Yes.

These are my late grandparents as newly weds, playing on the beach in the Hamptons. We found this photo the morning after my grandmother lost her fight following quadruple bypass surgery, while we were still numb with grief, bundled with other equally sweet images of them as young lovers. As we sifted through their home we found caches of photos, letters, and treasure boxes cataloguing their life as friends, enemies, lovers, parents and most importantly: individual people. Surrounded by cryptic notes on scraps of paper and drunk love letters, we found ourselves heartsick and humbled at the depth of their partnership. My grandparents lived extremely full lives, travelled extensively and lived in over seven countries. Their lives were like magical stories when I was child, and I want to have a similar arsenal of tales when I get to be a wrinkled old lady. Which brings me to my the point of this post:

My grandfather had this amazing way of saying no, while making you believe he said yes. I remember him telling me once that "yes is one of the most powerful words a person can say to another, and to themselves." He was right. Check out this blog post The Power of Yes: A Simple Way to Get More Out of Life. The author makes solid points about how to begin living the life you want. A lot of times we find ourselves day dreaming about the things we want, with no idea of how to take the first step.

"We all have dreams, but most of us make excuses for not pursuing them. Often these excuses aren’t overt. It’s more a matter of inertia, of just ignoring the dreams, of maintaining the comfortable status quo. But you can break out of your comfort zone to get more out of life through the simple power of yes."

Let's wash our lives in a big bucket of Yes and see where it gets us, shall we?

Recognizing Opportunity

I read an article a few months back detailing how researches have determined what makes certain people "lucky" versus "unlucky" and it lies primarily in a person's ability to recognize and pursue multiple opportunities at the same time. There were several experiments, here is one that I remember specifically:

One by one the self described "lucky" and "unlucky" people were asked to find an article in the back section of a newspaper, when it actually was placed in smaller print on the back of the first page. The lucky people found it almost immediately while most of the unlucky people couldn't find it at all and gave up in exasperation. When the lucky people were asked how they came across the article so quickly, most responded that they already knew it would be in the back of the paper, so why not survey the other pages, just in case.

Opportunities take many different forms and are sometimes in places we never think to look. Sometimes they come in the form of negative experiences, like diseases or accidents, not all are presented to us in a positive light. Maybe being "lucky" has nothing to do with odds and everything to do with outlook? The experiment above certainly suggests that would be the case.

I'm thinking a lot about opportunity right now. I started this year as a renter and tonight I go under contract for my first house. If you would have told me in January I would be a homeowner by the end of March, I would have laughed at you. It wasn't until I went out on, what I considered to be, a lark, and applied for pre-qualification just to see where I was at. I was prepared for rejection and was overjoyed when I received acceptance.

Do you avoid opportunities for fear of failure or rejection? We all do to some extent, but why? Why is it that we stop ourselves from pursuing goals and dreams for fear that we will fail? Is that goal or dream a one shot chance?

Probably not.

So here I am with a little anecdotal evidence for you on the power of recognizing opportunity and being creative with problem solving. When you are focused and completely committed, shit can get accomplished at break neck speed and that goal or dream isn't all that far away from you after all.

Home Sweet Home

Brutal Mix of Noncompliance

Pre-dawn negotiating with my inner three year old isn't as hard as it used to be. I know how horrible I feel when I miss a workout, and 30-45 extra minutes of sleep isn't worth the following 14-some-odd hours I spend wishing I had just gotten out of bed. I have a well oiled autopilot that switches on, coming to a rescue like a parent saving their child from making a poor decision with a "you'll thank me later" quality. This morning was excrutiating. On the way to the gym I spent the entire drive mulling over as many negative things as I could possibly pull out from the recesses of my brain. I even went so far as to criticize my lack of a proper hair tie.

I was on fire.


a visual representation of my mood

During the warm up, shortly after I realized that my shoulder is still pissy (which is completely my fault for not rolling it out as often as I should be doing right now), and right before I decided, definitively, not to care about this workout, Carey swooped in with exactly the right thing to say, at exactly the right time: "You are in control of your day. You have a choice as to how this goes."

And so I chose to step in and care. I didn't have much left in me after all the holes I punched in myself on the drive over, but I gave 100% of what I had and I didn't complain while I was in it.

