Jogging My Memory

Did anyone else’s week fly by? I can’t believe it is Thursday already! And because I have no classes on Fridays, today is the last day for me before the weekend.

My week felt busy, but compared to some other weeks it really wasn’t. It also wasn’t the most productive week. I really got distracted by a number of things:

1. Tyler and I got our wedding pictures back!!!

They look AMAZING – here’s one as a teaser!

<3<3<3

2. Tyler and I also got new phones – you may have seen my tweets about it. We wanted to be on the same plan to save money and Tyler is very tech-savvy so we needed a provider that had the latest technology as well cheaper plans. We ended up going with the HTC EVO from Sprint. This is my first smart phone – EVER, yea I’m a little behind the times. The thing I’m enjoying the most is being able to check my e-mail from anywhere! (forgive my dirty fingerprints all over the screen!)

As a result of these exciting new things in my life, there were some late nights spent playing with phones and looking at pictures, and virtually no workouts – YIKES! I’m hoping to remedy that this weekend and next week.

I’m still adjusting to eating and my class and work schedule. Convenience and portability was very important this week.

Take for example, the 3 Cranberry, Mango, and Blueberry Bran muffins from Trader Joe’s I consumed throughout the week.

Pull them out of the fridge, cut them in half (or into quarters or pull the top off), spread on some butter, and you have a delicious and filling meal.  The bran really gives it staying power  and they have some fruit in them.

There has also been quite a bit of cereal. Three Sister’s Cereals were on sale at Whole Foods and I had to take advantage because I love their HFCS and trans-fat free take on kid’s cereals.

I LOVE their Marshmallow Oaties and Graham Crackerz! (I also love their Cinnamon Sweets but we bought the Graham Crackerz by accident and I happen to love them as well!)

And there was leftover pizza, because really what student doesn’t eat leftover pizza once in awhile.

But the star of the week was definitely this Shrimp, Mango, and Avocado Salad with Sweet Chili-Ginger Vinaigrette from Bon Appétit.

Tyler found this recipe on Epicurious the other day when we were looking for meal ideas for the week. When he read it, I was immediately impressed with the short list of ingredients as well as how clean and simple most of the ingredients were. The recipe calls for sweet chili sauce, unseasoned rice vinegar (I accidentally used seasoned rice vinegar because it is what I had in the cabinet), minced peeled fresh ginger, cooked shrimp, butter lettuce (we used romaine), mango, and avocado.

The recipe was fairly simple to make, although it definitely required more than the 15 minutes the recipe says it takes – come on it takes me 15 minutes at least just to prepare the mango and avocado (they are both halved, pitted, peeled and cut into slices in the recipe). It also makes 4 servings, so we made some minor modifications – we used medium shrimp with the tails off  instead of large shrimp with the tails on and we used more than the recipe called for for just 2 salads, and we used half an avocado, and half a mango. Note – I do have extra dressing which we’ll probably use up tonight. I should have just halved the ingredients all together, which would have been very easy to do.

Tyler and I both really liked this salad. The dressing definitely has a little kick to it from the sweet chili sauce, but the avocado cools the heat some. The combination of sweet and spicy from the mango and the sweet chili ginger vinaigrette was spot-on! We’ll definitely be holding on to this recipe for future use.

Alright enough about wedding pictures and salads. You all want to know who the winner is of the Sam’s Club Gift Card.

Using the husband random integer generator (I had him pick a number) – the winner is Comment # 7!

Congrats to Amanda from Bakingwithoutabox!

Don’t worry I won’t hold you to buying detergent and cheerios ; )

Please e-mail me your contact information and we’ll get that Sam’s Club gift card shipped to you ASAP!

Well I’m off to class! Enjoy the rest of your Thursday!

*Disclosure: the gift card and giveaway have all been provided by Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.