It’s all about killing it with your nutrition and health-hacking and filling your brain with useful knowledge bombs. I still weave a little personality into there as well.
You’ll see posts and recipes like this:
Hopefully you will come follow me there since there’s just a bunch of crickets around here. I’m sure I will occasionally post here as well, but I’ve got a good thing going with this new blog so come check it out. I’ll be sharing a lot of valuable knowledge and recipes. For free. So why not?!
Lucky me! I got to try this really fancy-pants skincare brand for free because I qualified for a voxbox through influenster! I found it on sephora.com for $135.
I have been using it for about two weeks. And maybe it’s the lighting and maybe its magic, but things are looking a little less inflamed and smoother to me, no?
oh also I got my eyebrows microbladed between those photos so I have that going to for me as well! lol, a post for another time! I still have my touch-up appointment so I haven’t had a complete experience of that just yet.
I can’t speak to exactly if this is a super effect anti-aging regimen. I’m sure it is, but all my wrinkles are exclusively on my forehead and they aren’t going away and they’ve never NOT been there.
But what I *CAN* say is that I am loving the polish! I’ve always cleansed and moisturized, but I very rarely exfoliate. Mostly because I am lazy, but also because I had no idea that it could be so effective in creating smooth even skin! I thin my oiliness/dryness areas are more even and that my textured areas are more smooth. And my breakouts aren’t as broken out. So those are all major wins! I wish i could afford to keep buying these products, but $135 for skincare is quite steep for me.
Here I am with a little makeup:
Since I can’t afford to keep using this stuff, most likely what I’ll do is begin the quest to find another polish productto add to my routine. I’ve recently joined “the skincare connection” on facebook and learned quite a bit in the short time I’ve been a member.
St Ives Apricot Scrub is of the devil and will create micro-tears in your skin that can lead to a host of skin issues. As will any other abrasive scrubs including sugar and salt.
coconut oil is useless, skin does not actually absorb coconut oil. (I HAD NO IDEA!)
At-home derma rolling is super dangerous.
That’s it. For now!
And here is this silly bunny that was in our yard last night:
His name is George. He’s terrified but also curious. Curious George.
It seems like I have a knack for incurring unusual ailments.
I have two that I really want to get off my chest! The first one is my allergy to the glue of my eyelash extensions. When this happened to me, I searched all over the web and couldn’t find much information on it, so I really wanted to share my experience and hopefully help someone else if they also fall victim to this rare and unusual unfortunate ailment.
My lash technician uses a great brand called Bella Lash. The lashes are “natural” looking with a nice taper and silky texture, and according to people who have used other brands, Bella Lash is a favorite.
So I got these lashes for my wedding. I was doing my own makeup, so I really wanted to have good lashes to start with so that I didn’t have to work a giant miracle all on my own (I knew NOTHING about makeup before perusing youtube tutorials prior to my wedding day).
So here is what my lash exentions normally looked like:
They are super comfortable, i hardly noticed them until i went to wash my face and had to tread carefully around them.
After getting fills every 3 weeks or so for about 5 months, I started to notice some itching occurring about 24-48 hours after a fill. Strangely, it wasn’t immediate and I had little to no sensitivity at all during or immediately following eyelash application.
Finally, after one of my fills I woke up two days later with some pretty intense swelling. Especially on one side that needed more attention during my fill. I started to suspect an allergy. I didn’t realize that I could slowly develop an allergy, but it’s possible!
Bella Lash glue does not have anything crazy in it like formaldehyde or latex. I asked the company and they sent me this information about their glue:
The swelling lasted a full 24 hours and then some. It decreased a lot but about 3:00PM, but I was still super embarrassed because I had to go to work like this and explain the situation to my coworkers.
I sent these pictures to my lash lady and she said I definitely had developed an allergy to the glue. The weird part is that it only really flared up during that 30-something hour mark after getting a fill, but since the reaction was worse every time and benadryl didn’t seem to help, I made the decision to have them removed when I was due for another fill.
Getting them removed was much worse than getting a fill. The removal product burned a lot and a lot of pulling had to be done, but in the end I left with my tiny baby natural lashes.
