Yikes

So, I pride myself on the fairly healthy meals we serve to the children. I cook most nights and we eat at home a lot, but I am not a nazi about it. My kids are really healthy eaters, and will eat a lot, including the good stuff. They eat broccoli, green beans, and even salad. No, I am not kidding. I am very proud of myself for having the balls to continue giving them things until they learn to like them, because teaching kids to eat veggies is not for the faint of heart.

We do usually eat out on Thursday and/or Friday nights. It is kind of a tradition in the family. Another tradition is that if the kids are good, I let them have the golden arches for lunch on Fridays. Sure, it is bribery ("If you are good in school all week, then you can have french fries on Friday.") but every good parent knows that bribes are part of the game.

The problem with McD's Fridays is that I have NO WILLPOWER when it comes to ordering them the french fries, and me the salad or whatever else is healthy on the menu. (I wouldn't know what is healthy on the menu, because I've never once opted for the healthy choice when at a drive-through window.)

That may change, though. Call me an exercise anorexic or what you will, but I had the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Value meal (with diet coke, of course!) and I felt like crap afterwards. Decided I would maybe go to the gym to work it off.

Here's the deal:

Calories in Quarter Pounder with Cheese = 510
Calories in Large Fries = 570
Calories burned in one hour of swimming (what i thought i would do today as cross-training, since i am doing my long run tomorrow) = For my weight, a little over 563 calories.

I would have to swim for two hours straight to work off that fucking burger and fries. I am never eating them again. Ever.

Tell me I said that if you ever see me eat that shit again.

Then duck.

New Year's Recap

Night started off slow, with me laying a base of soup and salad at the nicest Olive Garden ever. Todd's Mom says so, and she should know, because she lives in that mecca of fine dining that is Dadeville, Alabama. I also had a latte at Starbucks in an attempt to jumpstart my very hung over body while Todd chatted with the Turks. No doin' on lighting a fire under me; It wasn't until I arrived at Iain's and choked down that first beer that I started feeling a little better. I had grandiose plans of dressing up, even maybe wearing a skirt, but I was lucky to get there in one piece, much less to change out of jeans and t-shirt. I threw on my fluffy-fringey sweater in an attempt to give myself some style and just ended up looking like a Smashing Pumpkins' D'arcy wanna-be from 1991. You will notice only one picture of me in the whole New Year's set on Flickr. This is not coincidence.

Highlights:

• Black-eyed peas and greens and Iain and Annie's Crappy Cornbread Quiche.
• Todd drinking brown liquor is always a highlight. He starts gesturing with his hands more, and he likes to stir the ice in his glass with a cute little tinkle. He gets a bounce in his step that he only ever gets when he is drinking liquor. (Bounce has been known to morph into him falling backwards on his ass in the basement at Gravity Pub, but he was drinking vodka tonics that night, so we cannot blame that on the revered bourbon whiskey.)
• Watching people strip down and display body art and mutilation in the largest fucking bathroom in Alabama was pretty entertaining.
• No evening is ever complete until you have cleared the whole living room of furniture so as to perform a few numbers from Grease, replete with male and female parts, and dancing on remaining furniture.
• Finally, and this one is so obvious, but I will say it anyway: I am so cute when I am drinking. Everyone says so.

The only thing missing was the people that I couldn't be with this year, but they are always in my thoughts, and just as soon as I make that first million off Dogwood Girl, I am going to buy a farm and start a commune where we can all live together. Right after Lisa and I buy the Sea-Doo. It's gonna happen - 2007: The Year of Big Dreams. Who's with me?