In a small town in Alabama

Got a text from husband tonight: Going to Stephen's.

Me: Again?

That's two weeks in a row. After a bit of discussion and agreeing that he absolutely must start spending some time with me, his wife, I decided I was going out tonight.

First up on the agenda: dinner. What do I eat? When we were getting ready to close up shop at the dealership, I was listing all the different places to eat where it was kosher for people to sit by themselves. That left Panera Bread and the cafe in Barnes and Nobles. While both are absolutely delicious and I hardly ever turn down a good cup of tea, I can't really have a lot of bread, something that both the restaurants are known to furnish.

So I got to thinking about what sounded good and the first thing that popped into my head was some Thai food. But then I thought about how I want my dear, sweet, loving husband to take me to Surin Saturday night to make up for the lack of anniversary dinner on Thursday. (I'm not telling you that story so stop wondering.) I got a couple of my friends from work together and we decided on the next best thing: Sushi!

I love the sushi! Rainbow roll, tuna roll, nagiri (with the salmon); oh! Yum! One of the guys from work had never been to an actual sushi bar before and so we had to eat at the bar for the full experience. Kobe, the Japanese steak house and sushi bar, opened up a few months ago and I hadn't tried it yet; there is one in Birmingham and I had been wanting to see if this one was just as good. We decided to go there and give it a shot. We sit down, place our order and eat till the fish could reassemble in our stomachs and swim again! I must have had plenty of fish eggs floating in my eyes! I was so full!!

Then the wild hair crawled up my ass.

"Hey, William," William was enjoying his first experience in the sushi bar. "Have you ever tried octopus?"

"Only at the buffet." William has been know to frequent a local joint that serves buffet sushi, AKA crap with rice.

"If I order it, will you try it?"

"I'll eat anything!"

So I ordered octopus nagiri. The plate arrived and there it sat. William picked it up, dipped it in some soy sauce and stuffed it in his mouth. Five minutes later he was still chewing so I continued to wait to ask if it tasted alright. I've always wanted to try it, just a little afraid to.

"How is it?" I asked after a few more minutes of constant but slowing chewing.

"Not too bad," he answered between chomps, "Little chewy. Flavor's good."

OK...I picked up the last piece, dipped it and tried to take a bite out of half of the octopus. If you have ever had squid, that's the kind of chewy I tried to bite in half. It wasn't working so much for me. Finally, I was able to rip the piece in half. He was right, not too shabby of a taste, very chewy. Ten minutes later, I was able to swallow the food.

Later, we decided to go catch up with another friend of ours at a local karaoke bar. I rarely frequent these places and was expecting a younger crowd on a Friday night. I. was. wrong.

When we pulled up, the windows were tinted to block out anything going on inside. As we opened the door, cigarette smoke tumbled outside. There were two pool tables to my right where four middle-aged men, one in a leather jacket, stood staring at us with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. The bar was on our left and there was not one seat left empty. I think we were the youngest people they had seen in awhile; I thought for a second we'd hear a record screech. All eyes were on us.

"Hey! Over here!" screamed a familiar voice. I turned to find Jennifer, the only face I knew in the unfamiliar crowd. She introduced us to everyone at her table and we sat down to join the conversation. They were discussing whether to stay at this bar or go to another one, arguably a gay bar.

"It's not gay," one man at the table said. He was tall and slender and wearing a cowboy hat. He was probably in his mid to late forties. I wondered about the hat. "It's owned by two lesbians. It ain't no gay bar."

"Well let's go on over there then!" Answered the other man. He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. He had salt and pepper hair and a thick mustache. He seemed a bit antsy to leave the bar we were in.

Next to him sat an older woman in pink scrubs. Her hair was cropped short and colored blond. She was nursing a glass of tequila, apparently not her first. She looked at William, "Are you singing tonight?"

"Oh, William loves to sing!" I intergected. "He has the most beautiful voice!"

I looked over at William while trying to stifle my laughs. I hadn't realized that he had the karaoke book in his hands already. He looked at me like he wished he'd had a beer bottle in his hands instead of the book. Pure fear in his eyes!

"What are you going to sing?" The woman asked him. I noticed her eyes were getting crooked; I didn't think she was sober...at all. She had a very heavy southern accent, as did all the other patrons. I felt like I was in a movie stereotype.

