baked goodies hold no power over me...

Today was a busy day. Was proof day, which is usually very stressful. The one day a month when the magazine gets proofed, reproofed and approved to send to the printer. Wasn't that stressful today because sadly the magazine was the smallest it's been in over 18 years. Ugh!

But, all that aside, I had three triumphs today...

#1, There was a birthday in our department and we all went to Olive Garden for lunch. To me, Olive Garden means lots and lots of cheese and pasta. I actually hate going there now because there's absolutely nothing on their menu I can eat... except soup and salad. woo hoo. But that's what I did. I had soup and salad and NO bread sticks. Well, okay, I had a half of a bread stick but it was from the basket of bread that had no butter or garlic on it so it was just plain bread. I didn't even know you could order their bread sticks that way. The bread was actually delicious without the butter and garlic. Who knew.

#2, I resisted birthday cake. The birthday boy got a cake from Olive Garden and brought it back to the office to share with everyone. It was chocolate and looked so fabulous! I didn't have one piece.

#3, Being as today is proof day, I always bake some sort of goody from scratch for the editors to say thank you for another successful magazine. I made carrot cake cupcakes from my mom's special recipe. She said it was the best carrot cake I'd ever had and she was right. I baked them last night and decorated them with little butter cream carrots on top of the cream cheese icing. I had one cupcake last night and carried 3 dozen cupcakes with me to work this morning. The triumph is that I did not eat one today. I told myself a while ago that if I'm baking something that's supposed to be particularly spectacular, I will allow myself to indulge in one piece of it and that's it. And that's what I did. But those cupcakes sat on my desk all day calling out to me. I ended up putting them behind a partition on my desk so they didn't haunt me any more. By the end of the day, there were two cupcakes left. I still didn't indulge. I took them home and gave them to my daughter (who is skinny as a rail and can afford to indulge).

So today was a triumph in restraint.

One day at a time. One baked goody at a time.

Some would say, don't bake stuff like that and you won't be tempted.

I say, I want to bake. I just have to resist it. I can do this. I can co-exist with yummy baked things. I will triumph each time.