utenzi

I've been on a diet the past 2 months. My doctor insisted; she was quite adamant, in fact. For the most part I've been behaving myself and as a result I've gone down from 228 to 194. However I still love sweets and now that my weight is approaching normal (I actually need to hit 183 before my BMI is officially normal) I want to add some candy back into my diet. I still want to avoid fructose as much as I can, ie high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which complicates things a mite since HFCS is in so much candy. So when I noticed that Amazon is running a 20% off coupon code special on YummyEarth lollipops ("YUMET924") I had to pick up a 5 lb bag. YummyEarth is a small company that makes organic candy that is free of corn syrup as well as being gluten-free, GMO-free, egg-free, soy-free, nut-free, casein-free, and dairy-free. *whew* But despite that word "free" occurring so often they're not free-free. On the YummyEarth website a 5 lb bag of assorted flavo...

Today's Halloween, or as some say, Samhain, and believe me, that second one is pronounced weird. But what do you expect from a bunch of witches? Holy crap. I shouldn't have said that. I might get turned into a newt! (a newt, you say?) Kim decided to visit for the weekend but it was a last minute decision. Since she thought she'd be at her house, Kim bought a bunch of candy---and of course I bought a bunch too. Together we have 16 pounds of candy!l All in nice little pieces. (see picture for details) Now we just have to decide if we should turn the outside lights on tonight and share this bounty with little ghouls and goblins or just have a sordid candy fueled frenzy of sugar consumption. *burp* Tough choice, huh? UPDATE: Only had 14 kids come by. Even giving out a handful of candy to each one we didn't finish off even the first bag. Lots and lots of candy left over. And while Kim and I were sitting out on the porch reading, waiting for kids to come by, we were swar...

37 bags of candy, albeit some of them quite small, and one big (and very, very soft) sheep all for just under $30 at a half-off sale. Mmmmm. Nothing like cotton candy flavored lifesavers, y'know? I do love holidays--or at least their aftermath.

If you read this blog very often you're probably aware that I kinda like candy. Which is to say I place approximately the same emphasis on candy as I do on oxygen and water. And Butterfingers are one of my favorite types of candy. Which makes the box there on the right nearly a religious experience for me. 36 FULL SIZE candy bars. Not those shrimpy snack size that I usually get. These are the big boys. We need a little history here. First, that's what the lovely dears look like when they're exposed to the light. Wonderful, aren't they? Anyway, around a week ago Julie came over during the week and we were going to cook dinner together. I was missing a couple of items so we went on a Wal-mart run. I happened to notice, while walking through the candy aisle, that the store was out of Butterfinger bars. No, I didn't make a scene or pass out. No, nothing like that. I was calm. Well, maybe I hyperventilated a little---after all, I only had a few packs left at home. In an...

I seem to be thinking about sweet things a lot lately. Must be the holidays, huh? Yesterday's post about the wintergreen patties was just the tip of the iceberg. What do you think about this recipe for Molasses cookies? I don't have any molasses on hand but since I need to make a run to Wal-mart to pick up a prescription for two drugs that my doctor prescribed for me yesterday, I can grab the molasses while I'm there. And look for some wintergreen flavoring too. And since I've already bought the fixings for no bake cookies , it's shaping up to be a very sweet weekend. In my defense, somehow I managed to lose 5.5 pounds during the 8 days I was wondering around the southeast last week. I can't explain the weight loss since I certainly managed to eat a fair amount of food. Hmmm. I weighed in at 207 yesterday morning whereas I was 212.5 before I left. Maybe driving burns a lot of calories? That must be why all those long-haul truck drivers are so svelte. LOL Get...

I'm going to be working a mite late today. I had a doctor's appointment today and I need to make up the time. The appointment was mostly to check out if a cholesterol drug I was just put on (yes, age is making me fall apart) is doing anything. I've been taking it for 2 months now and they drew blood today to see how I'm doing. Anyway, on the way home I'm planning on picking up some soda (yummy yummy soda) and sweet potatoes and while the soda is getting cold I plan on using my pretty mandoline to slide up those taters and then I'm frying them. Sweet potato chips! That's a rather time consuming task so I'll probably make some eggs and sausage for dinner at the same time. Wednesday I hope to make a stew that'll last me the rest of the week and maybe even Saturday too. And on Saturday I'll be doing a hike with Meetup where we cross a bunch of sewer pipes during the afternoon and in the evening I'm planning on making some mint patties . Winterg...

...and I love candy and best of all is sales on CANDY! My heat is on and it's up to 62f (and still climbing--I like it around 65f). I had all the windows open when I first turned it on 'cause I hate that stinky smell when it first comes on. And I went in and got a much needed haircut right after I picked up all that pretty candy.  I'm set until Xmas now.

