a priest who lives in Rome but is visiting his brothers in San Mateo?  Apparently… you call him Stephen.  Yes, today I met the man that Stephen (my boyfriend Stephen) was named after.  It is the priest who married his parents 26 years ago, and also baptized Stephen when he was a baby.  That priest, as I mentioned, now lives in Rome and works closely with the Catholic church.  Coincidentally, he was in town visiting his brothers at the same time that Stephen’s parents are in town, so he invited us to a get-together at his brother’s house.  We showed up in the afternoon to their house – a cute, old house on a small street barely wide enough for two cars to drive past eachother when there were cars parked on the side of the road.  Very quaint, with the catered party in the back yard.  A well-manicured place with beautiful rose bushes and trees, complete with flowers and ivy growing up the side of the house.  It looked like a story book house.

My morning started off well.  Friday evening I slept alone at my house because Stephen stayed in SF with his family for dinner and didn’t get home until late.  We met at Barnes and Nobles this morning at 10:45 for our weekly ritual.  It wasn’t as nice waking up together and going together… wasn’t exactly our ritual, but it was still great.  And, this morning, we talked the whole time.  I didn’t even read any of my magazines.  What did we talk about?  We talked about moving in together.  Stephen’s lease is up at the end of September, and I think he is going to move into my house with me.  Is this a big step?  Yes, for me it’s huge.  Part of the problem is that I know it’s not nearly as big of a step for him.  But I have to decide to either accept that and be ok with it, or not accept it and tell him to get another apartment.  And that doesn’t really make sense when I look at our relationship and the big picture.  More on that in a bit.

For breakfast, along with my Starbucks coffee, I took some homemade protein cottage-cheese cheesecake:

I don’t think that I ever shared my recipe for this.  Here it is:

High-protein cottage cheese cheesecake:

2 cups cottage cheese (I use nonfat)

4 oz fat free cream cheese

1/4 cup eggbeaters

2 egg whites

splenda/sweetener to taste

1 tsp vanilla

1 scoop (approx 1 oz) protein powder

Blend all together in the blender until smooth.  Pour into a sprayed pan – I have used pie pans, 8×8″ square pans (if doubling the recipe), loaf pans, etc.  Bake for approximately 50 minutes at 325 degrees.  You can eat it hot or cold, I prefer cold…

I also had a Fiber One oats and peanut butter granola bar.

Then we met up with Stephen’s parents and headed up to the priest party.  The food there was catered and delicious – I had some steamed lemon asparagus, some strawberries and some sashimi tuna salad:

For dinner, I had a turkey salad and a bag of cheddar popchips.  I also had another piece of the cottage cheese cheesecake, and some cocoa almonds:

I didn’t go to the gym today – it’s the first time in a long time that I can remember not getting any exercise.  I suppose I walked and was on my feet a great deal, but it still makes me feel crappy.  Oh well, hopefully it will save up my energy for the 10-mile run tomorrow morning!  My stomach has been hurting all evening, so Stephen and I are finishing up the night with some chamomile tea (in my Steelers mug, of course!)