Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

I haven’t been a very good blogger lately, have I?

Like you can do any better, pompous white cat!

 

I don’t really have a good excuse for my lack of posting, other than that I’ve been trying to think less about trying to be a perfect healthy blogger and to think more about just being healthy in general. I’ve been seeing a dietitian and have lost about 12 pounds without having to change very much about my diet and exercise routine. The biggest change is that I’m actually doing less strenuous exercise and therein may lie the problem–I don’t have enough to come on here and brag about. I cut a Body Pump, a Next Level, and a spin to walk three times a week instead. I still spin twice a week and I either Body Pump OR Next Level once. I take one rest day. I know it’s still a lot more than many people do and I’m still proud of myself, but it’s kind of boring.

I’ve also been blogging about writing for my job and I’ve been working on designing my own more professional blog, but I kind of think I’d rather just combine this blog and some of the ideas I have for writing about teaching, public speaking, writing, and literature, and making this more of a Jaclyn Lives It Up blog than having several different blogs to write on. I’m still deciding. Whatever I do, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

 

The Free Cake Curse

Has this ever happened to you: you start a healthy eating/exercise plan with gusto, you’re totally stoked, start seeing results, then you’re hit in the face with free cake? Is it just me? Because I’ll tell you what, free cake has been coming at me from every angle.

I know this is some video game reference that I'm not familiar with, but I don't give a shit. It's still funny.

Years ago when I was working down to my lowest weight ever with the very poor plan of eating 1,200 calories a day, I was involved in what I call the Chocolate Cake Incident of 2005. I had been diligently sticking to my calorie counting and elliptical, had been losing weight steadily for months, and I was proud of my success. My best friend and I went to a Bennigan’s for lunch one day, and I ordered a plain veggie burger on a wheat bun with a side of broccoli–bo-ring. But that’s how I was back then, and I didn’t blink an eye about it. It was working and I was sticking to it. My best friend had also just started a medical diet of her own that involved not eating chocolate (the horror!). We were sitting at our table minding our own business probably talking about something absurd like cats in space when a young man in a Bennigan’s uniform approached our table with an enormous slice of chocolate cake.

It looked like this. Exactly like this.

Waiter: Excuse me, ladies, one of my tables ordered this chocolate cake and then decided they didn’t want it. Do you want it? It’s on the house.

Us: Uhhhh… ::nervous glances at each other, profuse sweating, tears welling up:: No. No thank you. We wish. We’re on diets.

Waiter: Really? Are you sure you don’t want it? It’s free!

Us: ::world shattering around our souls:: No. No thank you.

Waiter: All right…

Us: ::sobbing::

My BFF: We’ll give it to our roommate.

Waiter: Great! Here’s a box.

She brought that home to our roommate at the time, who took one or two bites a day until the fifth day when there was still half a slice of cake left in the fridge, and I threatened to murder him in his sleep if he didn’t get rid of it.

That’s a true story, one of the saddest ever told. As I’ve mentioned before, I lost 70 pounds that year, got insanely ill from the lack of nutrients in my diet (can’t do much with 1,200 calories) and ended up being hospitalized. I went back to eating like a “normal” person after that, put some weight back on, started exercising, lost some weight again, gained a little more because of endocrine problems, started seeing a Registered Dietitian, and here I am present day nowhere near my highest ever weight, but still more than I’d like to be. I work out six days a week, I eat cake sometimes, and I mostly just eat well. A few weeks ago my dietitian and I started working with my resting metabolic rate (which I recently had tested) and have been using those numbers with my general calorie intake (which I don’t count, she does) and get some of my endocrine-gained weight off. All’s been well, except…

Well, people keep giving me free cake! I’m cursed! I’m cursed by free cake!

Let’s be clear. I never get free cake when I’m not in an active state of trying to lose weight. If I’m comfortably maintaining, free cake never appears. But when I’m actively losing, measuring, weighing—there’s free cake everywhere.

