I survived my first Mardi Gras! Now that all is said and done, I can definitely say that I’m a fan. At first I wasn’t sure how much I really liked it, because of the whole “begging” and rejection aspect of the parades, but now I see that I was taking it way too seriously (the rejection part, that is). Overall it was a really fun time, with GREAT music. And it’s crazy the way everything just stops down here and the entire city embraces it.

My favorite part of the parade:

I also managed to survive my birthday – barely. I was out watching the Mardi Gras parades all day, and I ended up getting HAMMERED. It was unintentional – I forgot to eat anything and was drinking chilled Fireball out of Dave’s sister’s cup like it was a mixed drink. Stupid. I ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor that night. Sigh…not a good look, I know, but eh, what can you do? (That is rhetorical – I know there are many things I could do to avoid having to sleep on the bathroom floor. I could stop drinking. Or drink less. Or remember to eat. Or drink water. Etc.)

And in case you’re wondering, I did NOT start my diet the day after Mardi Gras. I now see that that plan was wayyyy too ambitious. For one thing, even though Mardi Gras ended on Tuesday, I didn’t start to feel normal again until Thursday, and I definitely wasn’t in a diet mindframe. Also, I have birthday dinner plans with Dave’s family this weekend, so there was no point in starting on Wednesday.

So as always, diet starts Monday. I wanna lay out a meal plan for the first week just so I have something to follow. Sticking to a diet is so much easier for me when I don’t have to think about what I’m going to eat!