THE HART SERIES: Not Counting: March 17, 2007

I didn’t count today, but I did take pictures of what I ate

>> I woke up and had coffee (1 point), cereal (2 points) milk (2 points) and stopped counting today. It was my wife’s family birthday party get together. Her side of the family has this unusual birthday tradition .. that the birthday person has to not only PAY for the day’s dinner and activities, they also have to prepare it! Thankfully, my birthday is in July and I try to opt out on BBQ to even the score.

>> As for the Birthday Food Festival Saturday, I would like to say that I ate everything in moderation, but that’s about 50% correct, because there was some things I couldn’t really help myself! Everybody arrived around noon, and the last people left around 9pm, after we watched “Trailer Park Boys: The Movie”. My wife and I decided not to bother counting points – AT ALL – today, and partaked in everything .. such as:

* My father-in-law always brings two boxes of Robin’s Donuts, There was boxes of Assorted chocolates in the freezer and my sister-in-law brought some mint chocolates, we also had fresh brownies and nanaimo bars. I had two donuts throughout the day, and probably more chocolate than I planned to.

* We also went through a bag of large lime flavored chips and Old Dutch curry chips.. with two dips, salsa and a melted cheese version .. I was dipping into both bowls and dips

* It was about a 15lb turkey, and this picture was taken after hour #2 during the basting process

* I was teasing my wife by walking near the oven with my camera, however – we both knew she would KILL me if I opened the oven door to ‘let the heat escape’ while it’s cooking .. I don’t subscribe to that though, except the survival of not having my wife beat me for opening up the oven! haha

* Maxxie and Sophie were great! They love company, but get worn out after a while and just lay in their ‘doughnut-pillow-bed-bed’ together .. waiting patiently until we eat, so they can get some table scraps!

* Meet Zeussie Pussy Cat: True story – he escaped Saturday night when my father-in-law left around 8pm – we think. We woke up Sunday morning and wondered why there was no cat bugging us to feed him – when it hit us — UT OH! WHERE’S THE CAT? It turns out he likes us (I guess we feed him regularly enough) and stayed close to the front door. He was hovering about outside out own Condo waiting for morning dinner I guess! He’s not an outdoor cat despite he tries to escape into the outdoors every chance he gets. Well, except Sunday (today) – he’s not coming close to open doors!

* Turkey started in the oven around 1pm, and was finished around 5pm .. and we made about 5 boxes of stuffing and placed inside the turkey (it smelled like christmas all day as we do the same thing Xmas eve)

* There was also mashed/whipped potatoes, heated buns with margarine, steamed broccolli with cheese slices melted over it, creamy corn, and cranberry sauce .. and the stuffing of course, and turkey. Delicious! I had smaller portions, but two of them for the stuffing and turkey and mashed potatoes, and one bun. I didn’t bother with the corn or broccolli.

* Desserts – after a break …. a Pie from Perkins (on the left) that was a Peanut Butter Silk Cream with Chocolate layered bottom, topped with a mini Reesers Peanut Butter cup .. and a double chocolate fudge cake with white chocolate chips from SuperValu on the right.. I had 1/6th of the PB Silk pie, and it was so rich I didn’t even have a piece of the other fudge cake yet – and, that’s the same for most – as there was about 5/6 of that cake put back in the freezer for another day.

>> Estimated points for the day probably ranged between 50 and 80 points I roughly estimated (before dinner actually) .. because of all of the chocolates, chips and dip, and donuts … And, if I had not used up all of my splurge points – or more – it would have been pretty close. So, I assume I did use the 33 remaining splurge flex points plus my daily limit of 32 .. so, I guess today my points count will be guestimated to be 65 points.

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We rented Trailer Park Boys: The Movie .. and, afterwards everybody went home and I had cleaned up the kitchen and loads of dishes by the end of the movie~! 🙂

TRIVIA: YES! The Two Cops during the Helicopter chase were really (1) GORD DOWNIE (Tragically Hip) and (2) ALEX LIFESON (Rush) .. which, if you didn’t know .. are both Canadian 🙂

>> If you haven’t seen that movie yet – I’d recommend it – More than once! It’s hillarious 🙂

TRIVIA #2: Forgot about this … // “RICKY” (aka Robb Wells) is related to Prime Minister Stephen Harper FYI