Now, I say cake, but it’s not always cake. It’s really free dessert. I call it the Free Cake Curse because of that first Bennigan’s incident, which I think was the first time I was ever offered free dessert in my life. But any free confection counts.

Weeks ago when I first started seeing my RD I went out to lunch with some co-workers to a barbecue place and as we were finishing up our meal a girl came around with free samples of their new house-made ice cream. It was a fairly small serving (maybe two ounces) so I had it and it was amazing.

About three weeks ago I was at dinner with my best friend’s parents and our food took a little longer to come out than it should have, so the manager offered us not one, not two, but THREE free desserts for the inconvenience, even though we hadn’t complained. When does that ever happen? You usually have to raise a ruckus to get a free dessert. We got THREE! Two brownie sundaes and a chocolate lava cake. I only took a few bites, but still, free dessert.

This past weekend I went to Dan’s brother’s wedding. I left after the reception and Dan stayed behind to help his brother load up his car with wedding gifts and what not. In the meantime, the caterers loaded up Dan’s car with all of the leftover food. He got home with about 40 chicken breasts, 10 pounds of green beans, five pounds of cornbread, three to-go boxes of salad, and TWO BOXES OF WEDDING CAKE!

By the way, Dan doesn’t eat cake, so it was all for me.

I didn’t know what to do. It was my worst nightmare and my wildest dream come true. I was at a crossroads. The cake and I had a standoff. At first, the cake won. I couldn’t even hide it. The frosting was blue and I looked like I had been making out with a Smurf. The next day when I got home from the gym, the cake and I had another standoff. There were still two boxes, because I hadn’t had THAT much the night before, but I knew it could only be mere hours before the cake was but a memory and a stomachache. I had a few bites, then threw the rest away.

It. Was. Crazy.

This might not sound like a big deal to some people, but this bitch likes her cake. When I was a child I dreamed of the day someone would just walk into my house with two boxes of free cake just for me. As an adult, I had to make the responsible decision and enjoy it in moderation, then send it on its way.

I can only hope that in doing so, the curse has been broken.

(But really, I don’t know if I want the curse to be broken. There’s nothing like free cake.)

Tweaking My Life

I’ll admit it. I’ve been in a healthy-life rut.

It’s one of those situations that just kind of happens and you do know why, but you kind of don’t know why. If you’ve experienced this, you know what I mean.

I was still doing everything right, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I hired a dietitian and have been seeing her regularly. I’ve been doing my workouts as diligently as can be. I was watching what I ate (until a few weeks ago) and I wrote it all down. Then, all of a sudden, I got annoyed. I was doing everything “right” and nothing was happening. I hit a plateau not a month after beginning sessions with the dietitian. Then I GAINED the next week. Then the holidays were impending doom over my head, I had to move, I had to deal with a nightmare former landlord, and I didn’t get scheduled for another dietitian appointment for several weeks because of the holidays and I was just kind of like “forget this.”

This is pretty much how I felt about my body and everyone around me.

It’s not like I completely gave up. I’ve still been going to the gym. You know how much I love the Y.  I’ve still been eating my fruits and vegetables. My heart really hasn’t been in it though. I haven’t been keeping track of my food, I’ve had way too much sugar, and I just feel so apathetic. The logical thing to do would be to make a New Year’s resolution to get my ass in gear, doubletime it at the gym, cut out all sugars, see the dietitian twice a week, and go broke in the process. Right?

Well, that’s what me from a few years ago might have done. And it probably would have worked for awhile. But in my old age, I just can’t live like that anymore. I started seeing a dietitian specifically because I don’t want to have an all or nothing attitude about living well, but I have a very hard time finding a good middle ground for myself. This doesn’t just apply to healthy living. I can apply it to all facets of my life. To do so, I’ll have to do some tweaking.

Note: Tweaks are not resolutions, because resolutions tend to expire. I’m not in the mood for resolutions, but tweaks will work.

