April 9 - Dark

It's in the freezer. Waiting until sometime after the last day of the current Whole 30.
It's not like a Lenten thing, though, where I'm looking forward to diving in ON the last day.
Which is a nice attitude to have about dark chocolate.

January 14 - Three things

Actually, three of the same thing. These are three-ingredient mints from Trader Joes.
Honey, chocolate liquor and oil of peppermint. That's it! Very satisfying when the urge hits.

If it's Monday, it must be winter again

Or something like that.

I'm not sure why the National Weather Service calls it a "Winter Storm Warning" when it's spring, but they do. The daffodils are bent under a couple inches of snow, with more to come. The warning ends at 2 p.m. tomorrow. Our road has been plowed, though, and my tires are good, so I might try to get to the grocery today.

DID YOU MISS ME? I enjoyed my little break from writing, but I also missed my routine of getting up to a silent, dark house and having a couple hours to myself. My granddaughter is an early riser and LOVES having a grandma to play with first thing in the morning.

TJ's in Cary, NC

We packed a lot of activity into basically a Saturday. Nothing got canceled due to rain, as we'd feared, and we even made a trip to Trader Joe's, which was definitely one highlight among many. I would seriously buy all my groceries at a Trader Joe's if there were one within a reasonable driving distance from the Middle of Nowhere. Alas, I don't think West Virginians are their target demographic.

Whiteout!

The drive home took two hours longer than it should have because of the snow. I had to change my route from I-77 north to a less-traveled, more mountainous state road in Virginia because of a rockslide which had closed the interstate. I pulled over once to gather my wits and take a picture from the side of the road as I prepared to descend a very long hill.

Fortunately the snowy part didn't last long and by the time I got into West Virginia it wasn't so bad. I have to climb quite a steep hill to get to my driveway, but it wasn't snow-covered at 5 p.m. It probably was at 5 a.m.!

And finally, if it's Monday it must be weigh-in day. I really overdid it yesterday. Let's just say I'm a stress eater, and that drive was Stress with a capital S. If I did any damage, it will show up next week. ALTHOUGH ... I was well under the calorie budget for the week. But I thought about skipping the date with the scale this morning. How many Mondays have I woken up feeling like I'd made some progress, only to be disappointed?

I'm glad I didn't. I lost two pounds this week, for a total of nine pounds since December 26 – an average of .69 pounds per week, if you want to get all geeky about it.

And I do.