What's Up?

Ye ol' blog... how you have been forgotten.  It's been a while so let's do a little check in!

Baby

Vienna is 13 months old and she is officially walking!  And by walking I mean running, we are in trouble!  A week ago she could only take a few steps before falling, but now she's walking the length of our living room.  She's also doing tons of babbling, always telling us stories that we can't understand.  She has mastered a few words (mom, dad, dog) but often repeats things back to us that sound totally legit.  I don't think she's going to be a quiet child... weird ;)  After months of trying 5 different cups, she's finally figured out a sippy cup!  She's working on a bunch of new teeth after not getting any since Memorial Day.  I think she currently has 8 and she's working on 9-11.  She loves climbing in and (and sometimes falling) out of her Pottery Barn chair, reading books, petting the dog, playing patty cake, eating bacon, and being chased up the stairs.

Food

I'm a few days into a Whole20... with some planned cheats.  What I'm doing probably isn't in the spirit of Whole30 (do the program as written, 30 days, no cheats, etc.) but I know it works for me and I needed some kind of structure before the holidays!  I want to remember how tasty all the healthy recipes can be, look a little better in my clothes, and go into the busiest time of the year feeling my best.  We do have a few things planned that are food focused like the Bacon Fest we attended yesterday (worth it!), a birthday dinner out for my MIL, and a Friends Thanksgiving, that I've decided I'm just going to enjoy and not stress about.  But otherwise I'm planning to keep things clean until Thanksgiving... and hopefully maintain a healthier mindset throughout the rest of the year.

A few things on our menu: 

• Spaghetti Squash Chow Mein
• Garlic Lime Shrimp with Cauliflower Puree
• Crockpot Ancho Pork Loaded Sweet Potato Fries
• Broiled Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus Spears
• Leftover Roast Chicken Soup with Roasted Vegetables 

Gym
I've been making it to CrossFit 1-2 times per week.  I tried to set a Tuesday Friday schedule, which has helped, but I've still been kind of sporadic and I think I may need to switch my Tuesdays for Wednesdays.  I also probably need to start going at 6 am instead of 7... woof!  Sometimes I feel really strong, like when I hit a 15# PR on my overhead squat at 135# and still probably could've done a few pounds more!  Or when I hit a PR on my squat clean at 145#!  And then other times I feel completely out of shape, like during every single workout that includes running, which seems to be pretty often in our recent programming.  I'm really just trying to remember that this is just a season of life, my commitment and level of fitness will ebb and flow with life events.  And any time I make it to the gym is still better than nothing!  I also tend to forget that CrossFit is so tough.  Sometimes I wish I could bring in some average fit people and watch them get humbled.  Maybe I am an evil person... misery loves company lol.

But seriously, how is it November already?

Hey Hey! What's Happening?

Well it's been a month and a half since I posted in ye old blog, so I thought I'd pop in and give you guys an update!

Fun:
At the end of September we spent 11 days in Italy checking out Florence, Orvieto, Rome, Positano, and Naples.  It was amazing!  I planned it all myself and everything seemed to work out wonderfully.  We stuffed our faces, walked 98 miles (I just added this up and holy shit!), and drank so much wine that I legitimately got sick of it.  We saw the David, climbed 463 steps to the top of the duomo, drank wine in an Italian villa with the owner of the winery, went on VIP tours of the Vatican and the Colosseum, enjoyed the unbelievable views of Positano, and ate 3 pizzas in one day in Naples.  It was fabulous.  I took over 2500 photos and frankly I've been avoiding them because they are so overwhelming!

Fitness:
I started PT at the end of August and was cleared to come back to CrossFit a few weeks later in mid September.  As directed, I took it pretty easy coming back, but I also found it hard to get motivated, especially right before vacation.  Then we went to Italy and after I got back, I was discharged from PT with no remaining pain!  My first workout after vacation was Fran and it was nasty.  Now I'm working on getting back into the groove.  I thought I lost a lot of my strength, but I'm finding that most of my lifts are coming back really quickly.  My endurance is another story.  I've definitely been feeling super winded lately (and I've even had a few dry heave finishes...) but I know the only way to help myself is to consistently workout.

