoa flour. I actually DID have real butter (Ben did the shopping) & lemon, lime, & orange juice. I told Ben not to think of them as cookies, but like an interesting sweet biscuit-type thing. I’ve made these sound disgusting at this point, but they actually aren’t that bad! That being said - barring a spontaneous gluten intolerance, I won’t be baking quinoa cookies again.

Last week was my week off AKA “A Week Without Blogging”. I’ve had a crazy busy October, and I was glad to not have to worry about one more thing last week. We got a LOT of cleaning up done over the weekend, plus recycling, plus grocery shopping, plus Halloween decorating, plus a metric ton of laundry. It felt good. And – all of that decluttering inspired this week’s “without”: A Week Without “stuff”. Vague? Perhaps. My plan is to purge no less than 5 items from my house (or desk or car) each day. Old magazines, clothing from the 90s, files that I no longer need to hang onto…all sorts of stuff. I am notorious for hanging onto papers and clothing because someday I’ll need them/fit into them again/frame them/find the perfect use for them. I also feel guilty about giving away things which were given to me. You know that box of random junk that has moved around with you since college? I have almost a room of that. Yikes. Rule for this week: It has to be MINE (Giving away Ben’s stuff would be easy. And fun.)

Here’s hoping this week keeps me off Hoarders!