24 Hours of Gluttony

So just as I'm coming out of Birthday Season... Thanksgiving hits. And then Christmas.

This weekend we went to ATL to celebrate the birthday of one of my girlfriends, and I think we had a pretty good time. I missed out on the Petit LeMans race at Road Atlanta -- a ten-hour endurance race, where the winner came in first by ~4.5 seconds -- but I spent some good time hanging out with my grandaunts, who are both in their nineties.

Sounds odd, but it was kind of fun. They live in a building like a dorm, but don't have to get out of bed to go to class. They show movies, have a cafeteria, have classes, like yoga, Tai Chi, crocheting/knitting... it's actually kind of cool. Let's face it, though: not many boys make it to the retirement homes, so there's a lot of girlie activities. But I think Ava and I both had a good time with the aunties. Especially Ava since she stole Aunt Trixie's walker and ran around the building with it. She had a blast.

Except I left my damn camera. AGAIN.

The hubby made some AWESOME lasagna. And okay, I could have NOT had some, or I could have asked him to make some low-carb lasagna, but... food is a part of the whole "having fun" experience, in my book. Not only that, but he only makes this stuff ONCE A YEAR. For MY birthday. And that's after I beg him. For weeks.

I do get it one other time of year. His mom makes it for Thanksgiving, as part of the four or five-day holiday. If things work out to my advantage, she makes it earlier in the week, and the morning after, I wonder downstairs, in almost full zombie-mode, pull open the fridge, cut myself a HUGE slice of the stuff, warm it up a little in the microwave, and then chow down while everyone stares at me over their eggs, cereal, coffee, and muffins. Then for lunch, I repeat the same process, except a little less zombied, and with turkey sandwiches instead of breakfast stuffs. Midnight snack? You guessed it. Lasagna it is!

So when an unexpected opportunity for mozzarella-covered Pasta Bliss came up, I couldn't say no. It's bad enough getting the stink-eye from the hubby when I order clearly inferior lasagna at a restaurant. But he doesn't MAKE it, and when you're jonesing, a fix is a fix. So I said yes to the pasta this weekend.

And yes to Chick-Fil-A... and potato chips with Ranch dip... and cheesecake... and two coffees, both overloaded in sugar... oh, and a Chipotle burrito where the tortilla looked like it was going to explode, if I asked for a single extra ingredient. Normally this would all kill me, but for some odd reason, my pants weren't tight in their usual places. So I don't feel bad at all, and back to the diet on Monday.

I've even got some portobello mushroom burgers already made up for the week, thanks to making too much stuffing for my stuffed steaks on Thursday. I made six stuffed steaks, so I had dinner made for Thursday and Friday, too. Leftover ingredients are pretty awesome sometimes, really.

My cheesecake turned out okay, too, I guess. I tried a variation using yogurt cheese, instead of cream cheese, because I can't bring myself to use reduced fat anything unless I know it tastes great. But yogurt cheese is made from fat-free yogurt, and it's loaded with vanilla, so I thought it would work better than reduced fat... but it wasn't entirely up to my standards as cheesecakes go. I think next time I'll use a combination and see how that works.

My daughter also proved how well she pays attention to things, as well, this weekend. I went upstairs and turned on the computer, because I refuse to order food over the phone. Whenever I do, the order is always wrong, they can never understand me over the phone:

ME: So I'd like an extra large pepperoni and onion with extra cheese and a hand-tossed crust.

THEM: Okay, that'll be a Medium with pineapple, anchiovies and no sauce on a thin crust, right?

I just don't get it. And THEN, it takes me a half-an-hour to try and get them to correct it, and it still ends up wrong. So I quit ordering food over the phone. I make the hubby or friends do it. I would even go so far as to accost random people with a phone, if I'm really desperate. (if that seems crazy to you, please refer to the title of this blog.)

So anyway, back to the story: I am half-way through and happily clicking away my order over the website when all of a sudden, the screen flips over to the Windows-standard green fields and blue skies, and shuts off. I look down and find my daughter looking very pleased with herself, as she pulls her sticky little ninja fingers off the power button. So I was forced to abandon my order and actually go in and order in person. But the line wasn't too long, so it worked out. And Ava got an extra thirty minutes of nap, which is always awesome... for us!

And, like I said, back to the diet tomorrow. The net loss is what I'm going for, and one 24-hour window isn't going to kill me. But I also know better than to weigh myself after Moe's or Chipotle.

How Many Licks Does it Take...

Before the calories count?

I finally really started feeling like myself again last Friday or so... and then we autocrossed all day Saturday and Sunday. So basically my weekend was totally shot. But my parents came in to take care of the booger, who was NOT happy at all that her parents decided to ditch her.

Mom did a great job with Ava, and I heard not a single PEEP out of her the whole time I was home, so that was awesome. My mother rocks! Although she did call me on Sunday [late] afternoon in a total panic.

"WHERE ARE YOU???"

"What do you mean, 'Where am I?' I'm at the autocross. I told you I'd be here ALL DAY, didn't I?"

"When you said all day, I didn't know you meant all night too!"

I keep forgetting mom's bedtime is like 8pm or something, so when Ava doesn't go to bed until 9... oh yeah. It gets interesting. They even got up with her in the night -- teething season is here again! -- since neither Chris nor I got more than five hours of sleep on any given day. That sort of happens when you sign up to be on course by 7am, and the site is an hour away. :meh:

But I won my class on Saturday! (I won't mention Sunday's three SECOND loss, though.) And I think I did pretty well at the Mini Match, too! I enjoyed it, at least.

I still didn't close my standard two second gap on my buddy, Jake, but, well, I guess it is his car. However, if I were competeing with the boys, I would have come in fifth, by 1.861 seconds. I beat the fifth place guy by 0.3, which isn't too bad.

Oh, right. What is autocrossing? It is "a timed driving event." Meaning a bunch of idiots get up at god-awful early, stick a bunch of cones in a parking lot, and time themselves running around said cones. Sounds dumb, but damn is it fun.

Now here's the hitch: I spent the whole weekend autocrossing, but one of my girlfriends had a birthday over the weekend, and we spent it at the autocross instead of celebrating with her. Which is okay, since we're extending her birthday celebration -- HOWEVER, today was my first day feeling like getting back on the wagon... and I decided to make a cheesecake for her. Well, she asked for the cheesecake... but it's just wrong to make a dessert when you're on a low-carb, no sugar diet.

But I'd been jonesing to make one for weeks now, so at least I had a good excuse. Still, the question needs to be asked: how many licks before the calories and carbs count???

I'm hoping this thing turns out okay. It's currently sitting in my oven, cooling. Hopefully the top won't crack. The edges are already a little overdone, but if the top cracks too, I'll be mad. This time, though, I used two full 9x13 pans full of water for the water bath, since I can't immerse this particular pan: it's too big.

Cross your fingers for me.

Oh and your laugh for the day:

As my buddy Rock put it, "Probably not."