Food:
My diet sucks.  The scale has slowly but surely been going up since the end of August and going to Italy obviously didn't help.  I did a Whole10 at the end of October, which debloated my tummy and really got me excited, until the next week where I gained back all 7 lbs that I lost.  Halloween, friendsgivings, and football... oh my!  My clothes don't fit very well and I find myself avoiding some of my favorite outfits because they are so unflattering.  Big time WOMP.  Coincidentally my gym is starting a 4 week challenge tomorrow!  You earn points based on eating whole foods, hitting the gym, and getting lots of sleep.  It's not as rigid as a Whole30 and there's even a 2 hour cheat window each week (yay Thanksgiving).  I think it's just what I need right now. 

Feeling:
It's seriously weird not running off to cheer practice 3 days a week.  On one hand, I love having time to cook dinner, walk the dog, and go to the gym in the evening if I blow off my 5:15 am alarm.  But on the other hand, there's this void that leaves me feeling really low when I think of all that I'm missing:  the coaches, the kids, the excitement, the hard work, the challenge, the victory.  After 15 years... my fall just feels kind of incomplete without it.

Throwback from 2000, my first year of coaching!

Family:
We adopted a new pup yesterday!  Her name is Carmela and she's a 8 month old pit boxer mix.  We weren't really planning on adding to our family until after the holidays, but when I saw this little face on the Pitties.Love.Peace facebook page, I knew we had to meet her!  The adoption was riding on how Butler felt about her, but their first meeting was great and they're romping around the living room as I type.  I'm so happy she's a part of our family now!

I hope to get back to blogging on a more regular schedule, so see ya soon :)

What's new and exciting in your world?

Let's Get the Ball Rolling

Hello there!  It has been way too long.  The busy in Busy Bold Blessed is no joke and the blog definitely takes a backseat when life gets crazy.  It's funny though, I've thought about posting a few different times, but I always end up not sure where to start.  So much has happened since I last posted, so I feel like should write an extremely long catch up or post a ton of pictures but ain't nobody got time for that... so then I end up skipping it all together.

So here we are, I'm trying to get the ball rolling with a little something of a post.  So what's new?

In the beginning of December, I went to Disney World with my cheer squad for Pop Warner Nationals.  Our trip had a rocky start when our flight was canceled by a snowstorm and everyone scrambled to find a place to stay for the night.  We just barely got out the next day, our flight was delayed and apparently the airport closed just a few hours after we left for ice and wind conditions.  By the time we arrived at our hotel it was close to 9 pm, we got dinner around 10, and then stayed up till midnight putting the everyone's hair in rollers (for competition curls, obviously :D).  We missed our scheduled practice time, so we ended up practicing at 7 am the morning of the competition.  After practice, the girls all took naps and rested while I soaked up some rays at the pool.  We competed around 2:30 that afternoon and the girls looked amazing!  I have coached the Souderton Braves since I was in 9th grade and finally, in my 14th season, we earned the title National Champions!  Not only did we win our division, but we also won trophies for high score of the day and best choreography!  Talk about icing on the cake!  We beat out squads with much more difficult routines and hired choreographers for those categories.  It still seems surreal!

Everyone was taking pictures of their kids with the trophies, sooooo this happened lol.

The rest of the trip was just as glorious.  It was in the 70s and 80s without a drop of rain the entire time we were there.  Apparently Disney is empty in the beginning of December (since most people take their kids over Thanksgiving or Christmas), so we barely waited in line for anything.  It was a wonderful week with some wonderful people.  Confession: we're already dreaming of next year!

