Busy Weekend with loads of Chocolate!

Saturday night was our store Christmas party.  It was decided much earlier that I most likely had the biggest living room, so party at my place!  Unfortunately the store doesn't close until 9pm so it was a pretty late party.  Dan managed to get the evening off for the party, but he was back on call for midnight.  (Since when you book a day off it goes from 12am-12am)  So he couldn't stay up too late since he had to be up for 5AM to head off to work.

I had ordered pizzas for all of us (9 of us in total) and had a few drinks available too.  I didn't want everyone waiting around for pizza when it was so late already so I ordered 4 large pizzas. I hadn't eaten pizza in a long time, I was quite shocked by how big a large was.  I ended up buying myself a thin crust Chicken Arbiritta pizza, but it ended up being really spicy!  So I ended up nibbling on the other pizzas there.

It was really strange. I didn't really care for the pizzas at all. They where incredibly bland, and I found that I like my own homemade pizzas better.  But the weird thing is, is that I had trouble stopping eating them anyways.  It felt great to eat them and I just didn't want to stop.  I felt the immediate elation of eating bad foods, and it felt like "going home".  I only ended up with a few slices, thank goodness!  And in the morning I felt terrible. My stomach hurt and I was lethargic all day.  I had trouble wanting to do anything productive.  I didn't think that having a few slices would have such an immediate effect, but it did.  No more pizza for me, not worth it.

The rest of the party was an absolute blast!  We ended up doing some talking and taking turns playing 360 and PS3.  We exchanged our secret Santa gifts too.  I forgot to take pictures of what I gave away.  I picked our Managers name, so I got him a few Simpsons items, a pocket knife and rubber "brass" knuckles. You know.. to keep us in line!  

The gifts I received where really awesome!  I got two coffee mugs, two bags of Lindt Lindor Chocolates, 6 candy canes, Tim Tams, two different kinds of Chai tea, and a variety pack of hot chocolate.  Dan said he did a mental facepalm when he saw my gift, but I was actually really okay with it!  I got it from a new employee who doesn't know about my diet, so it's not their fault for not knowing about how I eat. But even so, I don't mind getting food for a gift occasionally.  I told myself that I'd just portion out the chocolate and not binge.  It was really hard to not eat all of the Tim Tams, and I had one portion of Lindt's (and the rest went to Dan because I realized I wouldn't stop at one portion!).

The picture turned sideways and wont go back :(  Silly blogger!

The hot chocolate was a pretty cool gift too.  They're only 120 calories a cup, too! Score!  I love all of these flavours, so this really was an awesome gift.

Snowman coaster!

I made a cup of the Coffee Crisp hot chocolate today, and it was really really satisfying.  I usually horde Hot chocolate and have maybe one cup a winter, so this is a really great gift to get.

Sunday was a day off and a great day to recover from a food hangover (hah!).  Dan and I where supposed to go to the drive-thru Christmas light show, followed by going out of town to view the Geminid meteor shower but he ended up getting home really late from work.  We missed the meteor shower this year, but we have until Christmas Eve to see the light show at least.

Yesterday Daniels brother came into town (he's up for the holidays) to visit.  We ended up going to see The Hobbit last night together.  We where supposed to see it as a family, but Dan figures he will be working late every day until Christmas Day so we decided to see it last night since he had a day off.

It was really fantastic!  I haven't read the book yet (I like reading the book after the movie), but either way I found the movie to be spectacular.  It was a bit slow in places, but I suppose that's what happens when you split one book into three movies!  In fact I liked the movie so much I downloaded the soundtrack today.  I'm a big fan girl of fantasy movies so this movie is totally right up my alley.  The visuals had my heart racing too, it was overall really beautifully filmed.

Today is a late work day, I just work an evening shift and close up the store.  We have a TV in the store and head office sends us a disc to play every month.  Well we've received two copies of the disc and neither work, so now we're "stuck" watching Christmas movies. (heh heh)  I'm bringing in the only Christmas movies I have.  "The Muppet Christmas Carol", and "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie."  I also have "Hogfather" (based on a Terry Pratchett novel) but I doubt anyone will want to watch it at work so I'll leave that one at home.

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A few days ago I asked my Facebook friends for new interesting foods to try out in the New Year.  I've decided that next year I'm going to start trying new foods (namely veggies, but other foods too) and posting them on here.

Some foods I've come up with so far:

Broccolini

Beets

Various squashes

Kale

Chard

Barley

Artichoke

Avocado

Goji Berries

Duck

Goose

Wild meats

Brie (and other cheeses)

Lamp

Parsnips

Okra

Different Flours, almond, rice etc.

Dragon fruit

Star fruit

Foods that friends came up with:

Ground bison

Quinoa

Coconut oil

Dry roasted soy beans

Turkey Pepperoni

Haddock and other fish

White beans

Lentils

Edamame beans

Fiddle heads

Sauerkraut

If you have any that you think I should try then please leave a comment and let me know!  And please leave ideas for recipes too!  I work less in the early part of the New Year so I want to try some new food ideas.  Baking isn't out of the question either!