"Oh, William! Sing for her!" I interrupted again. "He'll bring tears to your eyes, I tell ya! He loves to sing Hal & Oates Kiss on my List!" The woman's eyes crossed even more as she processed my words and excitement showed in her smile.

Another man sitting next to the woman finally spoke up. "What are you going to sing, ma'am?" He also had on a cowboy hat, a flannel shirt and tight jeans. I'd bet a hundred dollars he had on cowboy boots but I never checked. He raised his eyebrows at me when I finally realized he was asking me his question.

"Oh," I thought quick, "I'm a mute."

"You're a wha?"

"I'm a mute."

"Oh," he looked dumb-founded. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, me too." Don't laugh! Don't laugh!

I looked at William again and wondered if he was going to play along, too. His face was beat red; I couldn't look at him so I turned to Jennifer who wasn't paying any attention to the conversation.

Everyone paid for their tab and we headed to, Angie's, the gay/not gay bar. I really didn't know what to expect after the first bar. I wasn't drinking since I'm training and everyone else but William was so I just tried to go with it. I'm from a much bigger city than Tuscaloosa originally so the idea of a gay bar was no big deal and the concept of one being in T-town really didn't seem realistic at all so I really had no clue what we were walking into.

Again, the doors were tinted, but not so much. When we walked inside, the dance floor was immediately in front of us with a stage on our left. Several tables were pushed together and the bar was in the far back. Music was playing and I recognized the song. It was Hootie and the Blowfish, Let her cry. I looked for the karaoke stand confused for a second; the song sounded too good.

All of a sudden a short, pink streak holding a microphone breezed past us. It was a short man with a pot belly in a hot. pink. polo. shirt. singing Hootie. He held the microphone and spun around the dance floor singing the song. He sounded just like Darius Rucker but I'm quite positive there was no resemblance. He looked like he was about to break into Broadway dance moves. Several in our group immediately had to go to the bathroom.

We sat down and I looked to my right where several women sat with there girlfriends. To my left, it was a mixture of older women in clothes several sizes too small mingled with men in cowboy hats and tight jeans. What a mix!

I still didn't know what to think. Fortunately, a basketball game was playing on a huge TV directly ahead of me so I focused on it to keep myself from laughing in people's faces.

Some of the same people from the first bar followed us to the new bar. They talked Jennifer into singing. I agreed to sing if William went first. Nobody else in our group had balls. I must admit, that was the first time I've done karaoke sober!

Success is not eating the leftovers

Oh! I am still so full from lunch today! Everything was delicious! Everybody who brought something did a great job! The smoked chicken was e.x.c.e.l.l.e.n.t!!!!!

Unfortunately, not all the Peanut Butter Balls got eaten so I'm taking some home with me. Looking on the bright side of that, there are enough left that I won't have to make another batch for my Mum's Christmas after all. I can just stick these in the freezer and thaw overnight in the refrigerator! Another reason for me not to eat them!

I did get some left over BBQ and some left over smoked chicken to eat. That will be a big help in getting back on the bandwagon. I didn't get any sauce but the chicken didn't need the sauce! It fell right off of the bone! It was perrrrfect! And my dear, sweet husband can have the BBQ; I'll even make him some white BBQ sauce to go with it.

Also, I have some, maybe a serving, of my casserole left. Trey can eat that for lunch one day this week if I can keep him out of the fast food line. Not a lot of people are brave enough to try my cooking and what I can cook is limited. That means Trey's menu from Restaurant Stephanie is limited to about....oh....5 items? Chicken and rice casserole, chicken tacos, pork and rice casserole, ham wraps and...and...um....OK 4 items are on my menu!

Needless to say, he gets a little tired of redundancy and is scared to try my food when I experiment. In my defense, I haven't burnt anything in at least a month and I haven't technically set anything on fire in two years! So I am getting better!!

Just to let you know, I only had one piece of the big "O" cake-- come think of it, I don't think I even ate the whole piece! I'm still stuffed though! What I missed in caloric intake from the cake I made up for with the chicken and rice casserole, hash brown casserole, dip, chips, bite of brownie, bite of peanut butter cake and peanut butter balls. I lost count with the peanut butter balls.

Soooo...I have some running to do Friday...

