Birthday Parties are worth the calories...

Last night, my friends orchestrated a surprise birthday for Elisabeth at Olive Garden.  As we all know, Olive Garden is not a "figure friendly" restaurant.  So in my quest for a healthy choice at my favorite Italian chain, I relied on my favorite website: calorieking.com.  It is great to pull up restaurants and see the calorie count in dishes before deciding on an 1100 calorie salad at Chili's (which I wish I would have done BEFORE I ordered and ate 3/4 of it!).  I love food, but I am five foot two (and a half!) with the metabolism of a sloth so needless to say, I have to work at staying fit.  After we are seated at a large table, our birthday girl walks in and we watch her open her gifts.  The waiters bring the salad and breadsticks, and I am tempted my the buttery goodness of the fresh breadsticks, but miraculously I refrain.  Then I order the healthiest thing I find on calorieking.com which is Venetian Apricot Chicken.  After watching people eat delicious breadsticks and classic Italian meals like Chicken Parmasan and Lasagna, my strength waned and a broke down and shared a dessert.  After we eat and pay, we sit and talk and laugh.  The pitch of all our laughter combined sounded like a symphony of happiness.  I'm sure it probably sounded like wild hyenas to the rest of the restaurant, but we were in our own world.  As I left, I realized that birthday parties at Olive Garden should always be an exception to any diet!

credit cards and tax money... all gone!

It was a glorious day when I checked my account and my federal tax money had been deposited.  Oh what plans I had for the money... let's see there was the tattoo I was going to get, the new spring wardrobe (which I may or may not have spent over my clothing budget this month), the couple's massage for my boyfriend and me.  But most of those plans fell short when I realized how much credit card debt I had accumulated  last year... unfortunately I have little to show for it: I extended the deck to wrap around the house, which sounds great, except that it was put together by retards (I always say "it looks good from afar, but it's far from good"); on the same day that the retards were demolishing my old deck, I purchased a package to renovate my gutters for $900 (I was ripped off, btw DO NOT buy anything from GutterGuardian/DixieHomecrafters), plus several store credit cards with small balances.  I must admit that being a "responsible" adult has been difficult, but I was able to slash the old debt with a few trips to the online payment stores, reluctantly hitting the "send" button more than I care to admit.  Alas, I have seen the last of my federal tax return, but I'm still waiting for state! Hahahahaha.....