10 Years in the Making

I have been waiting a very long time for this.  According to my mother, it has been 9 and half years.  It has been a tradition in our family to have our stockings either knitted for us or cross-stitched.  Specifically my mother has cross-stitched all of ours (5 kids).  With life getting in the way, it has taken my mother slightly longer to get my stocking done.  I think to help compensate she made mine far more detailed than she did the rest.  Aaaannnd I LOVE it!!!

The week before Christmas was my sister's birthday.  We got together again for her traditional Birthday Cookie Day  It's starting to become one of my favorite sister traditions.  I think my favorite part is getting to see my niece and nephew.  :)

Adorableness

Betty Crocker won't be calling me for decorating tips.

Brian and I added to our State-cation list by visiting both the history museum and the natural sciences museum.  Currently, the traveling Titanic exhibit is at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.  When we took our first trip to the museum we went to the history museum....thinking the Titanic exhibit was there.  It is a historical event, right?  Anyway, after two hours of walking around the museum we never ran across the exhibit.  Being pressed for time, we decide we'd leave and try again another day.  As soon as we stepped out of the doors, we saw banners for the Titanic exhibit at the Natural Sciences Museum.  The Natural Sciences Museum is literally across the walkway.  We apparently were completely oblivious to ALL of the signs as we walked into the History museum.  Oh well.  It gave us an excuse to go back.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the Titanic exhibit because it was prohibited.

Hubby loves anything military

Seems so ideal

Little bit of trivia: Pepsi was invented in NC

very symbolic, I enjoyed this part of the exhibit

only picture from the Natural Science Museum

Since the holidays are here, my Crossfit schedule has been pretty out of whack.  I'm a routine person, basically Type A personality.  Because of my busy schedule, I can only make it to Crossfit at a specific time.  That class time tends to be the one cut from the holiday schedules.  Now don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy being able to sleep in.....but I think I've begun to enjoy the sense of accomplishment in my day that I get from Crossfit.  I need to learn to appreciate each day, Crossfit or no Crossfit.  Maybe I should take up running.

I'm that girl

I think I've officially reached that stage.  I can't stop talking about Crossfit.  My sister says I'm obsessed.  I feel majority of the time that it is the best thing that I have done with my day.  I feel so accomplished and I can't deny how much I love the compliments I get from loosing all of the inches.  I literally hid the scale from myself because I swore off the idea that the scale was a definition.  I wasn't overweight when I began my Crossfit journey.  I was just out of shape.  I actually haven't taken measurements either.  I can just tell you from the clothes that I wear and the energy I have on a daily bases how much I've benefited from Crossfit.

Today's WOD (Workout of the Day) was very important to me.  I petitioned for our box to do this Hero WOD.  Hero WODs are signature workouts given specific names of service men and women who have died in combat.  Well recently a Hero WOD was floating around Facebook designed after one of the teachers killed at the Newtown, Connecticut shooting, Victoria Soto.  She was a teacher for 5 years in room 10.  She died on 12/14/12.  She was 27 years old.  Because today is Christmas Eve, normal class times were not running.  I woke up bright and early to get to the 6 AM class before work.  I was proud to see all of the people who showed up for this class.  We did 5 rounds of 10 Thrusters, 14 Box Jumps, 12 Sumo Dead-lift High Pulls, 12 Burpees and 27 Kettle bell swings.  It is workouts like this one that make me proud of the community that Crossfit inspires.  I don't have any pictures of us completing the WOD.  I have yet to get the hang of taking pictures on a regular basis, especially if I want to get serious about blogging.  But you will see some in the future, sweaty mess and all.

And just to toot my own horn, I achieved a personal record this week of 105 lbs on the Clean and Jerk.  To see an example of this I pulled a short YouTube video. Clean and Jerk demonstration.

On a slightly different note.  Merry Christmas!!  I hope everyone is having a peaceful and lovely holiday.  I'm glad to be able to spend it with my family.  So from my family to yours, here is a little holiday cheer.

Zeta Eve (named after Christmas Eve, the day we got her)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Going Forward

Starting today I am going to try my damnedest to blog more.  I feel that I have lots of things to talk about but just don't allot the time to sit down and put them into words.  I have CrossFit, my journey to eat healthier, my financial quest, and an awesome husband...and of course our beautiful pup. :)  I shouldn't have any problems putting those things into this blog.  So this starts a new chapter.  I'm going to focus on all of these wonderful things I have in my life and share them with who ever is willing to listen (read).