The Full Spread

Look at all the goodness! The tinfoil is BBQ. The blue top is mash potatoes. The end of the table has an assortment of pies and the big O cake.

And that's not all the food!

Now do you see why it's better for me to cave today??

Honesty

con-fes-sion   /kənˈfɛʃən/ Show
Spelled Pronunciation [kuhn-fesh-uhn] Show IPA
Pronunciation
–noun
1.acknowledgment; avowal; admission: a confession of incompetence.
2.acknowledgment or disclosure of sin or sinfulness, esp. to a priest to
obtain absolution.
3.something that is confessed.
4.a formal, usually written, acknowledgment of guilt by a person accused of a crime.
5.Also called confession of faith. a formal profession of belief and acceptance of doctrines, as before being admitted to church membership.
6.the tomb of a martyr or confessor or the altar or shrine connected with it.

7. I deviated from my diet plan last night and plan to do it again today.

So I have to admit something. I had the Shrimp Cypress Inn at Cypress Inn last night. I know, I know! How horrible! I've done so good! But I thought, "I have done so good! I need a reward!" so I ordered it! And I enjoyed it!!!


I had a really bad run this morning. I got very frustrated and just quit. I know, I know! I shouldn't quit! I'm blaming the bad run on the Shrimp Cypress Inn. Excuses! Excuses! The real reason I got frustrated was because I couldn't get my breathing in a rhythm and when I did, I'd have other problems. Plus, my iPod is out of juice and I'm already bored enough on the treadmill. I think I'm going to have to move my runs outside sooner than I thought. I'm going to have to find a running partner, too. The epiphany of running outside by myself doesn't sound that great.

In the meantime, today is our Christmas dinner at the dealership. All that gooey, yummy goodness. I had already planned on allowing myself to splurge today. It's really tough to ignore the BBQ, the potato salads, mashed potatoes, hash brown casseroles (I'm noticing a potato theme, here), slaw, the Orgasm cake from Thanksgiving, the peanut butter balls I made, my chicken casserole (Thanks, Paula!!), the pies, the macaroni and cheese, the dips, the chips - Oh! There is so much stuff to tempt me!

Don't chide me! I don't plan on eating everything! Moderation is key! I know that! I won't have the sauce, I won't have the potatoes, probably - well maybe the hash brown casserole - I'm only sticking to a piece AND I MEAN A PIECE of the Orgasm cake. I'll be a good cheater! Just consider my diet for the last three weeks: salad, sweet potatoes - no butter, chicken, chicken, salad, chicken, oranges, bananas, oatmeal, chicken, egg whites, chicken, protein shakes, chicken, salad and chicken!

I think this will be good for me. Help strengthen my resolve, maybe move me over this boredom hump AND give me some more incentive to push myself harder in the gym!

Mental Health Day

I am so excited today! I have the day off from work! While it doesn't take my mind off of some of the stresses there, it does help me relax in a big way. I already have a packed schedule this evening and work on top of it was pulling me thin. So yesterday, when I asked if I could have the afternoon off a little early, I was very surprised when Clint said, "Just take Tuesday off."

That means I have a whole day to get stuff done today! Here's a little why I was getting stressed about this evening. Every month, my girlfriends and I have our Supper Club. Usually it's the second week of the month but with the holidays and all, it was much easier for all of us to get together the third week of December. We are having an ornament swap and eating dinner at a nice restaurant. We'll catch up with each other, ask how the babies and husbands are and then we'll laugh, cut up, relax and enjoy each others' company with no husbands or children around. I look forward to this every month! Especially since I work around 11 men all day, every day! That's not even counting my husband!

Tomorrow is our Christmas at the dealership. Not that I've been procrastinating at all, I haven't, I just need to get the ingredients to make my dish. I wasn't able to get to the store on Sunday and I have gotten to where I refuse to go to Walmart or Food World by myself at night over here. There was a mugging not too long ago and I don't particularly want to be the next victim. That being said, tonight, I would have to go to the store tonight to get the stuff I need for my dish. That's why I asked Clint if I could leave a little early: I wanted to be able to leave before it was dark, get my ingredients, go to Supper Club and come home to mix it together. Plus, tonight is the Biggest Loser Finale so I didn't want to be up late watching it or make my dish - a Paula Dean dish, no less - while watching people tell me how dishes like mine made the fat! Go Michelle!!

