I Ate Around It

Sometimes, the best intentions truly do lead to hell.

You see, I made Christmas cut-out cookies yesterday. (Mistake number one, if you want to keep score.) For the record, I'm a total slacker in the cut-out department. I buy a box of frozen dough, all cut out and ready to pop in the oven. It's LAZY and CHEATING, and I simply wouldn't have it any other way.

This year, I bought a whole box (mistake number two) ... even though my cookie dough "dealer" (who has a friend who works in food service and gets our secret cookie dough club a discount) allows us to buy a quarter or half box. The whole box is 12 dozen cookies or something outrageous. As you'd expect, they take up a lot of room in the freezer.

In an effort to reclaim some of that freezer space, I set up a little cookie assembly line for a few dozen. Baked 'em. Frosted 'em. Decorated 'em. Sent a bunch home with my mom and dad after the Packer game. Took some in to work for a friend that doesn't bake. That left a dozen or so here in the pantry.

I ate one and vowed to not eat another until the weekend.

So tonight when I got home, I DIDN'T eat one. I ate my dinner. And then a piece of cheese. And then some grapes. And then a few kernels of caramel corn some sinister boy scout convinced me to buy. (Mistake number three.) And then an orange.

Thank goodness I just didn't eat the cookie. I probably consumed three times as many calories trying to avoid it.

Not smart.

Every once in a while I feel a little guilty buying the bag of Dove chocolate squares. I should have enough discipline to not need it. But when I get in a mood like today, eating the 40 calorie Dove square is a better option than eating all around the cookie I want, but don't eat. It satisfies my sweet tooth and puts the angry beast shouting "Feed ME!" inside of me to rest.