 

 

Wedding planning is full steam ahead, as it should be since the big day is only 107 days away!  We had our tasting at the DoubleTree just before Christmas and we felt like royalty.  The service was over the top, the food was delicious, and we're even more excited about the venue.  Our flowers are going to be done by Jenny Greenwald, a woman who's friends call her "Knockoff Jenny" because she does expensive things for cheap :)  We finally registered (and by we, I mean mostly me with the help of my bridesmaid Leah since Dave thought Bed Bath & Beyond was slow torture).  We started our premarital counseling with our pastor.  We just picked out our wedding bands at the fabulous David S. Diamonds on 5th Avenue during an awesome long weekend in New York City.  My first dress fitting is this Saturday and the guys are going to pick out their tuxes on Sunday.  Oh and our luxury treehouse overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Nicaragua has been booked!  Next up: ordering invitations, booking either a party bus or a trolley, and cake tasting!

Our treehouse with a private plunge pool at Aqua Wellness Resort.

I'm still loving (and simultaneously hating) CrossFit.  Two or three months ago, we did a workout with a lot of pull ups in it and I was struggling hard with two resistance bands.  I realized how much of a weakness pull ups were for me, despite being such a typical move in CrossFit.  Since then I've been spending extra time working on them and I got my first unassisted kipping pull up!  And then I did three in a row!  (And then I ripped my calluses open... good times.)  I love seeing progress in the gym.  I also hit a 15 lbs deadlift PR yesterday morning at 190 lbs!

What else?  Well I'm taking an 8 hour exam in April to hopefully obtain my professional engineering license to further my career.  I joined our church's choir.  Cheer has been on hiatus since Nationals, but we just started our once a week off season practices on Tuesday.  I'm also starting a Whole30 on Monday!  I guess it's not technically a Whole30 because I have some cheats planned, but I want to start getting serious for the wedding and I know the plan works for me.  I won't be blogging much about it (if at all) and I won't feel guilty when I'm enjoying my planned cheats.

So that's that!  Things are busy, but they are great.  I continue to feel so lucky that I've been blessed with such a full life.  Don't forget to like my facebook page if you want to hear from me more frequently!

What's new in your neck of the woods?

October Update

Hello there!  As always, when life gets busy, the blog goes on hiatus.  So what's been going on?!

I judged my first cheerleading competition!  I have been coaching since 2000 and it's definitely been a dream of mine to judge competitions, so when I was asked if I wanted to judge alongside the woman I coached with all throughout high school (and pretty much considered my second mom), it was a no brainer!  Judging was a little overwhelming at first, but once I got in my groove it was great.  I definitely want to do more judging in the future.  In the meantime, coaching has been chugging along.  My girls won their first competition and now we're prepping for Regionals (and looking to get a bid to Nationals in Disney in December)!

We're in week 5 of the Lurong Living Paleo Challenge!  Honestly, this has probably been my least successful Paleo eating challenge, but oddly enough, I think I'm ok with it.  Basically we've been cheating every weekend.  There was a beer festival, a wedding, fancy dinners out... things too good to miss.  So we've been eating strict Paleo during the week and then not sweating it during the weekend.  I'm sure my results will reflect my lack of total commitment, but I'm going for a lifestyle change, and I think this is sort of how I want to eat on a normal basis!  I've also been MIA from the gym for two weeks.  I did a bunch of shoulder work at the gym, felt great, then I did some gymnastics at a cheerleading practice, felt great, and then I woke up with a shoulder injury.  I believe it was just an overuse thing because two weeks of rest and some hot tub and heating pad sessions have made it feel so much better!  I still could've been hitting the gym during this time, working my legs, etc... but I also got poison ivy on my face while working in the field.  I went to the doc, got some steroid pills, and a week an half later, my face looks almost completely better, but this combined with my shoulder was enough to grant myself a break!  Looking forward, I'm getting my tush to the gym at least twice this week, hopefully three times!  I've got to get back on track!

The wedding is 209 days away!  Wedding planning has also taken a bit of a backseat lately, but things are still coming along.  The bridesmaids' dresses have been selected, the DJ is just about signed, and we are working on finalizing the guest list.  Apparently we have too many friends!  It is so difficult to narrow down the list and I'm dreading offending some people.  We'll see... but in the meantime please let me gush about our amazing photographers!  We first heard about Fuller Photography when our friends Christine and Josh used them for their wedding in June and soon after I knew we had to book them.  We had our engagement photos a few weeks ago and they turned out simply breathtaking!