That being said, my schedule today is as follows:

• Call the radio station check
• Eat oatmeal check
• Play on the internet while oatmeal digests checking
• Go run three miles Maybe I'll run outside today, weather permitting...
• Circuit train Or maybe I'll run four miles outside today and say I had a good enough workout
• Eat egg whites Breakfast of champions!
• Grocery Shop Home and Holidays shopping!
• Cook But don't eat!
• Eat chicken and salad lunch of champions...
• Play on the internet some more
• Go to Supper Club
• Watch Michelle win the Biggest Loser! Or Ed - not Heba or Vicky! BTW, I voted for Ed!

Cruel and Unusual

Text message from Trey: Go get Los Torascos for dinner. (FYI - That's my fav restaurant IN THE WORLD!!! It's Mexican, fried, cheesy, crunchy, chickeny, yummy, scrumptious, delicious, fuzzy-feeling-in-the-stomach good! And bad for my training diet.)

Me: I can't eat that.

T: I can.

Me: Then go get it yourself. Are you torturing me???

Trey didn't respond.

Me: Did you get Los Torascos?

T: No.

Meaning?
I get to stand in Los Torascos tonight to pick up my dear, sweet, loving, never-would-let-me-get-tempted husband's dinner.

The Great Thanksgiving

Let's face it. My cooking skills have never been steller. I think that's why Mum gave me the "appetizers" category this year; something I can't screw up (but I can burn water!).

This morning, I got up at the crack of dawn to start my Thanksgiving. I was excited to get to participate in the cooking festivities this year. So I got showered and dressed and headed to the kitchen. I can't cook but I never said that I don't like to pretend!

This morning, I've made meatballs (actually something Trey said he was going to make) and chicken wrapped in bacon and dredged in brown sugar and spice. Ooohh those loook sooo goood!! Thank you, Paula Dean!!! They are baking right now. The meatballs are ready to be eaten.

Trey has made his peanut butter balls. AKA Recipe for Weight Gain - Jenny Craig's favorite!

I made a dip, a bacon chedder dip. I bought some Triscuits to go with them and have been fighting to keep my husband away from the box all week long! I'm thankful it's Thanksgiving so that he can eat them now!

I may not can cook but in my land of pretend, all of the food sounds delicious! I can't wait to try it!

Now, Trey is getting ready, I'm waiting for the chicken to finish and then we are headed to my hometown to eat at my Mum's house. I'm never gonna lose enough weight for this half-marathon now!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Enjoy every bite you eat today and worry about it later!!

It's what's for supper...

Prep Time:
5 minTotal Time:
45 minMakes:
6 servings


What You Need
Take 1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix
1 cup water and mix & match your recipe from these options...

• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning 3/4 cup spaghetti sauce 3/4 cup KRAFT Shredded Mozzarella Cheese


• 2 tsp. chili powder 3/4 cup TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Thick 'N Chunky Salsa 3/4 cup KRAFT Shredded Mexican Style Cheese


• 1 tsp. dried oregano leaves 3/4 cup chopped roasted red peppers 3/4 cup ATHENOS Traditional Crumbled Feta Cheese

1 tsp. garlic powder 3/4 cup KRAFT or BULL'S-EYE Original Barbecue Sauce 3/4 cup KRAFT Shredded Cheddar Cheese


Make It In Three Steps
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PREHEAT oven to 375°F. Mix meat, stuffing mix, water and the seasoning until well blended. Press evenly into 12 medium muffin cups sprayed with cooking spray; make an indentation in center of each with back of spoon.

SPOON add-ins evenly into indentations in meatloaves.

BAKE 30 min. or until meatloaves are cooked through (160°F). Top evenly with cheese; continue baking 5 min. or until cheese is melted. Let stand 10 min. before serving.

Serving Suggestion: Serve with a hot baked potato and steamed seasonal vegetables.

Make Ahead: Prepare as directed. Remove from muffin cups; cool completely. Place in single layer on baking sheet; freeze until firm. Transfer to airtight container. Store in freezer up to 1 month. Thaw in refrigerator, then reheat in 375°F-oven for 20 min. or until heated through.

Special Extra: For a little kick, add 2 Tbsp. A.1. Original Steak Sauce to meat mixture before shaping into meatloaves.

Find more recipes here!