Vicki Hamilton

Have you noticed how none of the grocery stores keep pens at the check out counter any more? They have a stylus for using the credit card machine and they don’t want you to write a check any more. At my Food Lion, they take my blank check and run it through their register. Then they give me back the check! It makes to sense to even write the check out if they are going to give it back to you!

The women at work were talking about muffin tops and belly fat during the lunch break. It is depressing to see that all of us are gaining weight and its almost all centered in our middles.

I wonder if that is because we are so stressed out that we end up eating too much comfort food? There was a commercial for a weight loss product called Relacore that claims to help reduce belly fat. I saw the bottle on the shelf at the drug store last night and almost bought. But it costs $22 and you have to take 2 capsules, three times a day. So if the bottle has 110 capsules and you follow the directions, that is not enough in the bottle to last even 3 weeks.

If I have to spend over $30 a month on these pills, they had BETTER work. I’m going to check with my doctor first, and if she says it is OK to use them, I am tempted to give it a try.

Tonight I put a sirloin roast into a Reynolds roasting bag, along with some chopped onion and a can of mushroom soup. I sprinkled just a little garlic pepper on top of the roast before I tied up the bag and poked a couple of air vent holes in the top. Popped it into the oven at 350 degrees and left it there for an hour and half. It was cooked so nicely – lots of flavor and plenty of gravy. What an easy way to make a great roast beef.

Today we all gathered at my mom’s house and had a big dinner. All her kids pitched in some money to buy her one big gift – a new refrigerator. We know she has been wanting something new for the kitchen, as much as she loves to cook.

It was kind of fun to watch my brother slowly drive up her gravel driveway with the big new refrigerator in the back of his truck. My sister in law had made up a huge pink bow and taped it on the front door to make it look gift wrapped.

It doesn’t sound like a very sexy gift, but my mom was thrilled and completely surprised. So mother’s day was a hit at my mom’s house this year.

I hope you have a Hoppy Easter, today. If the Easter Bunny finds your house, save some candy for me! I miss having little kids around to hunt for Easter Eggs and share their candies.

I made spaghetti tonight. Not completely from scratch, but I added alot of things to the sauce that I normally don’t bother with. I bought a small carton of fresh mushrooms and sauteed them in garlic butter before tossing them into the sauce. Then I diced up a handful of leftover cooked carrots and stirred them into the sauce. Instead of adding ground beef for the meat, I used Italian sausage links. I spent maybe an extra 7 or 8 minutes jazzing up the spaghetti sauce, but it sure tasted great!

This morning I arrived downtown early for an appointment so I stopped by a coffee shop just a few doors down and had a nice cup of coffee. It was extremely quiet in the coffee shop – everyone but me had a laptop on the table in front of them and were busy clicking and tapping keys.

Yesterday was all about food since it was my birthday.

My boss took me out to lunch and we invited his secretary and my friend in human resources to go with us. He wanted me to pick the restaurant, so I picked one that I know he likes – the Macaroni Grill. I think almost everyone likes good Italian food. We all ordered a different entre and then when it came out to our table we all shared between ourselves. That was really cool and one of the great things about working with these guys. We are a strong team and I think of several co-workers as fondly as I do my own brothers and sisters.

When we got back to the office, there was a surprise waiting for us – a birthday ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Everyone popped into the main conference room to wish me a happy birthday and get themselves a big piece of cake. So of course, I had to eat a slice – to hell with the diet on my birthday!

Then last night my parents wanted me to come over and I was hoping for a home cooked meal, as my mom is a great cook and there’s things she can cook that I can’t manage to have turn out any where near as good as hers. But my dad wanted to go out, so they told me to pick a restaurant. One of my favorites is an Asian Fusion restaurant, but it’s a little expensive for my budget and I would have loved to go there, but Dad doesn’t really like Asian food and he didn’t want to go there, so I just picked the Longhorn Steakhouse. My Dad is pretty much a meat and potatoes guy, and he likes just about everything on the Longhorn menu.

So I stuffed myself like a pig yesterday and had a very nice day celebrating my 30th birthday. Now, back to the diet!

Today is my birthday. The big three-oh.

I’ve always like the way my birth date writes out: 5/6/78 and if I ever have the urge to play the lottery, those are the numbers I pick. But I’ve never won anything from them – yet.

I’m smack dab in the middle of the Taurus sign, so there’s no fudging my horoscope like my sister does. She was born “on the cusp” which means on the day that the signs change from one to the next, and she reads both horoscopes each morning and believes them both. I read my horoscope once in a while for entertainment – I just don’t take that stuff very seriously.

I know the guys at work know it’s my birthday. Our human resources manager sends out an email to every on the first of every month to wish all employees with birthdays that month a collective “Happy Birthday!” My boss wants to take me out to lunch and I have to pick the restaurant. That’s kinda stresses me out, as I don’t think my favorite restaurants are the kind that he likes to go to. So I have to decide, should I go to one of my actual favorite restaurants? Or should I pick one that I know HE likes?