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Showing posts from 2013

Elf 4 Health 2013

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I participated in Elf 4 Health this year. When I first read about it, I knew it was something I had to do. The basic premise is this. It's a 4 week program broken up into 2 rounds (2 weeks each). Every day has a different challenge. Challenges are fitness, nutrition, or just working on you, etc. Each round you are paired up with another "elf" who you go through the challenges with, discuss challenges, successes, etc. So here's my recap! Challenges ROUND 1 Round 1 I was matched up with Sarah, a senior studying nutrition and dietetics at Arizona State University. LUCKY ME! She had such great ideas as far as food was concerned and was so nice to share them with me! Day 1: Go Meatless So I am an avid food prepper. But for some reason I chose not to look ahead at my challenges when I was prepping for the week. So late Sunday night I looked and panicked as the food I prepped for the week had meat in it. What was I going to have that was still healthy and woul

What Christmas Means To Me

During our first service in church we had a component called "What Christmas Means To Me". Throughout the service we had 3 people (a child, a teenager, and a grandma) tell of what Christmas was like in their homes and what Christmas meant to them. As I sat there and listened to them tell their stories, it got me thinking. CHRISTMAS MEMORIES Spending Christmas in Florence. All the cousins slept on the floor in Grandpa's Study. The boys would wake me up really early and have me go look at what Santa brought us, and come back and report. And I did it. Also, all of us going to Grandpa's church and sitting in the front row. :-)  Going to Utah for Christmas one year.  Going to see the lights on the City and County building after church. And having my cousin be VERY upset because he'd rather be home playing video games. (He shall remain nameless but we all know who he is haha)  That wretched video recording of us singing 12 Days Of Christmas and showing not only

Elf 4 Health: Share Your Expertise

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Some of you may know I've been participating in a program called Elf 4 Health. It's a 4 week program where we are matched up with another "elf" and have a challenge every day. We are in our last week and at the end I will be blogging about the whole experience.  Today's challenge is to "Share Your Expertise". When I first read that I thought "expertise? I don't have an expertise" so as with most important decisions, I took to Facebook. I asked for ideas of what to write and I decided to write about all of them.  Here was what I got in return:  "Um, I think I heard somewhere that you TEACH kids. And you know about getting healthy. Need I go on?" "So much! You know how to believe in yourself to do something, tenacity, ability to go to the gym when EVERY cell in your body wants to watch desperate housewives. You know how to deal with extreme tragedy and survive to see another day! You are a DAMN expert!!"  "P

October Foodie Pen Pals

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This month I was matched up with Arlette from New Orleans! I was really excited about this as New Orleans has a special place in my heart. My brother lived there for several years (that's where he met my lovely sister in law!) and we have some friends who live there still. I was able to go visit one summer and just loved it. When Arlette and I e-mailed I knew it would be a good pairing. She was so sweet and promised a great box. And ohhhh boy, did she deliver! (no pun intended there haha) In one of the e-mails we exchanged, she told me she knew what she was going to get me and was going to spoil me and she sure did! I made a joke about how much I love beignets and how they probably don't mail well and she sent me a box of beignet mix!!!! So excited to make those! Which I will when I have more than just myself to cook for. :)  She also sent me A TON of cajun food which I'm totally excited to try. I honestly haven't had time to try any of this because I'

Gymspiration, where have you gone? I miss you.

This blog is gonna be a quick one. I really want to go to bed. :) I'm not really sure where to start. Back in March/April (it's been so long I've actually forgotten when it actually happened) I hurt my knee and my workout regimen got put on hold. In one way I kind of saw this as a blessing in disguise as I had just worked out A TON and really hard, trying to meet a goal and to be honest, I was burned out on the gym. I was ready for a break. But I was not happy about being injured. My doctor said I could go to the gym and start going on the bike 1 minute and increase a minute every day. Which I did for about a week and then decided I was over it. Didn't wanna go to the gym, change, and then go ride the bike for 3 minutes. Seemed dumb. Then my knee slowly got better and after a while my doctor said I could go back to the gym and start with the stairs. I hate stairs. So I didn't go. Could I have been going the whole time and do upper body? Yep. But I made excuses, be

Getting Caught Up on 5Ks

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Remember waaaay back in April when I hurt my knee? What was the most devastating thing about this injury? It was just the beginning of racing season and I was going to miss it. Well, I decided in August that I needed to get back in the game. So I signed up for The Run For One 5K for September 7. This is one I did last year ( Run For One 2012 ) and if you recall, was NOT easy. So naturally, why not do it again??? Especially when you've been injured. Yep, GREAT idea. Well let me tell you, this race was R-O-U-G-H      ROUGH! I ended up walking about half of it. My body was just not up to par.... and those hills were pretty hard on me. But I did have a few pivotal points in it... Fueling up before the race Most of my pivotal points had to do with the music I was listening to. Anyone who knows me knows that music is basically the center of my life. It inspires me and I almost feel like it's my therapist. The words that other people say somehow speaks to my heart and are th