My friend Chiara, presentation extraordinaire, coined the terms “Tweak Your Slides” and “Tweak Your Life.” She is all about tweaking things to make them better, and I love it. It’s a philosophy worth living by, because we can all improve everything all the time. However, I’m tweaking the idea a bit to include moderation into the mix. If I try to tweak without moderation, I’ll just go balls to the wall on that and tweak everything in my life until I don’t recognize it, which will eventually lead to a crash and burn.

This month I’m tweaking my attitude. I tend to be very all or nothing about things, which rarely works out. Here’s what I plan on doing to get started:

1. Tweak my attitude about food: I have to remember that being 100% perfect is not realistic. Yes, I can eat clean and wholesome, but if I stray say 15% of the time I’m not actually going to turn into Jabba the Hutt, which is how I always feel. And once you feel like Jabba the Hutt, you find it hard to care about anything, which then leads to the other extreme, in which I just eat everything because it’s there.

2. Tweak my attitude about exercise: My dietitian wants me to drop a few gym workouts in favor of just walking. I hear her and understand why she’s asking me to do that, but every week I find myself sticking with my own routine instead of taking her suggestion. It’s stupid for me to pay someone for advice I’m not using. I don’t know why I have such a hard time dropping classes. I guess it’s because I feel like my attendance is expected in classes (instructors at the gym totally know me and know when I come) but no one is waiting for me at the walking trail or on the treadmill. To tweak this attitude and create a schedule in which moderation is key, I’ll walk three days a week. That will make my workout week a lot less extreme and should introduce a sense of balance.

3. Tweak my attitude about rest: I don’t know what my problem is, but I feel devastatingly guilty if I spend a day just hanging out at home and relaxing instead of “getting stuff done.” For me, getting stuff done doesn’t even necessarily mean accomplishing anything. Sometimes it just means running a few errands I don’t really need to do and cleaning things that aren’t dirty. I just feel guilty when I don’t do anything. I need to remind myself that relaxing and taking a break is doing something and that it leads to a more productive work week. I’m not a bad person if I watch movies and surf the Internet for the bulk of a day.

So, this month I’m going all on demolishing the all or nothing sensibility I tend to have and tweak by moderating. Going 100% or not at all just doesn’t work for me.

I Owe it All to Body Pump

I’ll tell you what. The only thing worse than moving is moving when you’re out of shape. Luckily for me, the only pain I’m feeling from the eight hours of moving I did yesterday is on my poor feet, which succumbed to blisters caused by wearing tennis shoes for toooooo long. My muscles, while a bit fatigued, feel fine. I’m not sore, I can lift my arms above my head, and if I had to, I could do 100 squats right this second.

I owe it all to Body Pump.

Everyone knows moving is terrible and the worst part about it for me in the past was always the intense muscle pain I’d feel for several days after the move. Yesterday commenced my SIXTH move in Orlando, including my original move from Fort Lauderdale. Every time I’ve moved myself and every time I have felt the pain. Not this time, though. Even though it was just Dan and me doing all the heavy lifting, even though my wingspan was too short to safely pick up the couch, even though we had to make several trips, we did it and my muscles feel just fine. And this was after spending two days painting walls!

I think I often take for granted what working on my strength has done for my body. Of course I know that working out and lifting weights has made me stronger, but it’s not until I do something like move or paint or house-flip do I realize how much I’ve actually done for my body.

It’s a good thing for me to remember. These days I’ve been struggling with being appreciative of everything I’ve accomplished and the move was a good reminder of what I can physically do and how strong I really am, even though I don’t look it.

I still would have paid the $300 for movers though. It would have been worth it for the time saved, but Dan talked me out of it. I won’t be fooled next time.

How to Win at Thanksgiving

Two Days Before:

1. Plan on baking two batches of scones for work potluck. Cheese and chive and cranberry-orange-chocolate chip. Everyone will love you. You’ll be a god among men women.

2. Realize you used cornstarch instead of baking powder in the batch of cheese and chive. Throw your hands up in frustration. See that you have exactly the right amount of cheese, chives, and eggs to make another batch. Get it done.

