Are the calories half empty or half full?

Yesterday my mom planted a whole bunch of plants in my garden. It's looking quite lovely.

Last night, my parents and I went to ACME for dinner. I got soft shell crabs with some bacon, tomato and arugula topping. It came with jasmine rice, but I asked for French fries instead, because I really felt like eating some of their wonderful fries. My mom decided at the last minute to get a side order of fries, too. Well, I'd say we ended up with maybe ten cups of fries. I just filed a 6 cup container with my leftovers, so that might still be an underestimate. Due to the huge amount of food, I was not able to order the warm lemon pudding cake for dessert.

This afternoon, my mom planted even more plants in my garden and started working on adding the mulch. I worked on deadheading the dianthus blossums with cool new grass cutting shears.

My dad and I headed over to the Barbecue Joint for dinner. I ordered brunswick stew, but what I got had sausage in it, which seemed surprising. It didn't have okra in it, so it probably wasn't the gumbo. Regardless of what it was, it was quite good. It came with a side of cornbread and I still think they have the best cornbread in the Triangle. I also ate quite a few of my dad's pickled cucumbers, of which I am very fond. For dessert we shared cheddar crusted apple pie and strawberry rhubarb peach cobbler. The cool thing about the cobbler is that you could really taste each invidual flavor.

At some point this weekend, we were all discussing the concept of "empty calories". It is my philosophy that one should avoid eating them. My mom pointed out that my brownies could be considered empty calories. I disagreed, because the chocolate contains antioxidants. Upon contemplating this further throughout the weekend, I have concluded that my idea of empty calories is pretty much limited to soft drinks and mediocre French fries. Good French fries increase morale, you know.