What's Your Quirk?

Everyone I know has a weird little quirk when it comes to working out. Some stare themselves down in the mirror, some look really pissed off while lifting, while others go in pairs or groups to the gym and everyone stands around one person while that person is lifting.

My quirk you ask? Well I have several. 

I always do 100 reps on each machine I use. I typically always do 4 sets of 25 and take a water break after my 3rd set. Sometimes I'll do more, but 100 is my minimum. 

When I'm not feeling the workout, I usually dedicate it to someone who is in the military and that pushes me harder. 

My final quirk, is music. When I'm lifting, I can't stand listening to my iPod just because the cord gets in the way, but when I do cardio, I will sing along to all of the songs...sometimes out loud.

Whatever your workout quirk is, don't worry about it, just keep lifting!

Tough Mudder #2

So we get up to EAA in Oshkosk and it starts sprinkling a little, I check my phone and see a very colorful storm coming so we park and it's thundering and lightning for a while. Obviously my mom and I decided to stay in the car and wait it out cause it was moving pretty fast. Once the lightning went away and it was just sprinkling we go out and on the way to the registration, we see a big puddle. Knowing that we are going to be soaking wet during the course, we jump in it. The little kid (maybe 5 years old) behind us decided to follow our lead and jumped in the puddle too which I found funny but at least the parents were cool about it...I mean you don't go to Tough Mudder (even just as a spectator) and expect to leave all clean and dry, that just doesn't happen.

After registration we go over to the starting line where we first have to climb a wall that was 7 to 10 feet tall (depending on where in the wall you are standing) to get to the starting line. That's right, there's an obstacle before the event even begins! But no biggie, at the other side of the wall we hear an awesome pep talk and someone sings the national anthem. Only problem with that was, it was still raining. Half way through the national anthem, the power goes out and all of the mudders pick up right where it left off. Which was unbelievable and so powerful. A cannon is fired and then we were off. 

Under the trees we went until we came to the "Kiss of Mud" where we crawled on our stomachs through mud under barbed wire. We get to the other end, stand up, and I notice that my arms are already scraped up pretty badly. Well, I'm already hurt, might as well get something out of it, so we keep going. 

The next fun obstacle that we came to (minded I'm not going to explain every obstacle, you'll have to do it if you want to know what they all are like) was the "Electric Eel". This is where we are crawling once again on our stomachs through water while live wires are hanging down on top of you. I'll repeat: LIVE WIRES! They don't hurt much, just a gentle reminder that you are alive, unless if you were me. I was going along in my lane getting the occasional zap until the guy next to me decided he wanted to be in my lane too. Well isn't that nice of him. While he was moving over (uninvited mind you) I was constantly being zapped on my ass! This quickly motivated me to encourage him to keep moving. But I got out just fine. 

The next obstacle I'll tell you about was called "Hold Your Wood." An easy task really. You simply pick up a piece of wood and carry it in a circle. No problem. Only thing, the wood wasn't little sticks. They were chunks of wood. The smallest was even too big to put in a city fire pit. Well, I hoisted one up on my shoulder and was off. Don't forget, the whole path is covered in shoe sucking mud from the rain making it extra tricky to maneuver. I get to the end, toss my wood and found out that the medical person there had to send 3 people home within the last 30 minutes because of pinched fingers and wood dropping on toes and feet. Thankfully I was unaware of this information before I did this obstacle.

I was really looking forward to "Firewalker" again because last year there were two long zig zagging rows (at least 15 meters long if not longer) of wood and straw and hay that were on fire that smoked like crazy. Well, it was nothing like that this year. Instead there were two lines of wood that were on fire that we had to hop over (one could easily walk over it) and then there was this pool (as close to a pool as you could get when it comes to Tough Mudder) where we jumped in and swam to the other side and used a cargo net to climb up. As I was almost up the cargo net, a hand appears in front of me, I grab it and a guy nearly lifts me right out of the water. That is what Tough Mudder is all about. Not the obstacles, not the distance, but the camaraderie.

I was also looking forward to the next obstacle as I loved it last year, the "Arctic Enema." This one is pretty straight forward. You climb up a small ramp, jump into water, go under a board so your head is completely submerged and then climb another small ramp to get out. Easy peasy. Oh wait, forgot one little thing. The water is freezing! They dump ice in the water and add some liquid so the water will remain really freaking cold! Oh well, it was a nice short break from the heat.

