This week's a-flyin'!!!!

Not that I'm complaining about that!

I didn't post last night because I had one of those nights where time totally gets away from you... I left the gym later than usual, got home later than usual, ate dinner later than usual... everything was later than usual... including bedtime! I was definitely feeling a little extra-sleepy today.

I didn't have much news to report on anyway. Although something pretty exciting did happen to me at work yesterday... I received two peer recognition awards! I won them for my contributions toward a really big proposal project that was up against a pretty tight deadline. And two awards, at that! I don't mean to toot my own horn too much here, but I've only gotten one at a time before... never two at once! That definitely made my day and boosted my confidence a point or two! :-)

Ooh... another exciting tidbit from yesterday was that my roommate saw an ad on craigslist for some free stuff someone was trying to unload b/c he was moving, so she decided to check it out... and she came home with a plethora of plates! We never turn away free kitchen stuff, especially of the microwaveable kind! (I tend to buy the kitschy cutesy plates that aren't microwave-friendly). And what a small world- a lot of them match some plates she already has- they look like they're from the same set! What are the odds? :-D

This is my favorite of the bunch:

I can learn about my state's history while eating! How exciting! :-)

I used it for tonight's dinner:

Grilled chicken breast, sweet potato, steamed veggies. TJs All-Natural BBQ Sauce not pictured but was along for the ride. :-)

I have a microwaving question for the bloggies... how long do you microwave your sweet potatoes? I was microwaving them for two increments of three minutes each- three minutes, turn over, three minutes (covered in a paper towel), and thought that was too much, so I decreased the time a little to five minutes, and I've noticed that the past two sweet potatoes have come out kind of... wet, almost. They seem done, just a little... I don't know... soggy isn't quite the word to describe it, but kinda moist? I'm not sure if I just bought a couple of weird ones or maybe my nuking method needs a little fine-tuning.... I recommend any and all suggestions!!!

I tried a new Larabar yesterday- well, a new flavor to me, anyway- the Lemon Bar flavor. Eh. I didn't dislike it, I thought it was fine, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to get that flavor again. I went through a hardcore lemon square phase in college (my college cafeteria had the best damn lemon squares; I'd stock up and keep them in my dorm!), but I didn't think this bar tasted like a lemon square really- just some almonds and dates with a kick of lemon. Ah well. My faves are still the Apple Pie and the Coconut Cream Pie. But I still have many more to try!

So I'm about 130 pages into my book, Toxin. It's a fast read, and I'm kind of... skimming some of the icky medical stuff. Especially since I do most of my reading on my lunch break and sometimes at dinner if there's nothing good on TV (yes, I eat dinner like the quintessential single gal, LOL), and I don't need to read about the nitty-gritty details of the E.coli virus running through a little girl's body while I'm nibbling on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you know? It's not really an ideal meal topic. But it really doesn't go into all that much detail about it that often. But I'm just at the part where the poor little girl is in the hospital and taking a turn for the worse. I still don't know if she lives or dies. I hope she lives... she's just a little girl! But not every book has a charmed ending. If everything turned out perfectly and always worked out in every single story- whether a book or a TV show- we wouldn't have the element of drama, and we'd have some pretty unrealistic expectations about life in general= we'd expect everything to always work out for the best. Still, I'm rooting for her to pull through!

Speaking of unrealistic TV, I watched a show on VH1 yesterday while I was working out at the gym. I forget the name of it, but it was about six-year-old girls competing in beauty pageants. It was flat-out disturbing. Those little girls scared the hell out of me. The pageant workers and the pushy stage parents scared me even more.

I'm getting a biometric screening done at work tomorrow. My company is big on healthcare, does a lot of cool health seminars and fairs and things like that, and I love that, and participate in as many as I can. Plus there's a little incentive involved- you get entered in a raffle for the opportunity to have your medical insurance out-of-paycheck costs waived for the entire year. How cool is that? So I'm getting that done tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. The screening tests your sugar level, cholesterol level, etc. All the important stuff! We also have the opportunity to fill out health questionnaire, and just for completing the questionnaire, we get a $100 AMEX gift card. Free money! Needless to say, I filled it out the first day... I'm a huge fan of free stuff, especially in gift-card format!

All right, time to go watch some Biggest Loser and other educational programming (The Office), and dessert and bed. I'm thinking it might be time to bust out those Newman's Own Hermit cookies that I bought on Sunday. They feel unloved unopened, like they're not serving their purpose, and far be it from me to make a cookie feel bad. I'll do a product review in my next post, which should be tomorrow! I like posting on a regular basis, even if I don't really have anything of significant importance to say. :-)

Hope everyone had a tremendous Tuesday! :-)