Leisurely Labor Day Weekend

Thankfully, the rest of my weekend was much better than Friday! I had a great time with my sister on Saturday. We didn't really do anything too exciting. We went to Barnes and Noble to pick up the book I had to special order- Tripping the Prom Queen- and we just hung out there for a while reading and drinking coffee- and I bought this month's issue of Shape magazine, because I heard through the blogging grapevine that Kath from one of my favorite blogs, Kath Eats Real Food, was featured in this month's issue! I haven't read it yet... I'm saving it for the gym... I think that's more appropriate, don't you? ;) But I did take a quick peek at her article page... can't wait to read it! Later that night we made Trader Joe's Lobster Ravioli, which was all right- I'd never had it before. It was okay, but not something I'd go out of my way to buy again. Anyway, we also rented a movie- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants- it was so cute!!! Of course, now I want to read all four books in the series, haha! (Okay, I have no idea why these sentences are in a different color, I keep trying to change it to my default color and it's not working... sometimes Windows Live Writer and Blogspot annoy the crap out of me!)

On Sunday my sister and I went to Target, then I took her home, spent some time reading on my patio, and after lunch went on a nice long walk because it was just so beautiful out! This was the perfect Labor Day weekend weather... warm and summery and not a cloud in the sky! I spent the evening watching AMC's second season marathon of Mad Men, which was awesome... now I'm all caught up with the show, thank goodness! Now I can finally be a regular viewer!

I didn't really do too much of anything today, yet today seemed to fly by anyway! I got up, had breakfast, hit the gym and did the epliptical machine while watching The Rachael Ray Show again... which made the workout just fly by! Then I went to the grocery store to pick up a few need-to-get-through-the-week items, came home, read outside some more, had lunch, and went to the pool. Something a little weird happened at the pool... I was sitting there reading, and I noticed this man kept looking at me, and he even said hi to me when he was in the pool kind of near my chair, and I just smiled politely and went back to my book. I was getting a bit of a weird vibe though. Anyway, while I was leaving the pool and walking back to my apartment, for some reason, I looked over my shoulder back at the pool, and the man had sat up in his chair (he'd been lying facedown when I left) and was watching me walk away. My gut instinct was to keep walking, to walk past my actual apartment building so he wouldn't see which building I lived in. So that's what I did. I walked around the complex until I couldn't be in the pool's view, and then I cut through the back to my actual apartment building. It just kind of creeped me out... you can't be too careful in this world, especially when you are a young, single woman, you know? I'm so glad I looked back and saw him looking... my gut instincts tend to be fairly on-the-money, and my gut told me, keep walking. I'd rather be safe than sorry, you know?

So I did quite a bit of reading this weekend, and Bitch is awesome! Seriously. Every woman should read this. It is very empowering! Even if the pop culture references are outdated a bit- and believe me, they are!- the key theme of the book still rings true ten years later- that women who are viewed as "independent" or "assertive" are chalked up to being "bitchy", that even though women have come a remarkably long way, it still doesn't seem to be enough. Here are some excerpts from the book that I've bookmarked and just wanted to share:

*"The notion of a woman simply reveling in her own gorgeousness and sensuality because she can, because she enjoys it, because she wants others to appreciate it, seems not to exist in our cultural lexicon."

*"In this world women have very little recourse, and the solace of knowing there will always be another man is not much relief when there have already been more than enough."

Not that this book is all complaining about how unfair women have it and the world is so cruel to us, and it's not a male-bashing book (rather, a society-bashing book, LOL), but it really interesting to read and learn about why it has been so hard for society to allow women to just be, you know? Be themselves, be who they are, not change or have to make excuses or apologize for who they are or what they want... men never do that... so why do we? Where and when was that ingrained and instilled in us? It just really makes you think, LOL. I'm enjoying it, obviously! :)

In foodie news, I tried to make a healthy version of Chicken Parmesan for dinner tonight because I have an abundance of tomato sauce I'm trying to use up, and it came out super-tasty!

It's nothing fancy... I didn't even take the time to use breadcrumbs for a coating, haha. I just grilled up a frozen chicken breast, threw down some no-salt-added tomato sauce (note: no-salt-added tomato sauce, while good for you because it's drastically lower in sodium compared to other pasta sauces, also lacks a bit o'flavor, so you have to add your own spices. I added crushed red pepper and some garlic), melted reduced-fat Provolone, and steamed broccoli. I also had a side salad, but I guess it was feeling camera-shy. :)

On another note, check out the summer containers that were on clearance at Target! Since I can't turn down stuff on clearance, I had to buy them:

Too cute to pass up! I bought another one in a different size that had stripes, not polka dots. As you can see, it does not take much to make me happy.

Hope you all had a great Labor Day Weekend! Back to the daily grind tomorrow- ugh!