3. Cut your finger while zesting oranges. Swear.

4. Rinse the flour and blood from your exhausted body and go to bed so you can wake up early enough to bake the stupid things.

The Day Before:

1. Wake up early enough to bake the stupid things. Decide to take a chance and bake the cornstarch scones too since you don’t love everyone you work with and figure those people can eat those. Finish packing while they bake.

2. Collect laptop bag, purse, three warm covered plates of scones, and a full tumbler of ice water to bring to the car all in one trip.

3. Drop keys on the ground while trying to lock the door while holding all that junk.

4. Pat yourself on the back for being in shape enough to to a solid squat to pick up the keys without having to put down (or drop) the scones.

5. Arrive about 15 minutes late to the potluck.

6. Discover all those jerks decided to have the potluck 45 minutes earlier than they said they would and are too full for your scones.

7. Eat a scone and glower.

8. Decide the thought of couch surfing for three nights is too much to bear since you’re 28 years old for crying out loud, and lowball Priceline for a hotel. Get the Hampton Inn for $45 a night. Rejoice.

9. Leave work early because seriously, ef those guys.

10. Feed the cats, kiss them goodbye, and get on the road.

11. Stop at the gas station for some gas and water. Smile awkwardly when an old man tells you you’re making everyone else look bad with your choice of water, especially him because he’s buying Peanut M&Ms. Tell him it’s important to stay hydrated. Wish you had some Peanut M&Ms.

12. Listen to the Motown station on Pandora for the entire three hour drive south.

13. Stop for dinner with mom, then live it up at the Hampton Inn like you’re a celebrity.

Day Of:

1. Get that continental breakfast. It might be Thanksgiving, but breakfast is still the most important meal of the day!

2. Eat breakfast in bed. Think about working out. Decide to watch a ridiculous movie about a couple with 18 kids instead. Do that until noon.

3. Go to your mother’s house. Agree to organize some old photos for her while she cooks. Realize “some” old photos actually means 30 years worth of old photos.

4. Relive your childhood for a few hours. Admire how adorable you were. Other people should be so lucky.

5. Consider ending it all while looking at post-puberty photos. How did you make it through? And why, God, why?

6. Try to throw away photos of your especially awkward years, only to be thwarted by your mother.

7. Glower.

8. Eat Thanksgiving dinner with family. Recognize that Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and meat seasonings is a lot tastier than vegetarian Thanksgiving. Worst former vegetarian ever.

9. Stop eating before you get uncomfortably full, then gloat about it. Everyone else feels awful, but you can still eat pie.

9. Resume picture organization. Demand pay. Get shot down. Barter.

10. Eat pie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Get Smart: Read Labels

The other day I was shopping at Publix and noticed a stack of Land O’Lakes Light Butter in the dairy aisle. Light butter? Hmm. I was intrigued, so I flipped the box over to get a look at the ingredients and nutritional info. A tablespoon of Land O’Lakes Light Butter contains 50 calories and 6 grams of fat. Here’s the ingredients list:

Uhhh...

I flipped over the box of regular old salted butter, which is 100 calories for a tablespoon and 11 grams of fat. Here’s the ingredients list:

Much better.

Butter: 1 Light butter: 0

Sorry, light butter. I’ll take an extra 50 calories and 5 grams of fat and avoid the onslaught of WTF in my butter.

The moral(s) of the story: read labels, don’t think that just because something is “light” that it’s healthier, and don’t eat anything that needs a disclaimer.

Count Jacula and the Jack-o-Lanterns of 2011

Happy November!

