The moral of the story: when drunk Hub wants ice cream, say NO

I've discovered an interesting phenomenon this weekend. When my Hub goes out with his buddies (which, thank God, tends toward early evening beer-dinner rather than late night beer-o-rama) and comes home with a few pints in him, he will soon approach me and say "I'm going to go get ice cream! Wanna come with?"

I had this scheduled in as one of the things I wanted to do this weekend, so when he did this on Friday I figured "Well, there's one of the two splurge meals this weekend" and went along. Then, as I'd planned, we also did brunch on Saturday at the place I hadn't gotten to go last weekend, and I was done. And I was fine! I went right back on schedule, chugging along like normal. No binging. Oh, man, it was heavenly to feel it all work for once-- to be able to manage to have a bad-for-me meal and not graze my way through the kitchen the rest of the day in reaction. It worked! Son of a bitch, it worked!

Sunday chugged along perfectly until my Hub went out with a buddy visiting from out of town, brought him back, both of them a bit tipsy, and proposed that we all go out for ice cream. I said no, I'm done. "Come on," he pleaded, "you don't have to get real ice cream, you can get some of that yogurt they've got... or just a diet drink, or something. I like it when you hang out with us. Come ooooon."

So I went, with the full intention to just look at what they had and get a diet soda. The bastards had switched out their selection since Friday and suddenly an old favorite flavor was available. My Hub was too tipsy to remember that I was going to get a drink and kept asking what I wanted-- his friend, who had not been in on the plan, was also asking, and so was the guy across the counter with the ice-cream scoop in hand (albeit more impatiently). I surrendered. I at least asked for the small cone, but apparently Counter Guy was hard of hearing so he gave me the big-ass one instead. And in continuing moment of weakness, I took it.

Sigh.

Later, I was in the midst of running through my bedtime routine, packing lunch and midmeals for the next day, setting up my exercise equipment and clothes and whatnot, when my Hub asked, "Did you call your dad?" (He'd reminded me earlier, but it was too early for Dad to be home, so I'd waited.) I stopped stock-still and started swearing up a storm, because no, of course I hadn't. And for some reason, although screwing up where ice cream was concerned hadn't upset me, the ice cream AND forgetting to call Dad just broke me. It took me a good twenty minutes to stop kicking myself (and crying).

You know, I'm not going to stay upset about this: one slip is not the end of the world. I'm pretty much over it already, or at least I think I am. There are a lot of good things that happened there-- for one thing, my magical newfound ability to splurge and then stop got tested three times this weekend and did just fine, three out of three. For another thing, this weekend was my second run at getting the "free day" concept ironed out to a point where I was able to quit, instead of eating so much that I made myself sick, like I did the first week-- and in these three weeks, there has been marked improvement. HUGE improvement.

I have never had such a huge improvement in managing Binging Ed in all my time dealing with him. Not in three weeks, not in three months. Looking at the big picture, that makes it even more worth it. I might not get the improvement I want in twelve weeks, but who's quitting this after twelve weeks? Hell, this plan is the first thing I've ever tried that's kept Ed in check, so there's no way I'm letting go after twelve weeks. This is just partway through the first twelve weeks. Many more to come.

That said, I have informed my Hub that I don't want him to ask me to go get ice cream the next time he's been drinking. And I've made a mental note to expect this the next time, anyway, because he's a man, and men don't remember details like this. (Other details, certainly, but not ones like don't lead me into ice cream temptation or the hallway is not the clothes hamper.) In the end, I'm responsible for managing this myself, but a little help in that area would be nice, dammit.

In other news, Operation Summer Hours is now in effect. I spent about half the weekend picking out recipes that we could make from what we have on hand, entering the recipes into my new software, then putting together a meal plan for the week out of it. It was a frazzling but rewarding endeavor. I spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening, while my Hub was out with his buddy, doing prep-- making lunch for today, prepping tonight's dinner, chopping carrots and celery into dip-friendly pieces, washing grapes and packing them into single-serving containers, de-frosting meat for the stuff I'll need to prep tonight, rearranging the refrigerator, yadda yadda yadda. I'm going to keep plugging recipes into the software throughout the week, and hopefully next week I'll be up to date enough that the food selection thing can take a lot less time. I'm hoping to take some time this next weekend to go through the process of setting up the "inventory" section, too, so I'll be able to run a real shopping list based on what we have and what we want to eat for the next week.

There are a lot of habits I'd meant to start, but hadn't, and there are ones that I really wanted my Hub to develop, but he hadn't. Apparently the missing link there was pure necessity-- we hadn't really needed these things, we were getting along okay without them, and so forth. That evening routine I've been half-heartedly trying to establish for the past six months? Stick face-washin' and tooth-brushin' in the midst of a must-get-this-done-for-morning routine, and it's no problem to remember. Planning meals for the week ahead of time? Yeah, much more important when you know you're not going to be in the mood to deal with this all week. Prepping the evening meal the night before? MUCH easier when the alternative is coming home after an even longer day than normal and still having to cook from scratch.

More amazing, for me, is the effect that this necessity has had on my husband. He got up at the same time I did, without having to be coaxed awake-- just rolled up and got to it. He emptied the dishwasher. He fed the cats. He got showered and dressed first thing, instead of puttering around in his bathrobe. He even ate oatmeal with me at work. All of these are very, very good things.

Hell, we've always talked about meaning to go out to the park for our lunches, since there's a park right across from the office and all (one of the newest and most gorgeous of the Chicago parks, as a matter of fact). I accidentally ended up with almost all the lunches for the week being cold ones, so I just went the rest of the way and went with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and cucumber chips for the veggie sides, rather than frozen veggies. What the hell, it's farmer's market season: fresh is doable.

Tonight, we make Maggie's recipe for pork meatballs with pineapple sauce, paired with stir-fry veggies (nicely vacuum-packed for me at the store; how did I not notice this $1.39 wonder sitting over by the tofu before?) and I prep tomorrow's chicken pita. Tomorrow's dinner, if I remember correctly, is another shot at the EFL Sloppy Joes, this time using ground sirloin (95% lean) and packaging it out with saner portion sizes-- because, damn, we got about eight joes out of that "four serving" recipe. Not sure if it's because the buns we use are small, or what. Very odd.

I've been making various dips lately. They started out bean-based, but now they've taken a swerve toward being cottage-cheese based. I made a spinach & CC dip the other day that made my Hub say "You know, I really want to stuff a bunch of that in a pita and have it for lunch." Since I'd been aiming for a balanced protein/carb dip that I could have with veggies, that's not an option for me, but I'm thinking that my next dip will be primarily veggie & protein so that the pita thing would be an actual option.

In other news, I've got a lot on my mind. More on that later.