Home not-so-Sweet Home

I can't wait until tomorrow morning.  Oooooooh, how I can't wait.  I'm having chocolate for breakfast in the form of peanut butter chocolate chip scones.  Now, a week ago I would have given little thought to the pleasure of such a breakfast, but tonight, I can think of little else.

I prepped the ingredients so it'll be quick to throw together in the morning and as I chopped the chocolate I realized that -my gosh!- I'm out of practice!  I haven't chopped chocolate in over a week!

Under the inspiration of the Craig family, we've made the first week in January significantly less delicious than the other 51 weeks of the year by omitting sugar from it.  Some inspirations are, apparently, beyond the limits of my ability to follow very closely, because their family does it for a MONTH.  I can only assume that there is some genetic mutation of some sort going on in that family that makes that possible.  As our family does not carry this defect, we go sugar-free for a week.

Some of the surprising things that happened this week:

1) I didn't die.

2) I threw away a cupcake that was left-over from our New Year's celebration.  A delicious, cream-filled, chocolate topped hostess cupcake copycat (only waaaaaaaaay better).  It was on the table when I went into the kitchen in the morning and I picked it up and dumped it in the trash without even thinking.  I never, ever, ever throw baked things away. (remember, I prefer to let them go to waist?)

3) The first day, I went downstairs a little while after David had come home from school to see that for lunch he'd eaten leftover banana pancakes and buttermilk syrup and had then made up some jello to drink warm.  He was shocked to know that that didn't fit in with our sugar-free week.

I didn't lose a single ounce.  This was not the goal, but I was planning on not getting angry if I happened to lose a pound or two.  Or one ounce.

Spencer didn't ask every 30 seconds for a piece of chocolate/cookie/brownie and then scream if he couldn't have it.  Instead, he never even mentioned sweets until,  on day 4, he happened upon one stray chocolate that I didn't catch in the sugar round-up-and-hide-away.  He brought it to me and asked if he could eat it.  I told him that we weren't eating chocolate that day, and that I was sorry.  He said--and I quote--"Aaaaah.  But it's really yummy." And then shrugged his shoulders and went off to play as I took it away and hid it.  It was one of my strangest parenting moments ever.

Some of the not-so-surprising things that happened this week:

For the first few days Aaron kept asking "why can't we eat sweets!?!  I need something sweet!"

Our honey consumption probably quadrupled.

While grocery shopping I picked up 20 kilos of sugar.


The plan starting tomorrow is to not eat chocolate or candy plain, and to bake only three times a week (2 desserts and one breakfast).  I'd also like to work harder and using natural sweetening choices besides refined sugar in my cooking and baking.

Life is sweet, but I think mine will be a little sweeter if I keep it a little less sweet.