Mom's visit/Photoshoot weekend

This past weekend my mom and brother were here for a visit.

I think it's universally accepted that when your family members come to visit (or vice versa), you eat. A lot... You just do. For example: I cannot visit my grandmother, even for a minute, without her asking me if I've eaten and subsequently attempting to feed me everything in her fridge, which actually equates to a years worth of nourishment for a small nation. Not that I didn't love every second of their visit (because I did), but this weekend was hard.

My mother is a saint.

She was very supportive of the challenge, which doesn't come as a surprise to me. She purchased some Kirkland brand granola from Costco (this stuff), which she buys every time she's here because there isn't a Costco in the North. Every time she wanted to eat some, she'd always ask myself or Lindsay if it was alright, just to make sure we weren't going to eat any and throw off our challenge. She read the physical contract (Lindsay pinned it to the wall in my apartment) and compared my wording of the contract to something that Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory would produce. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not. Either way it was adequately hilarious. My mom is awesome. The only thing that wasn't awesome: She smokes.

My brother likes his candies. And his chips. His chocolates not so much, but they're up there. In contrast to my mom, Chris had no problem at all eating the aforementioned items (and all the power to him by the way): Doritos, Skittles, some weird fish-chip things from the Asian Market and a myriad of other stuff that's strictly against the challenge criteria. It was pretty friggin hard to say no Doritos, but we managed.

We went out to eat a few times, once to Lonestar again (I was working Thursday and it's the fastest lunch you can sit down and eat) where we successfully avoided the chips, and once to Copper Penny because it's my favourite restaurant in Kingston and I know my mother enjoys it. With that said, I think a part of the contract that both Lindsay and I feel we're somewhat taking advantage of (for lack of a better phrase) is portion control. We do eat out quite a bit, which we've both agreed that we should probably cut down on, but we also tend to snack relatively frequently after supper. Perhaps this will be our focus in the following weeks.

A small bit of back-story for the last part of this post:

For the past few weeks I'd been emailing back and forth with the girls from Niche Photography here in Kingston to setup a surprise photoshoot for Lindsay and I (from which I'm really stoked to see the resulting images), seeing as how September 13th is our one-year anniversary. Her sister Cassy is an esthetician and as soon as she found out about the photoshoot, generously offered to do Lindsay's makeup and hair the day of the photoshoot (which turned out wonderfully by the way). Consequently, Lindsay wasn't at my place on Friday night, but instead stayed at her place to be surprised Saturday morning. It worked out really well actually.

On Friday night, my friend/neighbour Lee and his girlfriend Ashley came down from upstairs and the four of us, myself, Chris, Lee and Ashley, got our drink on. A lot. The evening's excursions began at my place after which we somehow worked our way to the Grizzly Grill. That's besides the point... Now, anyone who is a smoker will attest to the fact that drinking and smoking are peas and carrots, cheese and wine, Abbot and Costello and all that other stuff that goes together like peas and carrots. The whole night I didn't crave or smoke a single cigarette. Magnificent. Although, there is a very good chance that I may have urinated on a Hakim Optical. Maybe.


All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. Not only for this challenge, but also because the photoshoot went exactly as planned and I got to see my mother and brother.