NEWS FLASH!!!

I discovered the secret to winter bliss tonight in my kitchen cabinet and on my Christmas tree.  I am going to leave you in suspense for just a bit longer and tell you how I came to this conclusion.

I have been doing a GREAT job (if I do say so myself) on counting my calories and working out and tracking all of my food and fitness and water on SparkPeople.com (super awesome website...helped me lose over 30lbs last year).  Anyway, I was having a conversation on Facebook with a friend about the Wine Walk that happens on the first Friday of every month in Coos Bay.  I have lived here for a couple years now and have not participated.  Since I got a late start on my day, planned on getting up by 7am and ended up sleeping until 11:30am, I got a late start to the gym and was about 20 - 25 minutes into my cardio when the walk started.  So she said that she ended up not going because it was too cold and that she was enjoying some wine at home.  I thought that sounded like a great idea!  It's Friday night, my hubby was at work and I had no plans except to try and read some more of my psych book.

I figured that I would take a shower and grab some wine and curl up on the couch with my dogs and my book.  Well, after my shower I thought that some hot caramel apple cider sounded even better than wine.  Yes it is cold...so why drink something cold?  Sure if I drink it quick enough I'll catch a buzz and feel warm but the wine has been in the refrigerator.  Before I could even make it to the kitchen one of the candy cane's on the tree caught my eye and this is when I discovered the secret to winter bliss!  I heated up some water and made some hot chocolate but instead of using a spoon to stir the cocoa mix and the water together I used the candy cane and oh my goodness it was the icing on the cake!  It was like winter in my mouth!  What made it even better is that the candy cane is about 50 calories and the cocoa was 140.  A delicious cup of yummy, wintery goodness for only 190 calories!  I'll take it!  Oh yeah...and I used the Swiss Miss Marshmallow Lovers hot chocolate so I had mini marshmallows too!

Now I have to try and consume about 16 more ounces of water before I go to sleep and try and read some more of my psych book so until next time!