Today I had a nasty experience and a somewhat good one. First the good, notice the bag of jellybeans open there on the left? It's co-branded by Lifesavers. Lots of times there's really no meaning or difference behind co-branding, expect of course the slightly higher price. However in this case it means a lot. These jellybeans taste exactly like Lifesavers! It's uncanny. I only bought two bags since I had no idea how they'd taste and there's some jellybeans I really don't like. Now I wish I'd bought a few more bags. They're on half-price Easter clearance so I doubt they'll stick around long. The malted milk balls were good too. Yummy, in fact. The bad part of the day was at a gas pump. Ouch. The last time I filled my tank, 2 weeks back, was the first time I'd ever paid over $40 at a gas pump. Well, that record got broken pretty quick: today I spent over $50! Scared the bejesus out of me! The gas was $3.21 a gallon and normally my tank doesn'...

Candy is the Answer Ain't that the truth? (of course I must admit that candy hearts would be biased on that subject)

I just love candy. I just love sales. And I really, really love clearance sales. That said, when you combine candy and a clearance sale--well, let's just say I go hog wild. And if you think that infers that I can be a pig, well--keep it to yourself, thank you very much. The picture to the left might lead some to think I'm a candy hog, but it's more that I love good values. Really. Wal-mart had all their Christmas stuff--including candy--at 50% off or more. I picked up over 50 pounds of candy today. Including more than 40 pounds of Hershey Cordial Cherry Kisses. God I love those. Thanks here to Shephard who first made me aware of those little morsels of delight. Even the Santa tray and bowls were on sale ($1.75 and $4.25 respectively) and the ladybug vibrator was practically free. Don't ask. I stocked up on all kinds of candy and even got some Xmas wrapping paper, programmable Xmas lights and those more practical things--but my heart belonged to the candy. As always. I...

Chemistry and chocolate. Add in cherry cordial flavor and you have heaven! That's the wallpaper I'm using on my laptop these days. I took the picture in my lab last week. I'm now in South Carolina. I arrived at 12:35am after a rather fast 3.5 hour drive from NC. I usually don't leave until around 3am but this time I had to do some Xmas shopping on the way out of town and one of the stores closed at 9pm so that dictated my departure time of 8:25pm. I managed to make the stops at Lowe's (car thingy for my Dad and gift certificate for my brother), Food Lion (turkey for Sunday dinner and 2 pounds of butter for making honey butter), and Smithfield's (2 dozen hushpuppies for eating on the drive and 2 pints of Brunswick Stew for eating breakfast once I got to SC) very quickly and was on the Interstate by 9:10pm. Next up I'm eating some Brunswick Stew then going kayaking. Later today I'll start getting things ready for the Sunday turkey meal I'm making. My p...

I made a run last night to Wal-mart around 8pm. There were a few items I needed and the gas station near there has lower prices and my tank was near empty. It gave me something to do while waiting for Life to come on at 10pm. Unfortunately I was seduced by the dark side once I entered the store. Chocolate specifically and candy in general. I just wasn't able to withstand that powerful siren call of sugar. Just look at what I got! Talk about a potential sugar rush. And some nice prices too. Those Hershey bars are 8 ounces, not the typical 5 ounces and Wally World has reduced the price recently to $1.25. That's only $2.50 a pound! I bought 8 but I suspect before the week is over a few more will find their way into my candy storage area. Like 20 or 30. *shiver* I don't like chocolate all the time but when I go through a chocolate phase--I can eat a pound everyday for a week or so. Food Lion had a 2 for 1 sale on the 5 ounce bars last week and I picked up 6 and went through...

Easter is almost upon us and I have to admit I just don't "get" Christianity. I'm too rational, I guess, and Christianity isn't rational--to put it simply, Christianity just doesn't make sense. Now I'm sure that kind of statement is going to piss some people off. After all, that's at the crux of the entire Evolution versus Creationism controversy. For anyone out there that "thinks" that Creationism makes sense--you're frickin' nuts! LOL Christianity is a Faith. It's not supposed to make sense. If it was rational, then you wouldn't need faith. To wit, I don't need faith in Gravity. If I fall, I hit the ground. It happens every time. No faith needed. You need faith for things that don't make sense, that are beyond the realm of reason and rationality. Like Kierkegaard said, there's a "Leap of Faith" involved in accepting Christianity and I've never been willing to make that leap. Easter involves one of t...

Nothing too serious today. Just a couple of pictures I took this weekend. This first one is a heart that I made out of peppermints while laying in bed bored. My girlfriend was on the computer playing some silly game. So, I--left alone with chocolate--just did what came naturally. I played with it. I hadn't been eating chocolate for most of February due to that diet restriction I was on and so the bargain candy I bought after St Valentine's Day was languishing in a drawer. This was the first bag I attacked. Chocolate! But I did pause long enough to make pretty shapes with the mints---the shiny red foil was too gosh durn pretty not to play with--before stripping those covers off and eating them. :-) Here's a picture of a black... cat. Ha! I bet you thought I'd use some other word but you're wrong! ( I did think the other word tho ) It's a boy and the most recent adoptee by my girlfriend. He's something like 5 years old and the people that used to own him (as...