We recently celebrated Cowboy’s birthday. He asked me to make him a banana pie. I was relieved that I was able to talk him into foregoing the crust. It was easy to make the pudding from scratch and then simply fill a glass pie plate with the pudding, refrigerate, and then add whipped cream and health food store candies to the top.

Wednesday night was pack meeting. We are on our third boy in Cub Scouts, and I have to admit, I am burned out on pack meetings. Part of it I guess is a holdover from my childhood when I felt sooo resentful that my brothers got to do Cub Scouts and the church didn’t have a program for girls, and my mom didn’t let me do Girl Scouts. Even with Activity Days now for LDS girls I don’t feel satisfied. It doesn’t have the same structure and recognition that Cub Scouts does. And pack meeting seems to frequently fall on birthdays in our family. But I don’t grumble much about it any more, even if the one tonight did fall on my 20th wedding anniversary. We just celebrated last night.

We did something simple and cheap, went out to eat, and then went to the temple. Many people do that for a date but we have been having financial challenges so we never go out to eat, and we haven’t been to the temple in a long time. At the temple, some nice older lady allowed me to go before her in the restroom because, “expecting moms always get to go first.” OK, for the record, I am NOT pregnant. Just two days earlier someone asked me as well. NO, I am just fat. What can I say? Like Erma Bombeck says about herself, the prime time of my figure was when I was 9. I actually lost a lot of weight in college and was skinny, for me, when I got married. I was also relatively thin after I had my oldest daughter. But for the most part, I have been “curvaceous.”

I read in Eat Fat Lose Fat that if you eat a tablespoon or two of coconut oil before meals you will eat less at the meal. I remembered to do that before dinner, before pack meeting, and I was so thrilled that the peanut butter bars didn’t even tempt me. I felt completely happily full. Coconut oil works! The book says that it helps you burn your fat by increasing your fat thermostat. I LOVE being able to just walk by the peanut butter finger bars and not feel them calling to me!  I LOVE this! This is one of the greatest discoveries ever!!!!  Now if I can just remember to take it about 20 minutes before a meal, like the books says, so I can feel the full effects.