Lent

In recent years, sweets have generally been no big deal for me. Maybe it was because I worked in a frozen yogurt shop while in college and therefore had plenty of guilt-free, low-calorie sweets readily available which made me: a) kind of sick of frozen yogurt, and b) too cheap to pay for nay other sweets when I had access to free fro-yo. Also, I took a human nutrition class my freshman year of college, and since then was determined to live out the A I got in that class.

Ever since I moved in with Sister’s family, however, I’ve had unbelievable access to all kinds of candies, chocolates, brownies, cakes, and cupcakes, and as a result have developed a horrible/amazing sweet tooth. It’s terrible! And work doesn’t help. There’s always a birthday, a Wednesday, or some other excuse to bring in sweets, and by now I’m like a sweets crackhead. I can’t help myself!

Last week, someone at work announced that there were leftover homemade red velvet cupcakes in the Break Room that someone had brought in for a birthday. There was one cupcake per candle, each one with a letter to spell out “H-A-P-PY B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y.” Now, I’ve never been one to like red velvet cake. Then again, I never liked cake before I had one from Publix (a grocery chain mostly in the South, for all y’all that don’t live in the South), which must be made of some mix of magic and crack. But anyway, I’ve even made red velvet cake before, and I really didn’t like it. But now that there are red velvet cupcakes in the Break Room, of course I have to try one! Because not only do I love food, but I view it as a challenge as well. It’s like I’m determined to like all food that comes my way. I guess I’m just THAT much of a foodie. Sometime I’ll probably write about the time I even ate a live clam in Namibia. (No joke, this literally happened.) But for now, I’ll stick with the subject of sweets.

So of course, despite the fact that I already knew I didn’t like red velvet, I decide to give it another shot. (“Well, it wasn’t good last time, but maybe it’s good this time! I have nothing to lose!”)

Big mistake. Just like cake in general, of course now I decide that I love red velvet when it has cream cheese frosting, and I immediately start scheming my way to sneaking a second one out of the Break Room later. Thankfully, the aftertaste of guilt and shame (“You haven’t been working out like you should, and bathing suit weather is just around the corner!”) kicked in almost immediately, and I was able to tear myself away from the thought.

I have to say, those were some very heavy footsteps leaving that Break Room.

It was a very good thing, however, because when I came back hours later to refill my water bottle, and definitely NOT to check up on the cupcakes (seriously, who am I kidding? Definitely to check up on the cupcakes), I was greeted with this:



It’s like they’re threatening me! Or daring me. Either way, I think I should take this as a sign that I need Divine Intervention, not to mention good old Catholic guilt, for my sweets addiction. So I decided right then and there to give up all sugary confections for Lent. Immediately after I made this decision, however, my sweets-craving body reacted in defiance to my decision to try to be healthy again. So what did I do?

Made more cupcakes. The excuse?

Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), so live it up until Wednesday!! My wonderful/evil mother gave me a cupcake decorating book for my birthday recently, so of course I wanted to show I was using it, and therefore now had a deadline to do so (because let’s face it, if I take too long, it won’t happen. That’s just how I operate). So I made these over the weekend, last weekend:

See that?? They even have ladybugs!! Fortunately, I unloaded more than half of the cupcakes at work on Monday morning. But THEN on the same day, some of my coworkers noted my skill, pulled me aside, and pointed out the fact that my boss’ birthday was coming up the following weekend, and that we were celebrating this Friday. One of them recognized my sunflowers immediately, pulled out the very same decorating book I used, and opened it to a page where two dozen cupcakes make up one large alligator. We work in the litigation department, and are therefore unofficially nicknamed “the Gators.” That makes my boss the head Gator. Sweet Jesus, they wanted me to make this for Friday.

Being the “yes” woman that I am (they were just so damn excited about it), I of course acquiesced, and on Thursday night (after working overtime! Yay!) I made THIS:

Everyone loved them! Although now I also have requests from other coworkers for their birthdays. I inadvertently created a monster when I tried making better life choices.

At the same time, this also means I just decorated four dozen cupcakes in the past week and have therefore consumed an exorbitant amount of cake, frosting, Oreos, frosting, M&Ms, frosting, mini Oreos, frosting, and Life Savers. Did I mention I ate a lot of frosting? I’m probably diabetic right about now.

The good thing, however, is that Lent starts this coming Wednesday. I might update on my sugar withdrawals at some point, but I can say right now that I’m SO ready to be confection-free for the next forty-something days. Yay for giving up things we love that are bad for us!

 

Update: Shout out for the cupcake book I used for the Sunflower and Gator cupcakes!

 

Tack, Karen and Richardson, Alan. Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make. Houghton Mifflin Co; 1 edition (April 24, 2008).