My first-ever blog award!

My sweetheart friend Yasmin over at It's a Wrap gave me my first blog award today!!!

She gave me the FRIENDS award:

"FRIENDS... comes with the following description to be added & passed along: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.” It also says : "Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I felt really honored to be given this award. I know people give and get these awards on blogs all the time, but this is my first one ever. Even though I've had a blog for a few months and I've been able to meet a lot of sweet, nice, cool people as a result, sometimes I wish I were more involved and engaged in the blogging community. Now I feel one step closer to that. :-)

And I get to share this with eight awesome blogs. How on earth do I narrow it down??? I want to extend and share this award to eight blogs that constantly impress me with their creativity, honesty, and commitment to good emotional, physical, and spiritual health, along with the awesome great food finds and meals I've stolen picked up from them:

1. Yasmin from It's a Wrap

2. Chandra from Chandra's Shenanigans

3. Lindsay from For the Love of Oats (who is on her way to the Phillies Opening Day game as we speak... I am uber-jealous!!!)

4. Meghan from The Inner Workings of a College Graduate

5. Jenna from Eat, Live, Run

6. Jaime from Fearless, Fabulous, Full of Life

7. Rose from On a Lobster Placemat

8. Erin and Andrea from Care to Eat

But I seriously want to give this award to everyone on my blogroll, and then some, so if you weren't on the list, you can still have the award! :-)

So how has everyone's weekend been? Mine has been nice and relaxing... the exact OPPOSITE of what last weekend was, thank God! I got a lot of stuff done and errands accomplished, did some reading of Atonement (although I haven't gotten as far as I wanted to in it, unfortunately), watched my Netflix DVD, got in some great workouts, had a marathon phone sesh with my sister on Friday, chilled and bonded with my roommate, etc. All in all, a great weekend!

So yesterday I made my first foray into the protein powder world!

I picked up a canister of Trader Joe's Vanilla Whey Protein Powder yesterday while picking up some other treats and grub. I tried it out for the first time this morning in my oatmeal. I didn't use a lot- not even a full scoop- just in case I didn't like it, and that way I didn't ruin my breakfast. I had a feeling that I would like it fine- it smelled really yummy, like vanilla-flavored Carnation Instant Breakfast- but better safe than sorry. Anyway, it doesn't matter, because I really liked it!!!! Maybe it was just because I didn't use a lot of it, or maybe protein powder just blends into the taste of whatever it's mixed with, but I didn't notice a huge taste difference, but my oats definitely tasted sweeter and extra-yummy! I was a happy, satisfied gal. And maybe it's a bit premature to notice this, but I thought I had a lot more energy- I kicked some great booty at the gym this morning, and I think the protein/carb combination is really what did it. Normally I just eat carbs at breakfast and feel a little sluggish and sleepy afterwards, which makes sense. And hello, can we talk about filling power for a moment here? I ate breakfast around 9:30 and wasn't hungry for lunch for 2:30, and didn't sit down to eat until almost 3 and wasn't hungry even then, but figured that I should just go ahead and eat lunch before it turned into dinnertime! Haha. Anyway, I really liked it. I already have some all packed up and ready to go to work tomorrow. Maybe it'll help me kick ass at work and I'll get a promotion. Well, that might be asking too much of the protein powder. At the very least, it'll help keep me from falling asleep at my desk in the morning! :-)

So today is the Opening Day game of The Philadelphia Phillies!!!!! The pregame show is getting underway in about an hour, and the actual game will get going at 8. I am so excited. I've been wearing my Phillies jersey all day. I still can't believe they won the World Series last year!!! Earlier today, though, I did get a little sad thinking about Opening Day, because I started thinking about my dad. My dad was the one who got me into baseball. He would pitch wiffle balls to me when I was little, and encouraged me to play Little League (I loved to play, but I totally sucked, haha- coordination was never my thing), and he took me to my first Phillies game. And I thought about how he at least got to see the Phillies win the World Series last year, which I know he loved (Philly's waited a L-O-N-G time for that), but it made me wish I could call him and remind him about Opening Day so that he would remember to watch the game. I broke down in tears and just let it all out for a few minutes, and then I was able to calm down. I've learned that when this happens, I need to just ride it out. Don't fight it or suppress it. That only makes it worse, and there's nothing wrong with feeling an emotion. It's how you handle it that can make or break it. So I'm feeling a little better, albeit still a little sad. But I'm just going to keep working through it, because what else can you do?

On a lighter note, today's lunch was excellent... or should I say, eggcellent (wow... I'm a little embarrassed for myself right now):

I microwaved egg whites, frozen spinach, curry powder, and turmeric, and slapped it all together on my TJ's Sodium-Free Whole Wheat Bread slathered with Laughing Cow Light Garlic and Herb cheese. Along with some carrots and chipotle salsa on the side. Very, very tasty, and perfect for a nice light lunch on a beautiful day (65 degrees!)

I have an exciting dinner planned in honor of the Phillies. I tried a similar version last night, and it came out very well, but I want to make a few modifications to the dish for tonight in the hopes of making it even more kickass than it was last night. I'll post tonight with pics and a description. Hint: Obviously, it will involve a sweet potato. LOL.

Catch ya later!!!! :-)