monthly dinners

my family (my sisters and my mother) and i have instituted a monthly dinner. i got the new tradition rolling this afternoon at my house. i made a pecan-encrusted chicken recipe that Sarah passed on to me (from Rachael Ray's Everyday Magazine), roasted butternut squash (w/craisins), and spinach with garlic & portabellas. It all went over very well. Dessert was a simple reduced-fat vanilla ice cream with biscotti & balsamic vinegar (or vanilla with raspberries in my mom's case). Crystal is pretty adventurous with food so she was willing to try the ice cream and vinegar, but exclaimed after her first taste "My ice cream tastes like collard greens!"

one note about errant pecans and the damage they can do. one went down the wrong way and while i did not choke, per se, i still have not fully recovered from the hellacious throat tickle it created. i "lost" my dinner. That made dessert even more guiltless. Not like I can feel too good--I had an indulgent lunch in Little Italy with Sarah after an early morning Target run.

Am delightfully sore from Saturday's sculpt class. Am less thrilled with the fact that I cannot seem to get my body past this one barrier on the scale. I'm going to try doing more lifting and shorter cardio bursts, just two or three times a week. Have been reading the 28 Laws of Attraction lately and one of the key principles is to not strive for things. It's been more and more organic for me to do less cardio lately, so I think I'm going to give into the flow of resistance training and see where that takes me.

It's also become more organic for me to skip the gym on Monday mornings. Not sure if tomorrow will be an exception or not.