October was a busy month for me, between my trip to Savannah, work, workouts, and Halloween festivities. I almost had a huge Halloween fail because I waited too long to go to the pumpkin patch and by the time we went all they had left were those gross pimply pumpkins that no one wants. Publix was out of pumpkins completely and all hope was lost. Luckily, Dan surprised me with some little sugar pumpkins last night and we were able to carve jack-o-lanterns while listening to Halloween music even though I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters and cursed the gods all night. All I want is a few trick-or-treaters. Is that so much to ask? I was even going to give them full sized Hershey’s Special Dark bars from my secret stash of dark chocolate because I know better than to buy bags of Halloween candy these days. I’ve bought candy for the last eight years and have never once gotten a trick-or-treater, so I usually end up eating the candy myself bringing it to work and sharing it with my department.

Anyway. Check out my Halloween festivities and be jealous:

I'm not a vampire. I am COUNT JACULA!

That’s right, I was Count Jacula, NOT just a measly vampire. A few years ago I was a Jac-in-the-Box and now I like to find new ways to make my costume a play on my name. I was pretty proud of this one, even if it didn’t look like much on the surface.

Count Jacula and a '50s pregnant housewife

My BFF Miranda is several months pregnant and decided to dress as a 1950s pregnant housewife. She should have had a drink and a cigarette to complete the look, but I think she looked really cute!

Scumbag Steve: Invited to a party/Hits on the pregnant girl

Miranda’s husband Joey dressed as Scumbag Steve and left the tag on his hat so he could return it in true scumbag fashion.

Mememememememe!

Our friend, Todd, had the best costume of the night. He was Beaker! He and his wife made that costume and it was amazing. The best part of the night was when he just walked around out front and waved at people, then went across the street to a playground and went down the slide.

Our tiny jack-o-lanterns!

You know, when I was in kindergarten the other kids called me Jack-o-Lantern and I was NOT amused. I’ve mostly gotten over it though. We had fun carving these little baby pumpkins and they still yielded a ton of pumpkin seeds, so I was able to make roasted pumpkin seeds:

The Devil's Seeds

Which are a huge pain. It took me over an hour to get the pumpkin guts separated from the seeds, and then drying them was a whole other issue. I tried putting them in a salad spinner (which was an obvious fail) and then I tried drying them with paper towels (which they stuck to) THEN I remembered that my mom used to dry them with a hair dryer. That was just the ticket. Pumpkin seeds give me a stomachache, but I like sucking the salt off of them and Dan likes to eat them, so all of my hard work didn’t go to waste.

All in all, Halloween was a success, but if I don’t get any trick-or-treaters next year I will cut someone.

Cook It Real Good

You know those people who say they “forget” to eat or are “too busy” to eat? I’m not one of them.

"A sandwich? Are you insane? I have to go a meeting, write a 10,000 word paper, and watch at least two hours of cat videos on YouTube today!"

I never forget to eat or put off eating or any of those other crazy things people do. Are you kidding? I don’t have time NOT to eat.

However, after a week of birthday celebrating and vacationing in Savannah, I almost felt like I could be one of those people who doesn’t schedule regular feedings. I needed a break. I was so burnt out on restaurant food and I really felt like I’d be happy with eating nothing but lettuce and boiled fish for a few days.

But instead I bought a Crock Pot.

Directions: Put three heads of lettuce and a pound of raw fish in pot. Cook on low for 8 hours. Wait, that's not right.

What I really wanted more than lettuce and boiled fish (which I didn’t really want at all) was a few home cooked meals. I’m not even a little bit competent in math, but I’d say 90% of the time I eat in restaurants I feel too full and pretty sick afterward and 100% of the time I eat home cooked food I feel awesome. The Crock Pot was on sale at Target for $17. My friend Tiffaney told me she’d stop being my friend if I didn’t go buy it. So I bought it. I love it! I didn’t use it every night, but between that and a sworn affidavit saying I would not eat out for at least a week, I came up with these lovely meals:

Red velvet waffles. They exist, and I made them.

Crock Pot Hawaiian chicken with yellow rice and salad

Crock Pot pot roast on top of mashed potatoes

Baked chicken breast, green beans, baby red potatoes

Crock Pot BBQ meatball topped baked potato with salad

Whole wheat shells with spinach, tomato sauce, and Parmesan

All of these meals were delicious and none of them made me feel like hot garbage. I wish I wasn’t so lazy or I would cook every single night and never ever go out to eat. But who’s kidding who? I can’t do dishes EVERY night.

