Today, my dreams are made of pepperoni...

I must say, that after a long rainy day at work, the only thing I wanted to do was come home, put on sweats, and eat something yummy with a glass of wine in my hand and watch The Real Housewives of ANYWHERE.  But, I'm on Day 3 of my cleanse (today was fruit and veggies day), so I came home, put on sweats, turned on the Housewives (of Miami, Reunion, Part II), and ate a huge bowl of green beans... wahwahwah!

As far as the cleanse goes, I will say I feel fantastic - physically and even emotionally.  My energy is great and I have been in high spirits while everyone else has been a little gloomy this week (returning to the office after the holidays will do that to anyone!).  But, I am also realizing how much I really do love to eat.  It's not just about the food, but I've been missing spending the time with friends and even Ben (who is ordering a pizza here right now and I want to KILL him) while we eat, drink, and generally be merry and bright.  I have seriously considered quitting on at least 100 occasions in three days, but I think what started as an experiment in detoxifying for the New Year has become a huge exercise in self-control (and babyjesusknows I could use more of that).

So this is what my grocery cart looked like the other night... and if you know me at all, you know that it is a bit of an unusual sight.  All veggies/fruit and NO PASTA.  For shame.

As the saga/torture continues, I will keep updating as to how it goes, but tomorrow is pretty much the strangest day of them all.... banana and milk day....

Speaking of tomorrow, it is another big day in the continuation of my follow-your-dreams plan, as I gear up to take my GRE.  For those of you that don't know, the GRE is a trumped-up SAT basically, which means it is full of high school math questions, essentially.  When I initially decided to take the GRE (back in November), I bought a study book at Barnes & Noble and was so excited to dive in (again, those of you who know me know that I have always thought of these kinds of tests as almost a hobby).  Unfortunately, it didn't take long until I realized that my math skills aren't quite what they used to be -- and I became really overwhelmed.  Right as I type this, Ben is out in the living room, eating pizza and watching Ollie while I take a break from studying right isosceles triangles and eating rabbit food.... yeah.  Anyway, although I totally forgot that exclamation points were even used in math books, I'm learning it again the best I can and am going to throw caution to the wind tomorrow and go take this test and see what happens.  I met with the professor today who is in charge of the department I want to apply to (at UCF - the largest university here in Orlando for those non-Floridians) and she was encouraging and exciting - so I'm really hoping this part of my plan works out as I want it to.

I am going to be a good - ok, decent --- errr, subpar but acceptable? -- studier and go back to staring at my "cheat sheet" full of symbols I haven't seen in awhile until they all start to blur together into the shape of a hot dog (mmm.... pork...).  I just wanted to end this post with this piece I came across on Etsy that is on my wish list.... but for now, I am just keeping the .jpg to look at from time to time.

.... and with that, good night!