I’m getting used to them, but at first I felt like my eyes were super bare and ugly. And I’ve noticed a lot of friends and coworkers have started getting eyelash extensions and I am extremely envious. I will miss them a lot. I’m currently shopping for an eyelash growth serum and thinking about getting a lash lift which is a lash perm that makes your lashes curl upwards and seem more prominent. I’ve heard a lot of great things about the lash lift.
Hope this was helpful for anyone who was looking to diagnose their reaction to eyelash extensions!
Now I will move on to tell how I broke my pinky toe.
We went to the Buffalo river to float. It was GORGEOUS. I love floating beautiful rivers like that one. I was stupid and wore flip-flops even though we got out and hiked up to hemmed-in-hollow. It was about a mile or so each way from the river to the falls, but we did it twice because Brad forgot his ROGUE hat! 😛
Hemmed In Hollow
My feet survived that just fine, but about 10 minutes or so after being back in the canoe we got snagged in some rapids and our canoe flipped!
I slammed into the rocks hard and the river ripped away my paddle, shoes, and all the contents of the boat started to float away. Instinctively, I grabbed my shirt because I knew that would be the hardest thing to ever find again. Then grabbed the waterlogged canoe and started dragging it along with our cooler towards the bank.
The water was quite cold, but I was so scraped up that I appreciated it to help numb the pain.
I have bruises and scrapes on my legs and it happened over two weeks ago. My toe was screaming in pain once I hobbled to shore. Luckily our friends downstream were able to get my shoes and my paddle.
The trip was extremely fun until that happened. It totally ruined the rest of the day for me, padding around with my toe searing in pain. We even flipped one more time for no reason. We were pulling up to a bank to stop for a minute and turned over. I have no idea why we tipped again, but I was very unhappy about it.
my broken pinky toe on the day that it happened (it turned all kinds of colors over the next few days)
I haven’t been able to wear any type of shoe (other than my uggs which are like giant house slipper and very roomy. I have had these uggs since 2004 (ew), so they are super roomy. I have tried to continue to try to do crossfit workouts as much as possible because I hate for this to set me back. But i’ve had to do everything carefully and barefooted, and it was about a week before I could really get a good “second pull” when it came to barbell movements. I have been putting my shoes on very very loosely to row. I rowed barefoot a few times the first week but it was pretty painful. The loose shoe hurts less. It all hurts. I’ve been trying to have a good attitude but it is quite frustrating. I can’t do box jumps, bar over burpees, running, double unders, muscle ups, or anything else with jumping (I have done super slow careful regular burpees, but that’s it) . I have done the assault bike barefooted a few times, but it’s quite unpleasant–those pedals are not comfy. I plan to try it with loose shoes or sandals in the near future and see if that works better for me.
If you’re going to break a toe, break the pinky toe. Fun facts:
buddy taping (taping to the toe next to it) is a possible treatment for a severe break. This was super painful for me when I tried it, so I am just going commando.
the pinky toe is the most common toe to break.
a broken toe is the 5th most common bone to break (behind clavicle, arm, wrist, and ankle)
a pinky toe fracture is the most ideal because it won’t limit your ability to walk (although I do have a limp… but i don’t need crutches or anything like that)
you don’t have to go to a doctor because there is not much they can do for a pinky toe break (i opted to not go. this is america and even with insurance our healthcare is outrageous.)
I’m hoping I can start working out in shoes again by this time next week, but we will see. It generally takes 4-6 weeks to be able to return to normal life after a broken toe. I really just came here to vent about it. It’s frustrating!!! I know there are much worse injuries out there, and I am super lucky that I can still go to the gym at all.
And on a light-hearted note, I feel super “primal” when I’m doing 200+lb back squats and 155lb snatches barefooted. So, so, so paleo. lol!
I’m writing this now that the open is over YAY ITS OVER!
10 rounds for time of:
9 thrusters, 95/65 lb.
35 double-unders
Unlike the other workouts, this one was super simple. It was definitely the type of workout that I would lose count in the middle of and be like “wait what round am I even on?” lol! So thankfully the judges with their scorecards were the best at keeping track of all of that. Which was good!
Friday night! 3-2-1 GO!
This one was interesting… I was afraid of pushing too hard because I didn’t want to redline myself into a place where I wouldn’t be able to breathe and keep a decent pace going. Ten rounds is a lot! 90 thrusters, yo. And 350 dubs.
