What could be cuter?

Look at that face!

This is what greets me every day when I get home from school or work. Little Miss. Harley. Aka - the love of my life. She seemed particularly excited to see me today when I got home from work at 3:30, which instantly put me in a good mood. To make me even happier, the boyfriend worked the same shift at his store, so we got dinner together! Trust me, this is a big deal for us, as it doesn't happen often. I decided to make something "special" for the two of us (I use quotation marks because what classifies as a fancy dinner for us is probably your last minute, thrown together sort of dinner).
Cue: stir fry!

I freaking LOVE stir fry. Always have. I'd probably eat it just about every night if I could. I made a quick stop at Safeway on my way home today and grabbed a few ingredients that I had run out of, and got right to cooking!
I didn't take any pictures of tonight's dinner, but it consisted of:

- Whole wheat spaghetti (they say that whole wheat pasta has up to two to three TIMES the amount of fiber as regular old white pasta, and is packed with vitamins and minerals. I don't eat a lot of pasta to begin with, but when I do I try to make sure it's of the whole wheat variety).
- Broccoli
- Carrot slices
- Pea pods
- Teriyaki sauce
- Spicy peanut sauce

I would have ideally made some sort of homemade stir fry sauce (there's actually a recipe in Mama Pea's (yes, her again) cookbook (Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love) that I've been dying to try), but I wasn't quite feeling THAT ambitious. Again, I'm not perfect and I most definitely don't make everything from scratch (although I aspire to!) but I still do my best to keep things as healthy and natural as possible.
On the topic of not being perfect (and I realize this may completely go against what I just said about trying to keep things healthy, but don't judge me...), I also caved and bought a pack of mini cheesecakes from Safeway. MAN were they ever good. Do not even think about asking for the nutritional information or lecturing on how bad they probably were for me because believe me, I was too scared to even look at what was in those things. Wasn't the best choice I've ever made, but I've also learned over the years that if you don't allow yourself a cheat or a splurge every now and again, you'll end up much worse off.

When I was a kid my mom was huge on eating healthy food and appropriate portions. This sounds like great parenting and it really was, but what wasn't so great was that my brother and I were almost never allowed treats, or splurges. This cultivated in me becoming an overweight teenager with a portion control problem (I'm still not at my ideal weight, but I'm working my way through those issues), who hoarded those "treat" foods because I was never allowed them when I was younger. Don't get me wrong, my mom taught me so many great things about cooking homemade food whenever possible, about eating right and taking care of yourself, but the way she went about it DID affect me negatively as well. This is why I allow myself those moments of weakness (yes, cheesecake IS my weakness), to hopefully allow myself to eat properly the other 98% of the time.

Go have yourself a slice of cheesecake. Or whatever your own personal weakness may be. Do it because I told you to, and because you're allowed to once in awhile. Savor it, and then get right back on track. It's okay to indulge and enjoy. And enjoy I do. :)