Skipping ahead, we come to the "Cage Crawl." I found this rather relaxing. One simply goes in the water floating on your back and use a cage that is inches from your face to move along. The water isn't deep and with your ears submerged in the water, it was rather pleasant. Well, unless if you were the dude in front of me. I guess I was a bit faster at cage crawling than he was and ended up in his lap basically. Never know, he might have found that relaxing too!

After the "Funky Monkey" which is basically a monkey bar on steroids, we come to the pull up challenge. If all of the mudders between the two days reached a total of (I believe) 3,000 pull ups, then they would donate and extra amount to some charity (which unfortunately I can't remember but I wanna say to Wounded Warrior which is what Tough Mudder supports). I get to the bar and give it a shot. Remember, this is after 11 miles and over 20 obstacles by this time. I grab on and unfortunately I can't even do one at this point. I hope they reached the goal even though I wasn't able to help.

The last obstacle is called "ElectroShock Therapy" where like the "Electric Eel" before, live wires are hanging down. Only difference is that you have to run (or walk) through them and over stacks of hay to get to the other side. I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I can tell you that ever mudder crosses the "ElectroShock Therapy" to get their hard earned headband and that cup of cold beer!

It was a fun 11.87 miles and the scrapes, cuts and bruises are slowly healing. My mom and I already have our third and forth Tough Mudders planned out and I can hardly wait!

Simply Delicious Bread

So I'm kind of obsessed with bread. I love it.

I made my first loaf of bread with my Oma, while my Opa, the son of a baker, was working outside in the yard and in his garden. By the time the bread was finally in the oven, my Oma and I were covered in flour and smiles all around. I think this is part of the reason I love bread so much, because no matter what kind of bread I am making, I always think back to my Oma's kitchen, working around the island with her, playing cards and working on her puzzle while it rose and baked.

Today it's a bit chillier than the past few days so I decided to make some bread. Upon looking in the freezer for yeast, I discovered that I had none. No yeast. What was I going to do?! Well I turned to my Pinterest board full of bread recipes (http://pinterest.com/bauerno2/bread-recipes/) and found a Yeastless Chile Cheese Bread (http://www.azestybite.com/hatch-chile-cheese-bread/). The picture looked good so I decided why not give it a try. Only problem was that I didn't have all of the ingredients, so I adapted.
Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
heaping 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/3 cup buttermilk (which you can make using milk and lemon juice)
Whatever shredded cheese you have laying around the house. (The original recipe called for 1/2 cup colby jack shredded cheese, but I had cheddar)
Green chile peppers chopped (I used about 2 ounces from a can that I drained and rinsed)
2 Tbsp butter, melted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F.
Combine flour, baking powder, chili powder and salt. add the sugar and slowly stir in the butter milk. Add the cheese and green chile peppers. Spray a bread loaf pan with cooking spray and pour in the dough. Top with melted butter.
Cook for 45 minutes to an hour (if the pan is about a foot long, bake for 45 minutes, if it's shorter than that, bake for 50 minutes). The bread crust should be golden brown in color.

For lunch once the bread was out of the oven and cooling, my sister and I made soft boiled eggs and mashed up an avocado with some salt and pepper. We spread the avocado on the bread (which is hard to cut when warm but the smell was driving us nuts so we couldn't wait) and put the egg on top. It was delicious.
"Best bread I've ever had!" said my sister, Christina.

Enjoy!

This Day Was Made For Me!

How I had not known about this day before truly puzzles me. Today is Book Lovers Day. 

Have you ever became so engrossed with a book that you lie in your bed at night, the light on, and reading. Your hands and arms slowly falling asleep, forcing you to alternate hands that hold it up. You finish a chapter and look ahead, seeing that there are only 15 pages in the next chapter and think to yourself, "sure, I can read just one more chapter before falling asleep." Suddenly, you wake up with the book lying on your face, your nose acting as the book mark. The light shinning as your eyes suddenly dilate, trying to adjust. You fell asleep with your book again. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often to that many of you, but it has happened more times than I am willing to admit to myself.  