10:14 was my time.
Better than I thought I was going to do! I hate couplets, but I much prefer double unders being paired with thrusters rather than rowing or burpees like in the past.
After round 7 on Friday, my back was really tight and not moving so well. So for my second attempt on Monday night I wore my weight belt:
Ended up being a great choice! I was able to breathe with it on, and my back felt much more… uh… sturdy? The thrusters felt so much better! And my time was 9:43 which is actually quite a bit faster. 30 seconds is a lot of time!
I don’t know what’s going on in this picture. But at least I’m HAPPY!
Now that I think about it, I was either stretching or saying hello to Beefy. 😛
I really want to learn to like crossfit again. It’s so hard not to get burned out with it. Especially after the open making me feel like a crappy athlete.
I still ended up being top 12 in Arkansas, though, which was a nice surprise. I didn’t think I could come back after being so sick during the first few weeks. Part of me wants to redo that first workout and see how much faster I can be. But then I’m like “75 box over burpees voluntarily? Nah.”
It’s so hard to be mentally strong during the open. I feel like I’ve had a big, ugly raincloud over my head for five weeks and it’s finally parted and the sun has come out! Except that the actual sun is nowhere to be seen… April showers.
So when it was announced this year, I felt pretty confident that I could smash it again. It was programmed on Tuesday and I did it then, but after that my neck and upper back were feeling really wonky and tight from all the hand stand pushups. So on Friday night I made my first attempt. I got the best split I’ve ever had: 7:39!
I felt super confident and I started cranking away at the HSPU.
Then I started to feel really bad and wasn’t sure what was going on. When the time ran out and the workout was over and the adrenaline was gone the reality of my score started to set in: I got the worst score I ever had at this workout. The best split. The worst score. I was devastated.
Then I realized how much pain my neck and upper back were in. I couldn’t turn my head and every movement I made with my neck brought sharp, searing pains. My devastation turned into intense worry.
I spent the whole weekend trying to massage everything out and get it all opened up. I put super itchy magneisum oil on, took a weird anti-inflammatory given to me by Bud (lol!), paif for a 30 minute massage, schedule an appointment with Dr. John for right before the workout Monday night, and pretty much tried to keep moving as much as possible without straining anything.
It was so bad that I couldn’t work out at all the whole weekend. I did some light yard work and that was it.
I cried a lot on Sunday out of frustration. I was upset with myself for getting a bad score, for being sick for most of the open, for having another excuse, and for caring so much about something so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I was aware that it was stupid, but I couldn’t seem to take the reigns and control myself about it.
This year every single week of the open has been worse than the last for me mentally.
So on Monday, my goal was to get back to the deads.
And i almost did. I ended up with the worst split I’ve ever gotten. 8:04. I just didn’t have the gumption to stick to my plan with the deadlifts and then the row just felt really weak.
I felt a lot more determined during the HSPU’s though. And wasn’t in much pain. But I got some no-reps and really struggled at the end. I was on 54 with a few seconds left.
I flipped up and failed. Came down. Flipped up. Failed again. 54. No deadlifts. I failed this workout and failed my goal. Again.
I’m so glad there’s only one week left. This is my worst open ever and I just want it to be over so I figure out something else to do that doesn’t make me feel like a horrible athlete.
*If all reps are completed, time cap extends by 4 minutes.
My immediate thought was “can I even make it past the first 8 minutes?! This is confusing as hell!”
Then my second thought was:
Bwahahaha. I love squat snatches, but I don’t prefer to mix them with chest-to-bar pull ups. So…. oh well. Yeah.
So I was able to do this one twice. My first attempt was Friday and I was sooooo nervous! I ended up going unbroken on the chest-to-bars and was completely gassed. It made it to where I had a pretty difficult time through the 95lb snatches.
Who knows which bar this even is.
Anywho. I made it into the 135’s and they were feeling terrible. I felt like my legs were to jellylike to stand the reps up. I even failed one.
I got cut off by time at the 16:00 mark in the middle of my last set of pullups for that round so my score was 100 reps.