If only my cats were so useful. Freeloaders.

Gym Celebrity

When I got back from my trip to Savannah last week my first order of business was getting back to my gym routine. I didn’t want to fall off the wagon, which is why I went spinning at 6 am the morning we left for the trip and why I used the hotel gym on Wednesday while my boyfriend slept in. When we got back to Orlando on Thursday though, I was exhausted and my feet were covered in blisters from all the walking we did. I still felt exhausted on Friday, so I didn’t go then either.  Saturday, though, was a must-go day. I knew I couldn’t skip Saturday.

Before I headed to Body Pump on Saturday I tweeted and made a Facebook status update about how it was my first day back to the gym in four days and how I hoped they greeted me with hugs and party favors and cake. I was serious totally joking. But listen to this.

There were no hugs or party favors, or cake, surprisingly enough, but when I lay down on the bench for chest presses I noticed some stray balloons up in the rafters in the Fitnasium where Body Pump is held. That was curious. Then on my way out, one of the trainers stopped me and said “Hey! Why haven’t I seen you all week?” I told her I had been out of town and she said “Well, we missed you!”

I was pleased. I felt like it was a true indication of how dedicated I am to my workouts that I was missed after being gone for only four days. THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

Yesterday I showed up for spinning and first, the woman who was swiping membership cards took mine and said “Hey Jaclyn,” without looking at my card. I was surprised that she knew my name. Then I passed the spinning instructor on my way up the stairs and she said “I missed you last week, where were you?!” I told her I had been in Savannah and she said she was glad to have me back.

When I first started going to the Y almost a year and a half ago I noticed, with great interest, the interesting dynamic between people who were clearly frequent exercisers and the trainers. I never thought I’d be one of those people who was known by name and frequency. Until last year when I started at the Y, I had never stuck with a gym program for more than a few weeks. Now I’m so seasoned I’m known by name and missed when I’m gone!

I’ve decided that being known by name at the gym is a true measure of success. I rule.

I’m also taking a rest day. I hit it hard the last four days and now I feel like the Tin Man.

They better miss me.

Sweet Savannah

I’m back!

I spent the better part of last week in Savannah, Georgia with my boyfriend and we had a great time. I don’t know what we did to deserve such a perfect vacation, but the weather was amazing and we got to do everything we wanted to do. I’ll do as quick of a recap as I can, but you know me. I’m not known for my brevity.

I’ll start with the trip there. I woke up at 5:30 am on Monday morning so I could go spinning before we got on the road at 9. I know it sounds crazy, but I knew how much I was going to be eating and I knew I had to do it. I got home, showered, ate breakfast, finished packing, blow-dried my hair, put on makeup, got dressed, and graded some papers for one of my classes. I woke Dan up at 9 exactly and he got up, brushed his teeth, and was ready.

I hate guys.

We stopped when we were about halfway there for some lunch at Cracker Barrel. Hey, it’s not a road trip without some Cracker Barrel. I confirmed, once again, that I am an Egg-nor-a-moose. FML. While we were eating our country cookin’, two men behind us kept interrupting their own conversation to break into a few bars of “On the Road Again.” A woman joined them, then disappeared for a good 20 minutes, then came back. We came up with lots of scenarios to explain the whole scene. Most of them are not ladylike enough to repeat.

It takes about five hours to get to Savannah from Orlando and we made good time. I was not thrilled about the hotel we got on Priceline because it was supposed to be a 4-star hotel, but had not so great Yelp reviews, and when we were getting checked in the lady told us we’d have a view of “the lovely hotel lobby.” I almost punched her. Dan is really good about reeling in my crazy though and he reminded me that the hotel didn’t matter and that we were going to have fun and I mostly got over it. I still wish we had stayed at the Hampton Inn. At least they have free internet.

