The No Sweets Challenge was back on the after Valentine’s Day dessert. And with the taste of sugar fresh on my tongue, I was more than ready for Fat Tuesday. My mom had ordered a dozen pazckis from Nibo’s (The former Vinewood Bakery) to split with the family. I ordered two; one lemon and one raspberry, and Aya ordered two; one raspberry and one prune. (You’re probably thinking, “prune!?” Yeah, me too. It’s okay, you can judge her.)
With the order in, all I had to do was wait…
It’s a time for the sweets
A time for the sweeter
A time for the cheesecake
And the cheesecake eater
                             -my dad
And speaking of cake…
I announced about a month ago that I would be giving up sweets until Easter Sunday with two exceptions. One being Valentine’s Day, and the other being Fat Tuesday. And if my calendar is correct, I believe today is Valentine’s Day!
I was talking to a friend recently about my rewards based eating system. Staying home with Ellie all day proves to be pretty challenging at times. And to be standing on two feet at the end of the day, I think is worth having a “reward.” You know, a cookie, or two, or three. Or a bowl of ice cream, a donut, a candy bar, half a jar of peanut butter, or a box of snack cakes. Anything that has sugar in it. And as you may have guessed, my “reward” based eating turned into emotional eating (yes, I said emotional eating. It’s a real thing.) which then got out of hand, again.
My goal was to make Totoro cake balls for Ellie’s birthday. But after my first attempt, I knew the cake pop maker wasn’t going to work. It was a disaster. I learned a few things along the way though. I received many suggestions and they all pointed to one method. Mixing cake with frosting. I knew then if I was going to pull this off as a cakeball rookie, I needed to listen.
Ellie used to drink about 18 ounces of milk a day. Six in the morning, six in the afternoon, and six before bedtime. That went down to 12 ounces, and by the time we left for Japan, it was maybe 6 ounces. And when we were in Japan, it went down to zero. Well, apparently the milk is processed differently in Japan because it tastes different. Aya said she had a hard time adjusting to Japanese milk in the beginning when she first moved from the States to Japan. So sure enough, Ellie wanted no part of it. Not even just a little bit. She was completely turned off. So after trying for five days and wasting milk (I sure didn’t want it, it tasted funny!), we decided to let it go. She would be without milk for just a few weeks, it’d be okay. She would be excited for milk when we got back. At least that’s what we were thinking.