When I redid it last night (Monday), I decided to take the advice of The Outlaw Way and try single chest-to-bar pull ups. “Disciplined singles” where you keep your feet in one place and breathe in between the reps. I make a HUGE conscious effort to breathe.
My first split was quite a bit slower, but my second split was actually faster through the 95’s so A+ to me for MUCH better pacing strategy!
A ton of athletes were going all at the same time because it was the last heat that could get it done and scores submitted before 7:00. So I ended up having to set my snatch up quite a ways from the rig. That was disappointing.
I was pretty happy when I realised I was getting more reps than my first attempt, but I was really nervous when I approached my last 4 snatches at 135 and only had less than a minute before I would get time capped at 12 minutes.
OMG YALL. My split time was 11:59!!!!
So once I bought those extra 4 minutes I decided to stand there and catch my breath for a while. And then I went and kinda slowly did my 9 pull ups. And then I put on my weight belt and drank water and got chalk and had a some tea and crumpets and went on a few walks.
LOL but seriously. Then I went to snatch 155. And I caught it. And sat there trying to balance it and my stupid right knee hit the ground. I thought of the standards video and how it said if any body part touches the ground, then the rep is a no-rep… so I sadly dropped it. And went and had another tea party.
Then I pulled it again…. AND GOT IT!
I look really confident, don’t I? And that knee sleeve technique is an interesting one. And I don’t even know if I actually made this lift, because I did another pull that looked like this too, and then I couldn’t stabilize it. I was TUCKERED. But I did give that 155 bar three whole-hearted attempts. I have some things I need to work on.
So I guess this week kinda lifted my spirits a bit more. I finally got rid of my fever (at least by the time I completed this attempt), so I finally got a fair shot at an open wod. Our team moved up to 27th place in the region, and since last year we moved up about 8 spots after they took of the individual scores and the disqualified athletes’ scores, we could potentially have a shot. You never know!
I’m glad I finally was able to contribute, though. And here’s to hoping I can do it again a couple more times.
And I’m SUPER hoping for a repeat of 16.4!!!
And then after this open I’m going to do something else besides crossfit for the next few months because I am burnt out.
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
2 rounds of:
50-ft. weighted walking lunge
16 toes-to-bars
8 power cleans
Then, 2 rounds of:
50-ft. weighted walking lunge
16 bar muscle-ups
8 power cleans
Etc., alternating between toes-to-bars and bar muscle-ups every 2 rounds.
I attempted on Friday night. I found it to be surprisingly cardio-tastic. I ripped my hands all to hell doing the bar muscle ups somewhere towards the end of my second round of them.
I don’t have any photos of this wod. Especially since I was only able to make one attempt. But this was taken the day after I attempted.
I got 128 reps, which means I finished the bar muscle ups and didn’t make it back to the dumbbells. Which is a little better than I did in last week’s WOD, but still nothing to be proud of. I am super sad. I invest too much emotionally into the open. I want to just give up. Or change my priorities and take “going to regionals on a team” off of my list of goals.
My hands healed up enough by Monday night that I considered making another attempt, but I ended up having a fever of 101.5. WHY DO I KEEP GETTING SICK?!?! Still have the fever today… I only have one sick day left so I’m toughing it out at work.
I felt SO good a few weeks before the open began. PR’ing my clean at 235lbs. Doing sets of 4 unbroken muscle ups. I felt so strong, but now I feel so weak. Not sure how to deal with this deflated feeling. I think even if a “big person” workout comes out in the open, now my head isn’t right so I won’t be able to do my best at it. Crossfit is supposed to be a fun hobby to help me stay fit, but this open is just making me feel bad.
It might be time to try a new fitness venture. Mountain biking? Rock climbing? Maybe start running again? Yoga? Before I started crossfit, I contemplated attempting a triathlon.
At least that’s how I saw it. These workouts are meant to be challenging and to weed out the weakest and put the fittest at the top. But this was gross. It was like 14.5/16.5 all over again in its own way. Pure cardio. Lacking in skill and in strength.
So on Sunday on the week that the first Open workout was being released, I went to bed feeling like I was coming down with something. My throat was sketchy feeling and my nose was starting to run. This wasn’t cool because I had just gotten over a sinus infection last month. I attempted to go to work the next morning, but I mentioned I wasn’t feeling the greatest. Since a few of my other coworkers were out with the flu, they kicked me outta there. I went to a walk-in clinic and got swabbed for flu [beware… this means they stick a mascara wand WAY up your nose and wiggle it around to collect stuff and then go to a lab and test it]!
