Joe and I have been talking about how frustrating it is to gain BACK weight you’ve lost before. More importantly - we were discussing HOW it happens.

You know. The “diet day” always starts out GREAT. You eat a good breakfast, have a big glass of water, maybe even yogurt a few hours later for a snack. BUT - at SOME POINT in the day SOMEONE puts something in front of you (like that damn Fresh! Now! sign on the way to work. Who the HELL put that there?) that screams “SCREW YOUR DIET! Eat me!” and you do.

Well, that ONE thing is no big deal, right? Eat a little less for dinner and maybe take a walk before bed. Not THAT big of a deal. Right? EXCEPT that once you break your diet with ONE item, it’s like a damn challenge to see HOW BAD can you break it the rest of the day. And you constantly are saying “Tomorrow. TOMORROW I’ll do better.”

In essense? That one bite of Red Velvet Cake turnes into Fried Chicken and french fries for lunch followed by pepperoni pizza and ice cream for dinner. I have actually eaten FIVE Krispy Kreme donuts at work and then come home and eaten an ENTIRE pizza for dinner. Was I that hungry? No. Did I eat so much I was sick? Yes. Could I have stopped myself? HELL NO.

So what is it? What is it that makes that ONE item you eat OFF of your diet make your WHOLE DAY become a Welcome Home Party for Glutons R Us?

Or is this just me? Are you sticking to your diet FINE? Well - then you just go to hell.

MrZoot and I both had yesterday off. We started the morning off with some cardio at the fitness center, and then spent the rest of the day sitting on our asses and watching TV.

First off - we HAD to catch up on all of our TiVo’ed shows. We actually cleaned the TiVo ENTIRELY off causing us to decide that there are few things scarier than realizing you have NOTHING on the “Now Playing” list on your TiVo. We vowed to make sure that NEVER happened again shudder.

After watching all of our old shows, we actually “surfed” channels for awhile (one thing you rarely do once you have TiVo) and ended up on Animal Planet watching Animal Cops: Houston. It’s a show that follows around the Houston, TX SPCA and the animal cruelty cases they handle.

SIX HOURS LATER….(marathon anyone?) we were both teary-eyed and sniffling, vowing to pledge the rest of our lives volunteering our homes and our hearts to help those animals who have been abused. We practically ran out right then and adopted all of the strays at the local shelter. At one point I actually said, “I guess we can’t rescue any DOGS right now - still living in this apartment - but maybe we could be foster parents to some needy kittens.” Because FIVE PETS is not enough for us right now, evidently.

Its just that there are RARELY EVER any happy endings on that show. Dogs are starved to death, horses are abused, cats are beaten, and one puppy had a CHAIN and a WIRE grown INTO HIS NECK because he had been left chained up and unattended for so long. They made him all better and STILL had to put him to sleep because of his dangerous socialization issues (no wonder). It was one of MANY heartbreaking stories we watched. ALL THE DAMN AFTERNOON.

What is my point? SOMEONE needs to teach us how to enjoy our holidays, we obviously have no clue.

I’ve cut my caffeine down to the lowest amount it has been since I was pregnant with LilZoot. I have increased my water intake from ZERO to 40+ ounces a day. Sometimes more. I’m sticking to my healthy eating regiment. AND - to top it ALL OFF - I’ve done a cardio workout FIVE out of the last SIX days. Damn straight. It looks like I may actually reach my goal of being “HEALTHY” when I turn 30 in July.

That is, until this morning, when someone brought a freakin’ red velvet cake into the office. And LEFT IT IN THE KITCHEN. Out in the open. Unprotected. Unrestricted. Where I could go eat a piece every time I fill up my water bottle. Where it can call my name all day, “Zooootttt….Zoooooottt…Eat Me, Zoooooottt.” Where I can SMELL it as I sit at my desk TRYING to get work done.

It was hard enough to only eat TWO of the Krispy Kreme donuts someone brought in on Friday. (I would have eaten more, I’m sure, but I got sick and had to leave early). But now? I have to stare at this BEAUTIFUL, YUMMY, MOIST, SWEET Red Velvet cake all day?

E.V.I.L.

LilZoot has been in a “Mystery” phase for quite some time now. It started out with him reading Hardy Boys non-stop, and has now morphed into a Nancy Drew Mysteries obsession. I actually took him to the bookstore THREE times this weekend, THREE different book stores and he bought all Nancy Drew books.

Naturally, everything LilZ encounters now, has some relation to a mystery that needs to be solved. “I hope Nana has a mystery that needs to be solved,” is what he said before visiting his grandmother this weekend. His favorites are the ones where “someone gets kidnapped” which I’m trying not to fret about. I even bought him his own magnifying glass this weekend (hence the title of this entry) and he’s been looking for clues everywhere. It’s really cool and it has a pen built into the handle.

Yester, he drew a picture that had Nancy and all of her friends “bound and gagged” like in the book he’s reading now. He showed that same picture to the neighbors last night, as he’s very proud of it. Can you hear the talk now, “That Zoot woman, her son is drawing pictures of teenagers TIED UP and GAGGED! What is she TEACHING him?”

I like to keep people guessing.

My eye-teeth fell out yesterday. I was born without my permanent eye-teeth, so they are really just fake teeth attached to my bridge. I felt like it was loose for the last week or so, but it actually popped out when I was eating crackers yesterday. Luckily, I was able to pop it back in. I have NO idea what is holding the damn thing in right now, but I’m grateful for whatever it is. Maybe the pagan sacrifice I made to the dental gods yesterday? I don’t know. Regardless, I cried like a BABY when the damn thing fell out. I was just so EMBARASSED. Isnt that hideous? I was so humiliated at the idea of being without my eye teeth that I CRIED when they popped out.

You are laughing at me and my toothless,humiliated self, arent you?

Well, my dentist is squeezing me in today at 3:30pm for a re-glue. Thank god. One of these days I’ll find the three thousand dollars it will take to give me a permanent replacement. But not today. Today? I’ll just make a date with Mr. Elmer’s.