Today's gonna be a good day

Ya know why? Becuase this morning I woke up to James laying next to me, giving me a nice little back massage. Ah-mazing and put me in the best mood :) Thank you sweetums for starting my day on a wonderful note before it even started!

Busiest week in a long time!

I'm exhausted! The past seven days have crazy. I felt like this a lot of the time:

(from here)

Sunday - The time change actually affected my sleep. Does that mean I'm getting old?!

Monday - Worked 11 hours without a lunch. Crazy work day. Did not enjoy!

Tuesday - Again, 11 hours and no lunch. Worst day at work in a long time. Maybe ever. So much work to do and be responsible for, but at least we met our 7 p.m. deadline.

Wednesday - Shorter day, only 9.5 hours! I was too tired to go out for St. Patrick's Day after :(

Thursday - Got to leave early for the whole office to attend the CAPPIES - the annual awards dinner for the Sacramento Public Relations Association. We won five awards for our work on behalf of a client!

Friday - James and I went out to Ninja Sushi with some friends after work. 99 cent sake bombs? Yes please!

Saturday - Went out do dinner at Formoli's with some more friends. How social of us!

Today I went shopping and worked on a wedding project, which I'll blog about soon.

As you can see, this week was way busy for fun and not fun reasons. A three day weekend would be GREAT right about now! Unfortunately, that's not happening. Coming up in the next few weekends we're going to Santa Cruz to meet with musicians to play at our wedding. We're also heading to my parents' NEW house to help decorate!

Fill in the blank Friday on Saturday

I always read through my blogroll on Saturday morning and wish that I had participated in fill in the blank Friday the day before. Kaitlin (who I went to college with) posts is via Lauren, and it seems fun so I'm going to do it too, even though it's not Friday!

1. Today I am wearing PJs still! I'll put on shorts and a T shirt shortly.

2. My favorite childhood food was pizza from Marco's and my favorite food now is my homemade lasagna.

3. A day that I am too busy to eat breakfast at home, and eat lunch at all is a day that I am too busy.

4. The last movie I saw was Bravehart on TV and the next movie I want to see is The Hangover - I still haven't seen it!

5. My favorite smell is cookies fresh from the oven because it's cozy and sweet!

6. A weird little quirk I have is I count stairs as I go up or down them. I actually count a lot of things, but mostly stairs.

7. When I take personality quizzes they always say that they can't categorize me because I'm too random. I like that about me, and it's totally true.

Friday date night at Formoli's

Last night James and I went to a restaurant called Formoli's, which happens to be owned by one of his good friends from high school!

We drove by it months ago and I said "Hey, isn't Formoli the last name of your friend from high school?" He said yes, but then we forgot about it for a while.

Then a few weeks ago I drove by again and made a point to check out their web site. Turns out, the owner and chef is the brother of his best high school friend, who he was also good friends with! So we had to go check it out.

Aimal recognized James right when we walked in, even though they hadn't seen each other in about 8 years.

The restaurant was very cute and the service was great. I had the house pasta and he had the whiskey burger, which had the most delicious ciabatta bun. We also had the crab crostini appetizer, which I liked even though I don't like seafood.

We'll definitely visit again soon.

Healthy chicken parmesan

A while ago my mom emailed me to say that she was wanting to make my chicken parmesan and looked on my blog to find it. Unfortunately, it wasn't there yet. It should have been though, since this is super good. It's only 310 calories and 8 grams of fat per serving.

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups bread crumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup flour
1-1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
3 large egg whites (I just use one whole egg)
1 tablespoon water
cooking spray
3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half to make cutlets
2 cups tomato sauce
1 tablespoon fresh basil

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 475.

2. Combine bread crumbs and oil in skillet and toast over medium heat until darkened. Put in dish. Once cool, add in the parmesan.

3. In another dish, combine flour, garlic powder, 1 Tbsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper.

4. In a third dish, whisk the eggs and water together.

5. Line a baking sheet with foil.

6. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel.

7. Dip the chicken in flour, then eggs, then bread crumbs. Lay flat on baking sheet.

8. Bake for about 15 minutes. Check that the inside isn't pink.

9. Put 2 Tbsp sauce on each cutlet and 2 Tbsp cheese over it. Put them back in the oven until the cheese melts (about 5 minutes).

10. Sprinkle with basil and serve.

310 calories and 8 grams of fat per serving. Makes 6 servings.

Photo Friday: 1995

My sister posted this picture on Facebook a while ago. She said it was in 1995, when I was 9 and she was 15. I don't remember it, but I can tell that she did my hair!

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for...

• Finding three different guitarists for our wedding who are under budget.
• A close friend [since first grade!] moving to the area.
• James cleaning the kitchen and vacuuming.
• Finding a breathable garment bag for my wedding dress on Ebay for only $12 - now I don't have to worry about it getting smelly and discolored over the next 6.5 months. Speaking of which...
• Getting married in 6.5 months!
• Kickboxing class at the gym - the only exercise I'm able to stick with long-term. I've been going for over 3 years.
• Work finally slowing down to a manageable amount. I was working way too much and way too late in the evening for a while there.
• Discovering shoe repair. Repairing my heels for $12 is so much nicer than buying new ones for $50!

What are you thankful for?

Chardonnay's Favorite Things: Diet food edition

Welcome to the second edition of Chardonnay's Favorite Things! My first edition was back in July, and I haven't been able to think of enough faves to write about since then. But now that I've started Weight Watchers (still at about 10 lbs. lost, by the way) I thought I'd share some of my favorite healthy foods.

Hummus

Hard boiled eggs

Fresh Express complete salad kits

Lemon water

Skinny Cow ice cream

Soup