I went to the pharmacy and picked up sudafed and nasal spray and went to bed. My fever shot up to 102. Then the next day it went up to 103. I was feeling awful and couldn’t get out of bed at all for three days.
On Thursday I started to feel a little more human. My fever had gone back to being low-grade and I was able to run a few errands but still not ready to work out. I went to the Crossfit Open announcement at the gym. I thought the workout sounded pretty doable.
On Friday I was actually feeling pretty close to normal and my fever was finally gone. So I went to work that day and then decided to attempt the open workout that night. Which was a mistake.
After about two sets of burpees I was starting to feel like I was being crushed. I couldn’t catch my breath and I couldn’t fight through the reps. I kept stopping and shaking my head. I felt extremely defeated and I could barely make myself move.
I literally had bed head still from suffering from the flu.
I focused on finishing the workout and somehow managed to eek out my last burpee at 17:49 on the clock.
Then I really started to panic. I felt searing pain through my whole body. My head was pounding, my lungs were caving in and filling up with fluid, my whole body was shaking. I couldn’t catch my breath. My stomach was extremely nauseous and I was trying not to puke. I honestly wondered if I was dying. The waistband of my pants was making me feel even worse. I was having to hold it out away from my body to keep from feeling worse.
This lasted for half an hour, I was there on the floor unable to do anything other than roll over a few times. I’ve never felt so horrible after any workout in my entire life. I think I even dosed off a couple of times because I felt so insanely exhausted and sick.
I knew I had to redo it before submission closed, but could I get better and have it completed by 7pm on Monday?
I spent the whole weekend trying not to think about it. On Monday I literally felt like I had a weight on my chest crushing down as I drove to the gym, still coughing up tons of incessant phlegm that began after my first attempt on Friday. I could barely eat that day. It was horrible.
I got to the gym a little late, but had time to make my attempt. I wanted to quit so bad. I was so afraid the whole time about how I would feel once it was over. Would my lungs finish collapsing in? Am I well enough to be doing this again? Would I drown in my own phlegm? Would someone have to carry me out? Am I going to destroy my back?
The tightness of my back was kicking in pretty hard, but honestly it was one of the least of my concerns. I strapped on my weight belt for the 40’s and 50’s and even left it on for the final 15 burpee box overs because I couldn’t get the damn thing off.
I completed my final rep, ripped off my weight belt, and crawled onto the floor. I assessed myself and realized I could still breathe. That my head wasn’t screaming and I wasn’t anywhere close to puking. I went to my scorecard to see: 16:32. SO much better!!!! Still not good, but a pretty big improvement considering.
The leaderboard is still going all over the place, so who knows where our team is going to fall. It’s unlikely that we will have a shot at regionals based on the results of this week that are showing up so far, but you never know. If the give us something heavy, things could be a lot different. Or a skill.
OMG. I don’t know where to start. Getting married is the best thing I’ve ever done! The day itself was the absolute best, but also I feel like extremely in love and loved and happy from now on! Getting married is basically promising to be my boyfriend forever and ever even if I act like a moron/jerk/weirdo. But he already knew that going into it. Joke’s on him 🙂
Let’s rewind. First I had a bachelorette party where I got lots of underwear, food, and played a really fun game where I had to guess Brad’s answers to awesome questions like “When did you know she was ‘the one’?” And “What are you favorite qualities.” etc. Oh, and giant Jenga later on that night.
I feel like I’m fast forwarding through everything, but it was over two months ago so everything is still a bit of a blur. Let’s see… the rehearsal dinner was fun! I didn’t get any photos, but oh well. It was a stressful day actually to be honest. There was a lot of work being done trying to prepare our venue for the big day. And I had booked a lot of things like eyelash extensions, nails, and whatnot.
The day of the wedding was amazing! I had to climb a ladder in my dress in order to sneak into the venue without being seen. I was so excited! Completely unable to experience any emotion other than just being completely elated.
