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I'm not sure what my exact age was when I learned how to count, but due of a pair of attentive parents, coupled with the hit show Sesame Street, I could have been as young as 2. Counting is a skill we use every day, whether we realize it or not. Counting change, counting time, counting calories -- and for some of us, counting Weight Watchers Points.

It seems I have practically lost one of my oldest skillz seemingly overnight. You see, this weekend, I am headed to New Orleans Jazz Fest. Besides the jazz, it's pretty much going to be all about the food and drink. Our nightly meals were planned months in advance so we could make sure and have timely reservations at the hottest joints in town. And during the day, I will be scouring the fairgrounds for the most renown New Orleans specialty food stands. (A full recap will be presented next week.)

I think four days off the Weight Watchers wagon while at Jazz Fest is entirely appropriate. I think I will still take with me a few of the things I've learned on the program while indulging in untold amounts of fried oysters, gumbo, beignets and the like. Untold -- because I am not going to bother counting Points. I'll just deal with the consequences when I return. The real downfall has been the anticipation of this trip and a subsequent relinquishing of point-counting. As if in prep for living a WW-free life for 96 hours, the previous week's point counting has somehow fallen completely by the wayside.

Like the previous blog poster SUZ, I also have a couple of events in July I will be looking forward to and thinning up for upon my return from this self-indulgent weekend: fellow blogger Tristan and my's bachelorette party in Puerto Vallarta (swimsuits!) and Tristan's wedding a few weeks later (new dress!). In the meantime of re-committing myself to losing another 10 lbs in time for these events, I think I'd better watch some Sesame Street videos so I can re-learn how to count.