Emotional

After work today I got a hair cut (nothin’ fancy, just a trim), but since I didn’t get home until later than usual, I wanted dinner to be ready in a flash! 

Thank goodness for the grill. 

Ryan got to work grillin’ up some chicken breasts that we marinated in Asian sesame salad dressing while we were at work today. 

Asian Sesame Chicken

I tended to the veggies and roasted some Brussels sprouts after tossing them in olive oil and garlic salt. 

My Plate

Chicken 'n' Veggies

 Ryan cooked the chicken perfectly and the leaves of the Brussels sprouts were perfectly singed. 

Emotional 

When it comes to emotions, I feel like I am a pretty consistent person. On occasion though, I feel oddly emotional. I think it happens when something sets me off… a sappy song, a loving email… something like that. 

Well, my mom has her final surgery related to her breast cancer treatment scheduled for the end of the month and after watching Robert ‘s dance to Coldplay’s “Fix You” on So You Think You Can Dance last night, I couldn’t help but feel moved. (If you liked that dance you must watch Melissa and Ade’s breast cancer dance from a past season. Tear jerker!) 

Seeing Robert’s dance reminded me of a gorgeous rendition of Coldplay’s “Fix You” by the a cappella group Straight No Chaser that I heard a couple of months ago when Ryan and I saw them in concert. 

With the help of Grooveshark, I played the song on repeat for the last hour or so of my workday to help me get through some monotonous tasks (think Excel spreadsheet fun). (If you click the link to listen to the song, keep listening for a while. It really picks up and gets super intense! LOVE it.) 

As if I wasn’t in an emotional state as it was because of listening to this amazingly beautiful song over and over again, I received an email from Ryan that completely set me off. 

As part of our wedding ceremony, our pastor has asked each of us to write down the three things we love most about each other for him to read before we exchange our vows. Well, around 4:30 this afternoon, Ryan emailed me his three things. I was so moved. 

Ryan and I have joked back and forth about our three things for a couple months now and I half expected to see something like “I love Julie’s butt” as one of his three things. After reading his amazingly thoughtful list, I can assure you that my butt did not make the list… but three wonderfully romantic statements did, and I feel so lucky to be engaged to such a wonderful man. 

Me & My Hubby-to-Be

I apologize for being so mushy-gushy, but if you listen to that song on repeat for an hour, I assure you that you’ll be professing your love and emotions to anyone who will listen, too! 😉 

Question of the Evening

What song always makes you tear up?

Keep Calm and Win a Print

Today’s lunch was a no-brainer.

Leftover chicken taco meat  = Chicken taco salad

Chicken Taco Salad

Today’s taco salad included:

• Ground chicken with taco seasoning
• Crumbled hard shell tacos
• Kerry & Loni’s Bean-Tastico Salsa
• Shredded iceberg lettuce
• Cucumbers
• Grape tomatoes
• Cucumber

Thursday Lunch

On the side, I enjoyed a ramekin full of fresh cantaloupe.

"Will you marry me?" "Yes, but we cant-aloupe!"

Quite the colorful and tasty spread!

Amish Friendship Bread Update

I brought about ¾ of a loaf of Amish Friendship bread to work today (the recipe I made last night yields two loaves) and within an hour, this is what remained:

The Remains

The highly addictive nature of this bread has led me to believe one thing, which I tweeted about earlier today:

Tweet, Tweet

I seriously couldn’t stop eating this stuff. Thank goodness it’s G-O-N-E.

I’m pretty sure that consuming more than half of a loaf of this bread within a 15-hour timeframe is not on most soon-to-be brides’ list of “things to do.” 😉

Phenomenal Giveaway!!!

As I hinted about yesterday, I have one heck of an awesome giveaway for you guys today!!!

I fell in love with an adorable print I saw on Tina’s blog back in January that proclaimed “Keep Calm and Love Pugs.” I thought it was so cute and also served as a good reminder to keep calm in life and cherish the little things that bring you joy.

When I saw another “Keep Calm” print show up on Caitlin’s blog last week, I was reminded of the print and immediately headed to the artist’s store (The Lobster Pot) on Etsy.com to browse the prints and purchase one for our apartment.

I contacted Barb, the artist, to see whether or not she could make me specialized print in honor of my slight obsession with Sadie. I requested a “Keep Calm and Love Vizslas” print and was excited when Barb emailed me back saying she could easily make me one!

When Barb saw that I had a blog of my own, I got an email from her saying she’d love to offer a giveaway on the ol’ blog.

Now you guys have a chance to win a Keep Calm print of your choice!

To enter this giveaway, simply comment on this post telling me what you’d want your “Keep Calm” print to say.

I will randomly select a winner tomorrow afternoon.

Good luck! 😀

Banana Custard

When I first stumbled upon Gena’s blog post about banana soft serve, I was immediately intrigued. After creating the creamy concoction by simply whirring up frozen bananas in a food processor, I was overjoyed! The result was a creamy, cold and delicious bowl of soft serve that exploded with the sweet flavor of banana.

Though banana soft serve is delicious on its own, it doesn’t have much staying power in my belly and I am often left feeling hungry within an hour of eating it.

Last night when I received my new food processor in the mail, I knew I wanted to break it in this morning. I figured banana soft serve would be a great way to do this, but I wanted to add a little protein to the mix to give the creamy concoction more staying power.

Enter: Banana custard.

Banana Custard

To make the banana custard, I combined one cup of frozen Greek yogurt that I lightly thawed in the microwave with one chopped frozen banana, a bit of water (to get everything movin’) and one teaspoon of Bob’s Red Mill xanthan gum for thickness. (You may wish to add a bit of sweetener, depending on taste.)

After whirring away in the food processor for a couple of minutes, I had creamy bowl of high-protein banana custard.

Since chocolate makes everything better, I dusted the custard with cocoa powder before digging in.

Cocoa Dusted Banana Custard

Kinda Like Dessert for Breakfast... But Healthy!

Oh-So-Thick

Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but this stuff was pretty darn delicious. I could have easily eaten twice (err, five times?) the amount. 😉

I enjoyed my custard with a thick slice of Amish Friendship Bread.

Amish Friendship Bread

Breakfast

Those of you who have tried Amish Friendship Bread before and commented on my post last night weren’t kidding… it really is ridiculously addicting. I think I ate my body weight in this stuff last night!

Question of the Morning

Do you prefer soft serve or regular ice cream?