Seriously, who charges $10 a day for internet?

Anyway, after we checked in we went down to River Street and I was immediately delighted by the cute shops, candy stores, and restaurants lining the street overlooking the bay.

Pictured: Delight

We went straight to River Street Sweets, an amazing candy store that specializes in pralines, and I started making mental notes about everything I needed to buy when we returned after dinner. It was serious business.

We explored River Street, then walked down to The Pirate House, a restaurant housed in one of the oldest buildings in Savannah. It’s been around since the 1700s! I had heard good things about it from two different friends, but I had no idea how amazing it would be. I’ve actually never seen Dan get so enthused about food—he doesn’t tend to share my gusto for it, but he did at The Pirate House!

He ordered the parmesan-crusted tilapia with extra vegetables and I got the crab au gratin with mashed potatoes and veggies. They also brought us fresh rolls and cornbread with peach preserves. I ate all of those because Dan doesn’t do carbs. I didn’t mind.

Parmesan-crusted tilapia

Crab au gratin

The only bad thing about The Pirate House is that it was our first meal there and nothing else ever stacked up. We just kept talking about how amazing the food was at The Pirate House.

After dinner we walked around, I bought some candy at River Street Sweets, and then we relaxed until it was time to walk down to Chippewa Square to meet up with the ghost tour group I had booked.

On River Street

We made our way down to Chippewa Square around 9, each had a drink at a little bar across the street, and then went to the square but no one ever showed for the ghost tour. We were all alone. Dan called the tour company and the woman told him that the tour had been cancelled because the tour guide was out of town and that she had refunded my card and sent an email out—but I had no email!

Curiously enough, I had no emails, not even the 50 emails Groupon and Half-Off Depot send me every day, but I didn’t realize that until the next day. Turns out my crappy phone wasn’t loading my emails in Savannah until I restarted it. Anyway…

We were bummed about the ghost tour, but decided we’d just rebook for Wednesday when the guy came back, and headed back to the hotel. We wrapped up the night by watching some Law and Order SVU on cable. It’s always on some channel. Always.

The next day we slept in a little, then went out to explore the city. We visited a few shops and made our way to Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room, a Southern homestyle restaurant. The line was wrapped around the corner, which I had anticipated from the Yelp reviews. There were some really dull annoying people behind us and I could tell Dan was dying (he doesn’t love people) and then when we finally made it inside and we were sat at the same table as them, I was sure he would kill one of them.

Mrs. Wilkes seats 10 to a table and everything is just served in bowls and plates on the table. They had EVERYTHING you could want from a Southern homestyle meal, from fried chicken, to bbq pork, mac and cheese, collard greens, and so on and so on. Here’s a sampling of my plate:

Because of the family-style seating and our tablemates’ insistence on making small talk, Dan has been referring to Mrs. Wilkes as the worst restaurant in Savannah. He was not thrilled because he’s not friendly with anyone but me, but I am, so I didn’t mind. I liked my food and they had the best sweet tea and biscuits. I felt like I had ten bricks in my stomach all day after eating lunch there, though. Whew.

After lunch we went to the Mercer-Williams house where Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed and took the tour. The guy who gave the tour was great, but very diplomatic and careful not to say much about the murder. He just talked about the architecture and antiques, which exactly zero people go to see. Everyone wants to hear about Jim Williams and the murder he was acquitted for. Jim Williams’ sister owns the house, though, and still lives there, and the family likes to keep that stuff quiet.

After that, we walked to Forsyth Park, which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. We got some cold drinks and sat on a park bench and just watched people and talked. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Forsyth Park

Loving Savannah

We just wandered around the rest of the day and tried to walk off that Mrs. Wilkes lunch. We ended up having dinner late (9 is too late for dinner as far as I’m concerned) at the Cotton Exchange on River Street. My meal wasn’t photogenic and I hardly ate any of it because I was still too full from lunch. It was good though.