 

Apparently a bunch of my favorites are all smooching pics :)  There's a ton more, but I don't want to share too many until we send out our Save the Dates.  I hope you're having a great weekend!

What's new with you?  How's your October going?

Remember when I used to write blog posts?

Soooo it's been a little quiet around here, huh?  Well, the busy in my blog title is no joke and summer is definitely the busiest time of the year.  I have plans for every single weekend until mid September (and by then cheerleading will be in full swing).  Add planning a wedding into the mix and well, something had to give!

So what have I been up to?

Wedding Planning

We booked our venue, we skyped with a couple who will most likely be our photographers today, and I just scheduled an appointment to shop for a wedding dress the second weekend of August!  A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders once the venue was taken care of.  We are getting married at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in King of Prussia.  The wedding coordinator is amazing, the ballroom is beautiful, and our guests won't have to drive anywhere after the party!  So far things have been easy breezy...

Weddings, Vacations, and Parties, oh my!

I had a blast attending an epic bachelorette party that involved a party bus, a mechnical bull, and a bunch of ladies dancing on top of a bar!

We also attended two weddings in the past month (which are a lot more fun when you're not super jealous that everyone else is engaged or married lol).

 

We spent the Fourth of July visiting some of Dave's college friends in North Carolina.  He went to UNC Charlotte so he showed me the beautiful campus and some of his favorite spots.  We stuffed our faces with southern barbeque, snuck into a hotel pool, rode rollercoasters until I felt sick, saw fireworks, and played some super silly boardgames.  It was a great trip until the 10 hour car ride home, I'll stick to flying thank you very much!

My brother graduated high school!  When his name was announced the crowd went wild and it was just amazing.

 

 

His graduation party a few weeks later was a riot.  He was determined to make everyone sing to him while he was cutting the cake, so we opted for a quick rendition of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, which was followed by his request for smoke (aka candles), again everyone kept explaining that you don't get candles when it's not your birthday, but we still got suckered into singing our Polish birthday song Sto Lat.  After all the singing was finished, everyone was waiting for the cake cutting photo op, let me set the scene for you... Tom was holding a large knife with my sister very close next to him, he's carrying on, being a ham, and finally I yell, just cut the cake!  Well Tom quickly takes the knife all the way through the cake, making a nice vertical cut.  He then proceeds to take a second go, slashing the knife diagonally through the entire cake which was followed by my mom lunging at him and ripping the knife out of his hands. It was hilarious!

The rest of our free time has been filled with barbeques, pool parties, and various hangouts with friends.  Oh I almost forgot... we also had a giant block party at our house that included multiple bands, a slip and slide, volleyball, crazy good food, and three ice luges!

Fitness & Food

I am still in love with CrossFit, despite my quads being so sore today that I'm hobbling around like a grandma!  I maxed out at 130 lbs on my back squat on Monday!  My max clean was 100 lbs a few weeks ago.  There's so much I need to learn, but some of the basic movements are really starting to click.  My diet has been rather lack luster.  We've been eating a lot of veggies due to our CSA, but vacation included funnel cake at the amusement park, fresh baked bread courtesy of our hostess, bagels and donuts from a local bakery, a giant tub of froyo covered in chocolate toppings, and some mouth watering hush puppies.  Basically I lost all self control, but can you blame me?  Those things were all delicious and I was on vacation!  I know I'm not eating like I should be (hello sugar addition) and the scale is reflecting that!  That would be that big of a deal, but I know how tiny my tummy looks when it's not bloated... and I miss it!  I may be thinking about a Whole30 in the near future or maybe another Whole21, we'll see.

So as you can see, I am busy busy and this weekend is no exception!  Tomorrow night we're headed out on a double date at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants with tasty margaritas and guacamole they make right at your table.  Saturday we're doing the Electric Run in Philly (a 5K in the dark with a creatively lit up course and lots of glow sticks).  And Sunday we're going to see Zac Brown Band.  Next weekend we'll be in Cape May (for the first time since this happened!), maybe I'll get to relax then!

How's your summer going?!