After being 100% addicted to mocha coffees from Dunkin Donuts for the last several... months, I have had a rude awakening.
VERY RUDE.
I'm not a huge coffee fan to begin with, so when DD started advertising a coffee with a little hit of mocha, I was all "Sign me up!"
And so began the obsession.
Every. Single. Morning. I made my way to work with my medium iced mocha, skim and two Splendas, and went about my day. Every time I'd start to taste the actual coffee flavor, I'd root my straw around a bit until I hit a spot where the syrup had gathered. And then all was right with the world again.
Last week I decided to switch to being 100% committed to the PointsPlus program on WW, so I've been trying to really focus on being accurate with writing everything down, calculating and tracking the Points values of things, etc. I'd never figured the iced mocha because I always just assumed it was 1Point+ the way another coffee is. What I didn't consider is that the other coffees (blueberry, raspberry, coconut) are made with FLAVORS... not straight-up Hershey's syrup. As it turns out, my little beauty of deliciousness was not, after all, 1PP. No, my friends, it's closer to FIVE. FIVE POINTS! If you do the math and figure I drink a medium at least four days during the week and a LARGE on Saturdays and Sundays, we're getting close to an extra 15-20 points used per week.
After being frantically emailed with a note full of profanities and outrage at this discovery, boyfriend replied "How did you not know that the fancy mocha flavoring was straight Hershey's syrup?" The PMSing weight watchers can turn a blind eye to anything, my friend...
If you're not a WWer, you might not see the significance of this. If you are, please take a moment to acknowledge the ignorance which we've all felt at one time or another when you think "Oh, I'll just assume this is worth X many Points" because we ALL know what happens when we assume. The reasoning for the scale not budging has now become SO much more clear...
And so I write to you from behind the straw of a Toasted Coconut coffee, skim, 2 Splenda. It burns a little going down, without the velvety chocolate syrup to buffer the bitter.
Perhaps I'm a tea drinker after all...
I digress from my coffee dilemma. Can we please touch on the fact that it's already Monday? Granted it's almost 1pm for me on a Monday but where, oh where, did the weekend go?
Saturday morning I woke up and had my workout knocked out by 7, made my regular rounds to Target/Trader Joe's/WW, picked up breakfast at Panera, and headed back home to crawl into bed with My Boy. It may have been noon-ish on a Saturday, but it was our anniversary and we were going to spend it however we wanted!
We lounged around and watched a few episodes of Friday Night Lights. We're now halfway through Season 3 and I've started to panic a bit when I think about what on earth I'll do when my nights no longer revolve around this piece of heavenly goodness:
Also, in case you don't watch the show yet and are debating it, here's my little bit of temptation that I have to wave your way:
Amen.
Also, I will miss Tami Taylor so much. Nobody can rock aviators and a glass of wine like my girl!
We ran a couple of errands and then got ready for our dinner reservation. Y'all, with the assistance of Carrie in rotation on my iTunes and copious amounts of wine, I curled my hair! With a little poof!
Other than the whole "I've been with my man for four years!!" excitement, the successful curl came in a close second. I swear it's all due in large part to LouLou's advice on starting the curl at the top and working the way down, instead of from the bottom up, which is what I've always done! A little heat-friendly mousse, a spray (or thirty-two) of
the infamous Tres Two, and I was set!
Add in a good pair of heels and a pair of white pants that fit way looser than they did when I first dropped them off at the dry cleaners (a good three months ago but still, SUCCESS!) and I felt like I looked pretty darn good:
You can't see my heels... and it's kind of blurry... and there's a weird shadow under my arm that makes me appear to have a chicken wing and a half (this is an illusion, I swear to you)... and this was taken in the mirror of our building's elevator... but whatevs! My Big Texas Hair and I were making our debut! Dinner was fab and then we came home to watch more (what else?) Friday Night Lights, with a little more wine than was consumed before/during supper. All in all, it was a fab, perfect evening.
One of the things that I truly love most about our relationship is that as fun as it is to get all prettied up and go to fancy restaurants and such, we don't
need that. We are so content to go to a nice dinner, head home to change into our PJs and curl up in bed to relax and watch movies. Does that make us boring and old? Perhaps the tiniest bit. But I like being boring and old. Long gone are the "honeymoon days"... and I'm okay with that. I still put plenty of effort into looking nice for Brian, even in the evenings after work- I try to give my cheeks a little pinch and run a brush through my hair when he meets me at the train. But I also know that we are just fine and dandy together when my face is makeup free and I'm in a pair of yoga pants and an old t-shirt. We don't go overboard trying to impress each other with expensive gifts and fancy reservations - we try to have a date night every other Tuesday for $5 movie night and dinner at Panera, and a weekly dinner date on Saturday, just the two of us. While I know longer feel the need to sport team colors and sit on the sidelines at every one of Brian's softball games, I cheer him on in spirit... in my heart, from my bed, in the lovely air conditioned haven of our bedroom.
As fun and as exciting as the first weeks, months... even the first couple of years of our relationship were, it's so nice to be where we are now. The early days had their fair share of ups and downs, with us being long distance, finishing school, working full time in the summers, moving in together and making THAT whole adjustment, and so on. The days aren't perfect now, but we've settled into our own little groove. We know which buttons not to push (and that yes, I will STILL react that way every single time you push certain buttons. And no, it will never start being funny), which expressions are signaling "Seriously, turn off the video games and come chop an onion," and when to just smile and nod and listen and give hugs.
We're now at the point where we see our friends in the early stages of relationships, waxing on about how romantic it will be to move in together, how it's just so cute how much he loves his sports teams, how her temper is one of the things he loves most about her, and the kisses and the giggles and the touchy-feeliness of it all. We sit back and hold hands and smile to ourselves because we know that the day will come when reality shall hit and we'll hear all about how messy he is and does he NOT know where the laundry hamper is, and how can she burn candles that smell like the ocean and cookies? And then she's threatening to hide the remote because there's always a sports team to cheer: baseball leads to football leads to hockey leads to basketball leads to golf leads to baseball all over again, and it's not always so cute. And the temper that was so cute will rain all over his parade on her bad days/PMS days/"I just don't like you very much right now" days. It's not always fun and sunshine, but at the end of the day,
it's love.
These last four years would have been oh-so-boring if every step along the way had been perfect. The spark that was there on day one that we met and had our first little date is still here with us now, and I love him a little bit more every day for that. He's my absolute best friend and the person whom I trust more than anything. He tolerates my bad days and celebrates the goods, and we help each other through all of the ones in between. All in all, I'm a better person because he is my other half, and I would never dream of having it any other way.
August 2007: two weeks after we started dating and the day before Brian left to study in Australia for three months (talk about a whirlwind!)
and after a few years of experience under our belts...
July 2011: at Brian's best friend's sister's wedding. I can tell you that four years ago, boyfran would NOT have put on a pink tie for me, despite all of the pleading in the world. He has since learned that some battles mean you just have to wave the little white flag and give up.
(taken from the living room window-- ay!!)
