10 Foods I've Been Craving (and Eating)

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought I'd share a few of the foods I can't get enough of lately:

1. Avocado, cut in half, sprinkled with freshly ground salt, and eaten with a spoon. I wish they weren't so expensive right now, especially since anytime Aaron sees me eating one, he thinks he needs one, too.

2. Trader Joe's frozen macaroni and cheese, heated in the microwave or oven, either will get the job done. I've tried my share of baked macaroni and cheese recipes, and none can even compare to this. In fact, when I tried it for the first time, I was like, "This is what I've been searching for all my life!" I have to eat it in hiding, unless I want Clark to eat half of it.

3. Soft-boiled eggs, with the yolk still vibrant and orange, on the verge of leaking, but not quite. All last week, the magic boiling time was six minutes, but this week, for some inexplicable reason, it's not producing quite the same results. Which means, more eggs. (Bradley doesn't complain.)

4. Peanut butter, or alternatively, almond butter, spread on bananas, apples, toast, or eaten straight out of the jar with a spoon. No shame here.

5. A crunchy bowl of Cheerios, eaten in my bed, at 11:00pm. Sometimes I swap them out for Rice Chex, but generally Cheerios is the only thing that satisfies that midnight snacking urge. I heart Cheerios.

6. Oranges, easy to peel and juicy to eat. Oranges are the smell and taste of winter for me. After we bought our first official bag of the season, I may or may not have cried when my kids ate the last one without asking my permission. I realize the grocery store is a mere two minutes away, but sometimes even that takes too long.

7. San Pellegrino, preferably grapefruit, sipped slowly. I am not a big carbonated beverage fan. In fact, most of the time, nothing tastes better to me than a cold glass of water. But lately, I must confess, San Pellegrinos have been hitting just the right spot, although I'm never able to finish an entire can (which usually doesn't bother Mike, unless it's grapefruit--see the problem here?).

8. Ramen noodles, yes, the kind in the 20-cent packages, with almost certainly no nutritive value. Even as my tastes have slowly refined over time, I have not been able to curb my love of cheap ramen. And lately, it's been tasting even better than usual.

9. Cheddar cheese, softened to room temperature and thickly sliced. I also won't say no to colby monterey jack or swiss or gouda or basically any cheese. Cheese might be my love language. (I also love to sprinkle it over my ramen (see above) and watch it melt to yummy gooeyness.)

10. Haribo gummy bears, eaten at my own peril since I can't seem to stop after one (or ten). I must admit to an easy-to-please, slow-to-satisfy sweet tooth. But lately, my cravings for sweets have been greatly reduced (in fact, on Halloween, I maybe ate three pieces of candy spread out over the night and then wasn't even tempted by the overflowing buckets after my kids went to bed . . . and that's not normal for me). But gummy bears? For some reason, my sweet tooth won't let go of them.

If you've been reading this and thinking, This is the most random list of food I've ever seen. Is she pregnant or something?, let me put your mind at rest and assure you that actually . . . yes, yes I am. 17 weeks, in fact.