Perpetually Resisting Never Ending Trail of Treats

Meadow Dance a la Sound of Music

Here at work there's an area where folks gather in the afternoon to shoot the breeze and in that space is a file cabinet which invariably has a bowl of sweet treats. There's usually snickers, or peanut or plain M&Ms or (one of my personal favorites) tootsi-roll pops. Until this year I, as many others do, made sure to pass by this tempting location to sooth a sweet tooth. Lately I just avoid the area because when I do pass the area I am sorely tempted to grab a piece. My temptation would be enhanced though if they had semi-sweet dark chocolate as that's what I enjoy the most. Day before yesterday I joined the afternoon gab fest but avoided the candy cabinet. That evening though, I ate two small pieces of dark chocolate at home (84 calories).

In addition to the candy cabinet, we have monthly birthday celebration day in which folks bring in a variety of cakes. I just received an email that notified us that today's the day for February Birthday treats. And yesterday we had cake to celebrate a co-worker's impending child birth. For the latter I was served the usual american chocolate slab cake, 2 inches tall with 1/4 inch of icing, and sliced to about 3.5 inches square. That's 24.5 cubic inches of almost pure sugar. I did partake but ate only a 1/2 inch slice off the front of my piece and tossed the rest (what a waste!) So I reduced my pure sugar intake to 3 cubic inches. Today I'm skipping the birthday bash to avoid the sweet treats altogether.

About today and yesterday's photo: one of the reasons I love to travel to Germany is because it is such a walking friendly country. There are walking trails everywhere. In the woods, around towns, in towns, well, just everywhere. The picture from yesterday was a trail through the Schwarzwald in autumn and the picture above was taken from a meadow we hiked to above the town we stayed in 2006. My daughter (the photographer) noted the meadow we hiked along looked like the hills from "The Sound of Music" and suggested we dance in the meadow like the movie. Walking and dancing all all at once!