“The Lion, The Witch, and the Really Foul Candy.” Heh. A lot of kids are going to be in for a shock when they get their first taste of Turkish Delight. Oh, and I could’ve written this article… last year!

Dude, how come I never see ads for volunteers to lay in bed for two months until too late?

Since a couple people have asked me about the riots in Sydney, no, they’re not anywhere near us. It’s all way, way out in the suburbs. Just to illustrate, there’s a map of “Sydney” in that article and I thought the BBC had screwed up at first by putting the airport on the northern side of the harbour. However, discussion with the Snook confirmed that the body of water shown is actually Botany Bay, thus most of what people think of as Sydney (and the part we actually live in) is off the screen to the north. So don’t worry about us.

Jon just posted a huge and fascinating photo-essay about his recent trip to Seaside, Florida. He and his colleagues were studying New Urbanism, which as I understand it is a form of city-planning that Seaside (and a few other towns) exemplifies. I actually visited Seaside with the fam a few years ago as a break between theme parks, and all we really knew about it was that it was cute and it was “that town from The Truman Show.” It’s interesting to look at Jon’s photos and see a lot of the features (and the reasoning behind them) that we missed.

Oh. My. God. We just had our company Christmas Party at Una’s on Broadway… and I have never seen such an amount of food in my life. I’d made the booking and I repeatedly called the guy to confirm that we were bringing twenty people, and since we were having the set banquet menu I was expecting maybe, say, one schnitzel per person, that kind of thing. Instead they just kept bringing out platter after platter of stuff. I swear we had at least SIXTY pieces of deep fried camembert all up, and then there were platters of sausages and sauerkraut and vegetable strudel and two gigantic rosti the size of dinner plates… It was just too, too much. It was easily twice as much food as we could have possibly consumed. It was like some sort of Elizabethan feast. Of course, that kind of excess is just what you need for a holiday gathering! (Yes, I’d given myself permission to pig out. I’ve earned it.) I saw a stack of about eight takeaway boxes awaiting Albert as we waddled off home…

Um, just in case you Hoosiers missed it, the actually VOICE OF FROGGY (from Froggy’s Pad) left a comment on my site! I can die now.

It’s like the best Christmas Present ever.

As our company Christmas party is Tuesday night, the night of my regular WW meeting, I decided to weigh-in at the CBD lunchtime meeting Monday. A bit of a cheat, sure, but at least now I’ll have a week to work off the party before the next weigh-in! At any rate, I really didn’t think I was going to break 85 this week. I felt like the weekend was a success overall, but in truth I really did eat (and drink) a lot more than I expected to. (I figure I’m carrying at least an extra 400g today from the massive Mexican feast we had at Cafe Pacifico last night.) I guess I balanced it pretty well with my hour-long runs every day. So today I headed over to the Dymocks Building, the site of my old meetings with Emily. I announced myself as a visitor and stepped on the scales, leaning way over to try to glimpse the readout. I could only see the bottom half of the letters upside-down and for a second I thought it read 87. Then I looked up and watched the old lady scrawl in my Passport… and I said, “Eighty-four? ARE YOU JOKING?” “I’m not joking!” she said. I let out a crazy laugh. “I can’t believe it. That means I’ve broken fifteen kilos. That’s the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER.” I could feel tears welling up. Then I thanked every member of staff in the room and rushed out into the hallway to call the Snook…

After work I had my third session with the hypnotherapist, who was thrilled to hear about my progress. In fact, after talking with her she predicted that this would be my final meeting with her. I told her that I didn’t have any major issues to work through this week, but rather that I just wanted reinforcement and to keep up my momentum going into the New Year. It was wonderful to just relax and listen to her, especially after my struggles last week. (Did I tell you about that session? Remind me sometime when we’re drinking together. It was like something out of a movie. A movie about a person with multiple personalities. Tears were involved. That’s all I’m saying.)

But anyway, the glass ceiling – or rather, floor – has been shattered. The voice in my head that was saying “I can’t do this” has gone silent. I’m wearing my red Crocs at this very second, and I plan on wearing the hell out of them this summer. I’ve earned it.

*Gasp!* Two new knitting bags from Jordana Paige. We haven’t gotten these in the shop yet, but I am SO ordering in this pink and black tweed messenger bag. I like the satchel too, but it’s not the sort of bag that I’d ever carry. And dude, did I mention that we actually sold one of the graffiti purses? I couldn’t believe it.