Temptation

We went to Branson this weekend--it's close enough to drive to for a weekend, and it has a lot of good memories for both of us. We both came here with our families when we were kids--it was much less built up then, of course--and Bob and I came here later, after we were married, for a lot of short vacations.

We drove down on Friday, stopping at John's so Bob could drop off one of the seats for his van--he needs the extra space--and we talked to Artemis the cat and Cisco the horse (turns out he was born the same year we were married, 1976) and feed him some green apples--stopped at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield for a little shopping (and ended up buying almost nothing), and got down to Branson in the late afternoon.

We ate dinner, then Bob brought me back to the room and he took off again, to do some night fishing. That's what he's doing right now, too--I'm writing this on the Visor in the hotel room using my foldable keyboard, and I'm going to mail it to myself using the modem. I'm not wireless yet, but it's not bad.

We had a really good day today. We went to Silver Dollar City, which was crowded but fun. The only real glitch was that while there was food everywhere, there wasn't really much that I could eat. Not that I was really hungry--we'd had a nice breakfast earlier--but I just kind of wanted to snack on something. I eventually found some peanuts in the shell at one of the concessions, and that helped.

We stayed there a few hours, then Bob suggested going to the arcade that was across the street from our hotel. He hit balls in the batting cage, and we played skeeball (winning enough tickets for a mechanical pencil, of all things) and miniature golf, and had our picture taken in the photobooth.

Then we stopped at a bar and grille and had grilled shrimp while we watched part of a football game, and I had a Margarita--the first alcoholic drink I've had in awhile. Too many carbs, but I decided to splurge. As Bob reminds me, it's not necessary to be rabid about it, just to pay attention.

We've been trying to eat at salad bar/buffet places because that works best for me. I had a big salad tonight, and some cauliflower and broccoli, and canteloupe for dessert, plus just a bite or two of some sugar-free chocolate pudding and half a sugar-free chocolate cookie. I wanted to try the pudding, and it was okay, but as I told Bob, it wasn't good enough to waste the calories on.

That's something that I always try to keep in mind, especially with chocolate. I adore chocolate, but bad chocolate just isn't worth bothering with. It's better, and more satisfying, to eat, say, one piece of Godiva than a half box of something cheap. It's all about quality, not quantity. And the other thing is--it's not going to go away.

Unless it is, of course (going to go away)--I only get Mom's Thanksgiving dressing once a year, for instance, and I'm sure I'll have some of that. But most other things I can always have another time, if I want. they're not going to stop making ice cream or pizza, so I try not to feel compelled to eat them just because they're there. Although the pizza at the buffet tonight was really tempting.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month