here we go again

1. Stu's doc called, his numbers are down some, still elevated even for him, the scope is scheduled for December 4, and none of us, not Stu, or me, or Shi, or Jack, or even little Audrey can do a thing about it except see what happens next.

2. I succumbed to peer pressure today at work. My employer, headquartered in Minneapolis (where there must be a state law requiring all citizens to own at least three items that have images of moose on them) is all about keeping us healthy, as in, higher insurance premiums for smokers, $100 refund of yearly health club dues, etc. Because this is the start of hibernation time in the cold northern regions, the company is again sponsoring the 'weigh to go' delio wherein we sign up as teams and have regular weigh-ins to see if we can either maintain our weight as a team or lose weight during the holidays. My team will be self-weighing using the well-established honor code concept because none of us are willing to admit out loud just how much we weigh. After work tonight, I hung up all the clothes that were hanging over my treadmill and I walked on it for 30 minutes. (Come on, give it up for me, yeh, that's better, I can hear the cheers now...)

3. Sugar emailed a cookbook to me today that had 594 pages of recipes (excluding the index pages and cover). It is full of 'actual' recipes from popular restaurants (Olive Garden, KFC to name a few), favorite candies and goodies, and of course, the original Mrs. Fields' cookie recipes. whatever. Tonight I cooked rice in my rice cooker, scrambled up some eggs, and tossed the rice, eggs, some leftover shredded carrots (that were cooked with a bit of butter and honey), onions, and toasted sesame seeds together in my biggest frying pan. And for good measure, I added some tiny peas. The recipe--yes, I was following a recipe, but I didn't have all of the ingredients--called for soy sauce, but unfortunately the bottle of soy I've had in my fridge for how long I don't know, was nearly unopenable, and when I did get it opened, before pouring some into the fried rice mixture, I carefully sniffed at it and was overwhelmed by the smell of very ripe vinegar, so I left out the soy and instead added a bit of salt and freshly ground pepper. It didn't look at all like fried rice, and it didn't taste a whole lot like the fried rice I've had at Benihana, but dang it was good. Tomorrow maybe I'll make the Olive Garden Toscana soup--potatoes, sausage, greens in a cream sauce--or perhaps I'll make some of the Sizzler cheese toast.

So there you go--I exercised and cooked today. And to reward myself, I'm going to the kitchen right now to get some oreos or ice cream bars for me and Jack. And when our year's supply of oreos from the Costco is gone, I'll simply make more because, yep, you guessed it, I've got the recipe.