Life has been stressful here on the homefront... so I figured that I better 'fess' up about the truth behind the current Johnston Family eating trends. I know, I know... I allegedly love to cook. Oh, and I claim to try to live life as a healthy and frugal human being. However, when life comes at you fast - sometimes you just throw caution to the wind and find happiness as you head on out to eat. :) Here you have the evidence before you.....
So the truth is: Jeremy and I LOVE to eat out. To help myself cope with the guilt of having this unhealthy habit - I have become a big restaurant coupon connoisseur - so I flip through ads looking for tempting deals like "buy one 6" sub, get one free", or "buy one large specialty pizza at regular price and get any large one topping pizza for 99 cents."
We also have those infamous "buy 10 get one free" cards in Jeremy's wallet for every restaurant within a 15 minute radius of our home. I used to wonder how people ever got all the way to 10 on those cards - now I wonder how we already got to 10 - AGAIN. We even have a separate file in our filing cabinet for the take out menus of all of our favorite restaurants - that way we can call ahead to order our meals "To Go".
When I'm feeling guilty about the nutritional value of our meals, I have an easy fix - we stop by Jamba Juice for a healthy, delicious, refreshing smoothie (that counts as our servings of fruit for the week - right?). 
Oh, and if I start to stress about how we have gone out to eat "too much" recently, then I rationalize by finding some sort of occasion to celebrate - which means we - of course - need to go out to eat. I believe that we have now celebrated Jeremy's birthday with a trip to Olive Garden, Wendy's, Papa Johns, and Tucanos. Hmmm...
If we are not in the season of anyone's birthday - then we celebrate Friday and Saturday (it's the weekend) or Monday (Family Night). Tuesday and Wednesday are up for grabs as well, we simply celebrate that we have survived yet another grueling day at school/work. 
Well, I'm sure that we all have our little secrets... and I wanted to come clean on the Johnston Family's bad little habit. Someday, I anticipate that we will overcome this shortcoming. But for now, I'll just keep enjoying the food. :)
And.... whoever is out there reading this... thanks for listening. We miss you ALL!!!!
