Strength #3: Going 15 Directions

Wow, it has been a long time since I have written a blog post! This past week was crazy for me between school, CrossFit, and life. And to top it all off, I look at the calendar and it is October already! What the heck happened to September? I would be ok with time slowing down a little bit. I feel like I have so much to talk about so I am going to try and hit the highlights!

So school finally decided to start picking up... I have had three tests and one practical in the past 8 days. I am not sure how teachers think that is acceptable, but they do. It keeps me busy that is for sure. Except now I feel like I have lots of little assignments that I need to catch up on... Gross.

I have been fortunate enough to see my parents and brother, Mark, twice in the past week! My brother plays soccer for Illinois Wesleyan and they have had two games in the St. Louis area the past week! He is their goalie and has had played very well in the past two games. It is so much fun to watch him do what he does best. Monday night he officially had his "goalie swagger" and you could see the confidence radiating off him while he was playing and directing his teammates on the field. There is something to be said about watching someone who displays confidence and I am so proud to see my brother like that.

3 generations of beauty

As much fun as it is to watch him play, it is also fun to hang out with my family! When they come into town it also means a free delicious dinner and a little mall shopping... Anyone knows me, knows that I am a bargain hunter. Almost everything that I buy is on super sale. I managed to get a pair of dress shorts from gap for $5.27 and then two pairs of booty shorts for $7.99 a piece. I really don't need any more booty shorts but when they are that cheap... I may have a slight workout clothes obsession. I blame CrossFit.

This past weekend, my friends and I made our way down to Ball Park Village and saw Eli Young Band perform. They were awesome and we somehow ended up super close to the stage! There guitar player was super attractive and the only one without a ring on his finger.  I am pretty sure we made eye contact a few times, but that may have been in my head, haha. Sunday was a great day because the Cardinals officially clinched their 2nd consecutive National League Central title! It is going to be fun to watch them play this October and my friends and I are hoping they can pull off a World Series win so we can celebrate while we are all still in St. Louis!

These past few weeks in CrossFit have honestly been really, really good for me. I am still very limited in what I can do with my knee but it is slowing allowing me to do more and more. I can finally perform weighted squats and thankfully it doesn't seem like I have lost a lot of strength. Because I haven't been able to use my legs really, I have been working on more gymnastic things. My muscle ups have gotten a lot better and I was able to do 5 in a row during a teaser WOD for the Heart of America Competition. This is a huge team competition in the mid-west and a lot of regional teams will be competing in it. CrossFit St. Louis managed to get 4 teams in this year and I am so excited to be competing along with my regional teammates! It is going to be a great weekend.

So on top of everything going on in my life, I decided to add something else in to spice up my October. Literally... So I keep a food journal everyday and recently going back and looking at it, I noticed that I eat a lot of the same things over and over again. While they are relatively healthy, after doing an assignment for my nutrition class, I realized that I am probably not getting all of the nutrients that I need due to my repetitive diet. So, my goal for October is to cook a new recipe 5 out of the 7 days of a week. I kicked off this adventure by making pulled pork tonight. The dry rub was so good, I didn't even need BBQ sauce. I promise to write more about this adventure every week. I am going to attempt to include pictures of my delicious (or not so delicious food), my grocery list, and whether or not I think something is worth making again. I am going to start a new tab with all of this fun stuff so keep your eyes open (I'll be sure to blog about it first).

On the left here is the pulled pork I made. The big picture is all of the spices that I used to make the dry rub. It was so convenient to stick it in the crock pot and let it cook for arond 6 hours and then pull it out to eat it. Definitely worth making it again, except currently I have leftovers for 10 days.

So since school, life, and CrossFit are keeping me busy, why not add one more thing in and go after this food challenge. Busy is good for me though and going 15 different directions keeps me organized and on track however messed up that may seem. So here is to 31 days of adventure!