For some reason, I thought cutting open my head and removing a cyst would be pain-free. Once I was laying back in the chair with 2 doctors and 2 attendants over me and the sound of a cauterizing tool filled the air, I began to rethink things. The numbing gel wore off about 15 minutes after I left, and I came home and collapsed onto the couch.( Sidebar: I am REALLY glad that I’ve never had to go through childbirth.)

JD ran to the store to get me some Tylenol because they said I shouldn’t take Ibuprofen and you should listen to doctors when they tell you things. They also told me not to drink any alcohol. There are exceptions to every rule, amiright Kittens? So now I’m resting lightly with a glass of Sweet Tea vodka in my hand and an icepack on my head. I. Am. Sexy.

My mother was concerned that I drove myself home from the surgery, but all was well. JD’s working tomorrow, but I have a list of things NOT to do, like lean my head over, wash my hair, exercise, or clean my house. It’s like I’ve been training for this my whole life.

My daughter is the luckiest girl in the world. Seriously, why I’m sitting on the couch and she’s not massaging my feet is beyond me. When I was 12, almost 13 years old, the highlight of my day was getting home and finding a potpie in the oven. My schedule went like this – 7 a.m. get up, 7:30 wait in the cold for the bus, 8:30 till 3:00 schoolwork, followed by a potpie, homework, dinner, then maybe, if I was lucky my parents would let me stay up and watch Dallas with them before bed. For fun I ran outside on the gravel in my bare feet and hoped a cousin would drop by.

Yesterday, Rachel got up, went to the horse barn, caught ponies, took a lesson, came home and went to a skating party. Today, she slept in, went to volleyball, had a guitar lesson, then spent a couple of hours practicing her math skills through a little exercise I like to call “bridge”.

It’s a good thing we’ve gotten all of the fun out of the way, because later this week we’re going to have a tough class in economics and a Masters level course in gerontology. My mom and Aunt Fay are coming to yard sale. That counts, right?

Posting was nonexistent last week, but I have a good excuse. Savannah does not have wi-fi. Don’t waste your time looking it up, just go with me here.

What Savannah DOES have is an abundance of great food and drink. Here are five things I tried and loved on my latest “work” trip.

1. Key Lime Pie Martini: I had this while eating at Vic’s On the River. I’m not a big martini drinker but a co-worker gave me a sip of hers and BAM. It tasted just like a Key Lime Pie. It even had graham cracker on the rim! I was smart enough not to ask for the recipe, otherwise I’d be drunk for eternity.

2. Crawfish Beignets: These were also from Vic’s. They were BEIGNETS full of crawfish. I only had one since I’m dieting and all, but it was worth every step I’ll have to take on the treadmill this week.

3. Kale Salad with Salmon: This was my favorite lunch. We’ve eaten at B. Matthew’s several times but this was the first time trying the salad and it was DELICIOUS!

4. Seersucker: I had this drink at The Olde Pink House. It’s made with Skinny Firefly Sweet Tea vodka, and it tasted just like sweet tea. This one I did try and recreate at home, but I couldn’t quite make it work. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep at it.

5. Fleece-lined leggings: It was freezing in Savannah and I only brought a light coat. I found a cute boutique on River Street and bought leggings with FLEECE on the inside. Heaven! They were inexpensive and came in a variety of colors. I chose black of course. Who am I, Tania-the-Mad?

Work on the road is tough but I suffer through it.

The good news is I’m going to have a lot of extra time since I no longer have to watch Justified. I called my mama today and she mentioned yesterday’s post, which got us talking about the show. She’s watched it for a few years now and was glad to hear I like it. Then we had the following conversation.

“I talked to Tania-the-Mad about it. I told her I love Boyd. She said she didn’t want to SPOIL it for me but some people get worse. I hope it’s not him.”

“It’s him.”

“Oh. Well, everybody is mean on that show. That Arlo man shot his own son.”

“Yeah, but he gets killed in jail.”

“Alrighty then. I also like the main guy, the chief.”

“He gets shot so I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Wonderful. In other news, JD and I have been “clean eating” for the past week and it’s going very well.

This is fish over mashed cauliflower with fresh green beans. YUMMY. I’ve also worked out several times this week. I know I’ve done this a million times before but I really think this is the year I’m going to get healthy, lose weight, and…

“You’ll quit soon.”

Just saving Mom the trouble.

Welcome to the year 2015! Is it just me, or did anyone else think we’d have hovercrafts by now? Normally I’d be very disappointed but the year has started off tremendously well, so I have no complaints.

Brat and Kit came over to help us ring in the New Year and we partied HARD. And by “partied”, I mean we sat around playing Banagrams and figuring out how to download a movie from Amazon. We watched an oldie but a goodie – The Big Lebowski. If you’ve never seen it, it’s hilarious, but the language is a bit off-color. Let’s put it this way, if they removed every F word, the movie would be about 37 minutes long.

New Year’s Day I slept in until 9 a.m., got up and had some of my mom’s fresh eggs, then went to the gym! I didn’t really want to workout, but I did want to be able to say that I’ve been to the gym every day this year at least once in my life. Mission accomplished.

After the gym, I came home and made fresh guacamole in my Vitamix. I was a little short on avocado and long on lemon, but otherwise it was yummy. I took about 100 pictures but I’m in bed now and that seems like a whole lot of work.

For the past several years we’ve had a tradition of going to my brother’s house for “hot meat”, greens, and black-eyed peas. I’d never heard of hot meat either, but it appears to be pork  boiled and covered with red chili flakes. I’d show you a picture of that, but I forgot to take pictures and I am not googling Hot Meat for any amount of money. Just trust me when I say that it was really good.

Because I’m the best aunt ever, Baby A was very teary when I prepared to go home. So of course I offered to take her home with me. Mom and Dad were a bit reluctant but RimFire gave me an emphatic “YES”. I don’t know what’s so hard about watching a 4 year-old. I just give her what she wants and everyone is happy.

So my year thus far has been laughing with friends, working out, eating good food, and hanging with family. Oh, great. I’ll never keep this up. It can only go down from here!

Hope your 2015 is mind-blowingly blessed!