You can learn so much through reading (probably why my professors always assign us so much reading homework). 

Reading can transfer you anywhere. To another time, another place, or another land that has never been visited before. 

Reading brings people together. Sharing a common interest or reading a the same book that a stranger read is a great way to relate to someone. You can relate books to anything. In fact, while typing this, my sister, Christina, sat beside me reading a paper I wrote for school in which I mention Edgar Allen Poe's Murder at the Rue Morgue. We talked about our favorite Poe books and poem.

So what do I want you to do? Go and grab the book your reading or pick up a new one, make yourself a drink, find a cozy chair, the shade under a tree or along the pool and read. 

If you fall asleep while reading, don't worry about it...it happens to the best of us. 

Best Friends

Yesterday I got some news from my chiropractor that I wasn't thrilled about. Nothing Earth shattering, but still not thrilled. On top of that, he said that I shouldn't workout until I get a clean bill of health from my regular doctor. Well this upset me even more. I love going to the gym and sweating like crazy for an hour or so. Pushing myself harder on the weights than I did the previous week. Nothing felt so good.

So yesterday I was in a blah mood from that news. My best friend Laura called and we talked for a little bit. She distracted me with what was going on in her life, but I was still feeling blah. I went to class as usual and maintained my blah feeling, taking notes and trying to focus, but it just wasn't happening.

Once class was out at 8pm, my other best friend Mike came over and we walked to the beach thinking we'd just walk around and talk about our days. Well he took everything out of his pockets and laid it carefully on his flip flops and started walking into the water. I took off my flip flops and walked in (keeping my cell phone on me so he couldn't drag me in or splash). Sure enough, he flopped in the water. After a while he finally convinced me to wrestle with him in the water (taking out my phone just in case) and all of the troubles of my day disappeared when he dropped me in. I lost miserably, but had a fun time. Soon after we left soaking wet and walked back home. Flip flops squeaking as we walked and the warm breeze drying us off.

Thanks Mike for making me smile on my blah day.

Happy Second Birthday!

People only have one birthday...well, that's the rule. But when there's a rule, there is always someone who it doesn't apply to. That person would be my Opa (grandpa). He has two birthdays. His real birthday is on April 17th. This was the day that he was born way back in 1927 (yeah, he's 86 years old and still rocking it). Today is his second birthday. Back in 1975 he had open heart surgery. The doctors gave him two years to live. It's been 38 years and he has outlived several of his doctors. 

My Opa is awesome. He gardens, he picks weeds, cuts the grass, still paints things around the house (and if you stand still, he'll paint you too), he goes on walks and goes swimming at the gym. 

This man has nine lives it seems. He's been shot in war, was a prisoner of war, and survived a firework factory fire...just to name a few.

So today I raise a glass to you Opa, Happy Birthday Opa and here's to many more!

Get Your Geek On!

Today is Geek Pride Day, so naturally, I'm getting my geek on! Geek is defined as either an unfashionable or socially inept person (yawn), or a person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest (a.k.a. me). Only problem is, there are so many types of geeky interests! 
There are Superhero geeks, Trekkies, Star Wars geeks, Harry Potter geeks, Whovians and more! How can a girl decide which geek side to get on when she loves more than one!

Today, I choose to honor my inner reader geek. I love reading. Give me a book for a present and I'll love it. But this wasn't always the case. I used to hate reading, and I mean HATE reading. I dreaded everything about it. I was never in a high English class, I was a slow reader (still am), and I dreaded reading out loud (still do actually). 

Until this one person came along who has given me the gift of loving to read. That person is my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Vlasis. 

I remember that one time early in the school year, she assigned us to read a book of our choosing and write something up or do something assignment like that. We went on a 'field trip' to the school's library. I wandered about aimlessly, not liking anything, as everything was a book. Then I found the Stephen King section and something about one of his books called to me. I'm not sure if I just liked the name of the book, the color choices or what, but I ended up checking that book out. For the first time ever, I couldn't put the book down! Something that was a new concept to me. I loved reading that book and now love reading lots of books.

Thank you Mrs. Vlasis for showing me how great a gift reading is. Today, I get my geek on for you. 

Live Long and 42 On!