they say it's my birthday, na na na na na na na-na.

well my mom is cute. when i came upstairs this morning, the kitchen was decorated for me. she's the best.

i started the day on the scale...not TOO bad after the NYC weekend. it was up one pound from friday. i can live with that. i still don't think it's fair, and i maintain that i didn't consume 3000 excess calories, but whatever.

one of my besties wanted to take me to the japanese restaurant for lunch. instead of sushi i had edamame and seaweed salad, in an attempt to conserve calories for whatever would come later in the day. i have been stressing about my birthday food for quite awhile. normally my mom will make me something i love, like meatloaf and homemade mac and cheese. i had also asked for a pumpkin roll. but along the way i told her to forget it, i didn't want to blow my diet over a birthday. we made plans to do SOMETHING tonight, but i just couldn't decide what i wanted to do. i was so determined that i shouldn't eat anything heavy.

then i got to work and opened my email. all of the corporate lists i've signed up for were on the ball. 200 bonus speedy points at the gas station....$3 extra care bucks at CVS...a dollar off a combo at wendy's (seriously wendy's? not even a free frosty? you cheap bastards!). but the best deal of all was an entire free meal from bravo cucina itlaliana. it's a favorite of mine, and it's in the city where we had planned to do some shopping anyway. so i leaned toward that for awhile. then i thought if i was going to blow it, maybe i should take advantage of endless shrimp (i call it shrimtoberfest) at red lobster. i went back and forth all day...and side to side too, since i had 3 options:

1. red lobster
2. bravo
3. veggies and water

finally at the end of the day i got on redlobster.com and checked out the nutrition info. i added up the calories of everything i intended to eat, and it came out to nearly 3,000. argh. bravo didn't list calories, but i was sure i could do better there. so that's where we ended up. AFTER a super fun trip to old navy where i bought cute clothes in respectable sizes that i think look pretty good. all at 30% off, suckas!

anyway, at bravo i did not order a salad with my meal, because the creamy parmesan dressing sounded dangerous. i only had one piece of bread dipped in olive oil, and for my entree i picked the rosemary grilled shrimp. it's jumbo shrimp marinated in rosemary and garlic, served on orzo and grain sautee, with spinach, artichoke, basil, kalamata olives, garbanzo beans, tomato and feta, with a spicy caper vinaigrette.  it was so delicious, and i enjoyed every bite. i just now fired off an email to corporate thanking them for the nice meal/experience, but expressing my displeasure in the fact that they don't provide their nutrition information online.

since i'd had what i felt was a sensible meal, i decided to share a dessert with my mom and brother. we decided on the sampler of tiramisu, chocolate chip bread pudding with vanilla bean gelato on top, and chocolate lava cake, also topped with gelato. it was three tiny, perfect portions for sharing. i had about 2 bites of each item and cherished them. i had taken a picture of my meal for my blog readers, and said in the interest of full disclosure, i owed you a picture of the dessert, too.

so it was a pretty, pretty, pretty good birthday. my mom really took good care of me, and my brother even bought me a kickass water bottle for the gym that has a filter right in it so i can stop buying bottled water and killing the environment. i'm not going to weigh myself tomorrow. i drank my tea tonight, and i'll go to the gym for a couple of hours after work tomorrow. on wednesday i'll see what the residual damage is and go from there. i celebrated this birthday 29 pounds lighter than i was just 2 months ago. if i gained a couple back, so be it. i enjoyed it. i'll take them off, and then 10 more...and keep on truckin'.