For our first dance, Brad surprised me with live music from his coworker Stephen and my bridesmaid Taylor and her husband Jordan. LIVE MUSIC! I cried about it later, but at the time I was like “:D” and that’s all I could really do.
Here’s our cake because that’s super important.
The night went by SO FAST. Everyone who knows me should know that I am a lover of food. But on that night I had no time to eat! I literally had one but of wedding cake and one dessert off the groom’s table and that was that. At least we got to eat tacos from our taco truck between the ceremony and reception.
I booked a wonderful Air B & B for our wedding night.
The next morning we were off to Austin, TX to eat lots of food and do honeymoon things.
We stated on South Congress and an amazing hotel called Hotel San Jose. It was right next to this fantastic coffee shop. It may have been late October, but in Austin it was friggin HOT!
So everyone there drinks iced coffee. Which was awesome.
Here are some pics from our trip:
This is Franklin’s BBQ. We waited three hours on a Wednesday morning to get it 😛
(This one was my most liked food photo of all time. It’s from a food truck in Waco called Pokey O’s. We stopped there on our way home to visit a friend at do a little workout at his box.)
I wanna talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas too! But maybe I should save those for another post. lol *sigh*
I’ll list all of the places we went in Austin. Chronological order! We’ll see how well I can do:
home slice pizza
hotel san jose
jo’s coffee
milk + honey spa
lululemon
24 Diner (chicken and waffles)
Whole Foods
Walking all over 2nd street
Google Fiber (jsut to see what it was!)
Hey Cupcake!
Walking around South Congress – Uncommon Objects and TOM’s shoes. Bought my first pair!
Polvos (yum yum mexican food with strong margaritas!)
Day 2
Free breakfast at Hotel San Jose
Cossfit Central – We did some sort of horrible qualifier WOD for something. 2 rounds of rowing, KB swings, and burpees.
More wandering around South Congress. I bought a dress at Maya Star bc it was SO HOT!
Cheese board at Hotel San Jose & Book Signing for Marfa Modern
Fixe Austin (OMG! A must-do!)
Day 3
Franklin BBQ (3 hour wait, but it was really awesome!)
Graffiti Park
UT Austin Campus (to attempt to walk-off some of the meat sweats)
Ice Scrapers
San Jose Hotel Pool
Poke Poke (we walked there but it was a sketchy trek)
Apanas Coffee & Beer (a tasty flight of beer and a super awkward stand-up comedian)
Day 4
Torchy’s Tacos (melted my face. See photo above)
Crossfit Jakarrru in Waco
Pokey O’s in Waco
Dallas to the Lamplighter school to check out Brad’s work project 🙂
And then that’s pretty much the end of the honeymoon. We missed out on doughnuts, legit comedians, the continental club (we tried but it was sold out!), more BBQ places, and many other things. So obviously we will have to go back for an anniversary or something!
I just don’t really prioritize blogging anymore. Oh well.
If I ever did a 10,000 calorie challenge, I would do it in Austin.
SO SO SO much has happened since I posted last, but I’m going to give a quick update!
We are less than a week away!!!! I can’t even believe it! I’m so excited!! I found my human and we’re going to throw a huge party and eat cake and be as gushy as possible ❤
Look how cute my coworkers are:
And then they also gave me registry items! How insanely adorable and thoughtful is that?!
I rounded up some fun tidbits from my camera roll to express my excitement and give anyone reading this an idea of how exceptionally magical this weekend is going to be.
Here’s our cake topper:
This is my groom! How impossibly cute is he??? (I mean this photo is a bit old, but he is just as handsome!)
Me on the right with my sissy in our bunny ears. I imagine this was how we celebrated easter.
Groom shoes!
This is trickdilly tacos: our guests will be feeding their faces with the insanely delightful brisket tacos. And a few other options as well but the brisket ones…. dude…
Bridesmaid shoe on top of a bridesmaid scarf 🙂 They will probably be able to do without the scarves but I can just call it a really cozy part of their bridesmaids gift for being the best ladies I know in the whole universe.
And then here’ s a photo of my computer screen when I was working on the header for our photobooth. Ha!
I don’t have any idea how brides keep it together. I think I will be a total spazz (with tears of joy) probably this entire week.
Fabulous in Fayetteville 