This is a good time to mention that at some point in the day, Dan had picked up two new personas: a racist homophobic hillbilly and a low country Southern lawyer with a tendency to use malapropisms. These personas followed us home to Orlando.

We made it an early night and to my utter delight there was a Harry Potter documentary on the Bio channel, so we watched that and relaxed. It was glorious.

The next day I woke up a little earlier than Dan and went to the hotel gym. I just did the elliptical for a bit, but I got bored because I didn’t have headphones with me. When I was leaving the gym I saw that they had a whole drawer of clean headphones for people to use. FML.

After I got back and showered it was close to lunchtime, and we decided two miles wasn’t too far to walk to lunch. Well. Let me tell you. About halfway there I got silent because I was so hungry and my feet hurt so badly. I don’t think it really even took us that long, but it felt like forever. The lunch place was this cute little cafe called Starland Cafe. The Yelp reviews said it was a must-try and that if you haven’t taken your girlfriend there you’re no kind of man, so Dan was on board with going there. He had a big steak salad and I had a delicious chicken salad sandwich on a pressed panini.

Glorious chicken salad sandwich

The walk back didn’t feel nearly as long, so I think it was just the hunger that made the walk there so unbearable. We went from Starland Cafe to Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home, which I really wanted to do. She’s one of my favorite short story writers and I was super stoked to be there. The tour guide took us around and told some great stories about Flannery O’Connor as a child. I loved it.

So cool.

We walked around some more, sat on some park benches, and then I decided it was time for afternoon ice cream from Leopold’s. It was hard to choose, but I settled on coconut and chocolate chocolate chip. I think it was the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. It was SO good.

THAT'S some ice cream

Unfortunately, I totally spoiled my appetite for dinner. Since Dan doesn’t do things like have afternoon ice cream, he got hungry for dinner way before I did. We tried to go to Bonaventure Cemetary, but it was closed for the day when we got there, so we went to dinner sooner than we had planned. It was Huey’s on River Street for dinner. Dan got some crazy chicken dish and I got some good old shrimp and grits.

I definitely wasn’t hungry enough for all that, so I mostly just ate the shrimp. There were a ton of them in there though! Definitely a generous portion.

That night we went to the rescheduled ghost tour. I had picked Blue Orb Tour’s Zombie Tour, which is a scarier uncensored version of their regular ghost tour. The tour guide, Tobias, was an excellent storyteller and he was funny and personable. He told us some terrifying stories, starting with the fact that we were all standing on bodies since Savannah is pretty much built on top of makeshift graves. He also told us all about hags, which he compared to Dementors, and then I was so freaked out when we got back to the hotel that Dan had to sit outside the bathroom door while I washed up for bed.

Camera flash or GHOST?!

We were exhausted by the end of the ghost tour, which went until after 11. Just a side note about Blue Orb Tours, they were awesome about rescheduling the tour for us and only charged us for one because that cancellation email hadn’t gotten to me in time. If you ever go to Savannah, that’s the tour company to go with.

We went back to the hotel and lay in bed and groaned at each other because our feet hurt and we were full and tired. We were still having a great time though. I was so sad that it was almost over.

I woke up really early on our last day and decided to let Dan sleep in. I took a book back down to Huey’s and ordered a cafe au lait and some beignets, which I had been coveting the night before, but was too full to eat.

I tell ya, I had no problem eating them in the morning

I went back to get the boy and to pack up. We checked out and went back to Bonaventure Cemetery before getting back on the road. Bonaventure is HUGE! We walked around for awhile exploring, but then bugs started attacking me and I ran to my car shouting that I hated Bonaventure Cemetery. Then I felt bad and apologized to the ghosts before we drove away.

It was really a perfect trip. It couldn’t have been any better, except maybe I could have had more room in my stomach to eat all of the delicious food. I kept getting thwarted by being too full to eat everything. Curiously enough, I had no problem eating all of the chocolates I bought from River Street Sweets.

Yay Savannah!