Yay for Friday tomorrow!

I made it to the pool tonight to swim some laps this evening.  I had anticipated doing the elliptical for 20 min., beforehand, but the gym was full.  Not cool.  So I ended up just swimming laps for 20 min. 

Here’s my workout:

• 4 laps warm up
• 2 laps fast, 2 laps slow (repeat 4x – with a 20 second rest in between)
• 2 laps breaststroke, 2 laps freestyle (repeat 4x)
• 30 second rest
• 1 lap kick, 1 lap freestyle (repeat 4x)
• 30 second rest
• 1 lap sprint 1 lap slow (repeat 4x)
• 1 lap arms only, 1 lap breast stroke (repeat 4x)
• 10 laps cool down – freestyle.

Then I came home and did some new Bosu push ups and sit ups.  Pictures to be posted later on my workouts page!

Dinner was Dee Licious tonight!  I stopped at the store on my way home from work and picked up the “catch of the day”, which was fresh East Coast shrimp.

Look at these suckers!  They’re enormous!  They originally had their heads on, but the kind gentleman behind the seafood counter offered to remove them for me.  PHEW.  Although deveining them was no pleasurable task.  It was just plain gross.

I marinated the shrimp for 1/2 hour in:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp fresh basil
• A few squirts of sriracha

As the shrimp were marinating, I prepared sweet potato fries.

Chris used the mandoline slicer to make them nice and even and then I coated them in evoo and sprinkled on some kosher salt.

For seasoning, I used the following.

I have no idea how I came up with the seasoning combo, but it worked!

For a veggies we cut up some yellow squash.

I sprayed the squash with canola oil, and added some all-purpose seasoning.

Okay, okay… and I added some kosher salt since the seasoning was salt free :)  Then I wrapped the foil up and threw it on the grill with the shrimp.

The final shrimp product was Ah. Maze. Ing.  I will use this same marinade for shrimp over, and over again.

Fresh shrimp is 10 times better than frozen shrimp.  I should get it more often.

It seemed like there were so many potatoes before I cooked them, but then they shrunk so my portion was quite small :( 

But they were tasty!  I finished these guys up before I even took a bite of shrimp or sqaush!

There also ended up not really being enough shrimp.  Nice guy at the counter who de-headed my shrimp told me it would be enough for two, but no, he was wrong.

I had four, and Chris had six.  I could have eaten about ten.

One thing that wasn’t lacking was the squash!

And at least I had room for dessert :)

My favorite sorbet was on sale today!

Ciao Bella makes heavenly sorbets.  I got one pint of blackberry cabernet, and one pint of raspberry.  There were a ton of other flavors which made it a difficult decision!

I choose to go with the blackberry cabernet.

Oh my.  Words can’t even describe how good this was.  You have to try some!

This is not going to last long.

Before I head to bed, I wanted to share this quote from Real Simple magazine with y’all. Some of you may know that the last page of Real Simple is a page of tear outs.  They have recipes, websites, tips, thoughts, etc. that you can tear out to always have on hand.  As I was looking through the page, I couldn’t help but tear out this.

“It isn’t the great big pleasures that count the most; it’s making a great deal out out the little ones” – Jean Webster

Ain’t that the truth?  I am definitely the kind of person that gets easily excited over small, silly things.  I have always been a firm believer that “it’s the little things that count”. For instance, when we went out to dinner on Tuesdsay night and learned that all bottles of wine were 1/2 off  I felt like it was my lucky night!

Here are some of my other little pleasures:

• I get really excited when I pull into the parking lot of our apt. complex and see Chris’s car.  Even though I see him every day, I get so happy knowing that he’ll be there to greet me as I walk through the door.
• I love when Nylah snuggles in between Chris and I every morning, even though she steals half of my pillow and snores.
• I always look foward to a Friday night in with a good meal and a good bottle of wine.
• I love coming home with fresh flowers!
• I get excited when something I need from the grocery store is buy one, get one free :)
• I love watching a beach sunset – every single time I am in awe of it.
• I secretly get excited for reality T.V marathons during the weekend – preferably “The Hills” :)

Oh boy, I could go on, and on, and on. 

What are some of your little pleasures?

 p.s – snack suggestions will resume tomorrow.  I’ll share the final 3 with you!