Sometimes when you are in a sour mood, the last thing you want to admit is that you don't really hate everything, you are just in need of a little rest and a hug.

Sometimes that needed rest is in the form of 5 rounds of a 500m row and heavy thrusters and the hug is a verbal dose of reality from someone who cares.

More Normal than Normal

Last Friday while discussing all the possible reasons with my doctor as to why I'm so darn tired all the time, he suggested a cortisol and full blood panel test to make sure there wasn't another issue that was being ignored. Cortisol has been a very hot topic lately amongst the Crossfitting tribes, as it tends to prevent your body from losing belly fat, along with a host of other problems; its generally not something you want in overabundance in your body. It's also the red flag for a couple of adrenal diseases, neither of which sound like fun.

So. Good news came via the postal service yesterday evening. I'm totally normal. Even with all this house buying stress, plus all the other fleeting stresses of the day, and the increase in workouts, my body is handling it like a champ. Also, for not eating dairy my calcium levels are spot on; my blood levels are awesome, no anemia; my kidney function is perfect. Blah, blah, blah.

TAKE THAT, FDA FOOD PYRAMID! Dairy is not the only vehicle by which calcium enters the body, and FURTHERMORE, you need to establish a NEED for your body to absorb excess calcium, read: weight bearing exercise. Otherwise, you will just have excess calcium and you'll then be needing laxatives, because excess calcium causes constipation. Are you seeing a vicious cycle here? First commercial is all about calcium supplements, next commercial is Jamie Lee Curtis selling you yogurt that will help you poop. Which FYI, all yogurt has enzymes which help your digestive tract. A spoonful of plain yogurt a day will help, or if you are sans dairy, acidophilus pills will do the same thing.

Anywho... I went ahead and filled the ridiculously expensive script for a nasal allergy spray. That paired with keeping the dog hair to a minimum by washing things constantly, my sleep has improved, my eyes feel less like lead balls of fire, and my patience levels have returned to those of a sane person.

Two of my good friends are quitting smoking today. I've decided to pledge $2 a day to a charity of their choice until their wedding day, April 4th, for every day they remain smoke free. Wendi and Richard, I love you both, you can do it!

Dear Occam, I love you.

Sorry for the lag in posts, I'm in the process of looking for a home to purchase and of course that is eating up the majority of my brain space. So much of this process is mired by, in my opinion, arbitrary number shouting and pages and pages of legal guh-blah-guh-blah, that I find myself looking around for things to shove in my mouth; that nervous eating habit hasn't really left the building. I don't have anything bad to confess: bacon-athon Wednesday, too many date rolls on Sunday, and I had a (a: one, singular, not in multiples) fried appetizer last night. I know right? I throw down about as hard as an Amish grandma these days.

Anyway.

"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

I get really irritated when confronted with inefficiency. Inefficiency with myself, my surroundings, other people. I look at whatever inefficient process and think to myself... "Yes, that's right. Let's make this as complicated as possible, SO IT NEVER GETS DONE." I've been steadily reducing the amount of excuses that keep me from doing "x" thing I want to be doing, and low and behold, shit is getting done at rapid speed pace.

For example: I'm buying a house. I will be a homeowner in a few short weeks. When the doubt creeps in, and I second guess my tenacity, I remind myself that this is not an emotional decision: I'm purchasing something very expensive and it REQUIRES every last bit of logic and practicality instilled in my character from the moment I opened my eyes. But it doesn't need to be complicated. Living within your means can feel restrictive and harsh sometimes, but I know I'm happier when not threatened with financial ruin. Don't you? While this magnificent purchase is being made, I'm doing everything that I can to keep it as simple as possible. I do not need to add to the complexity of the process; banks and the government have already done that for me. All I need to do is make sure that what's broken or fugly is something I can fix, and make sure that there's enough room for Kito, myself, the dog, and our gargantuan couch.

""If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices."

I'm remarkably tired still. All the time. I've learned to exist in it, and not fight it, which does lessen the blow. My lab tests came back yesterday and thyroid is perfect, right where it needs to be, so we can cross that off the list of potential offenders to my energy. I had an allergy test before New Years and learned that I'm allergic to my dog, which is horrible, and all efforts to remediate dander and dust mites from my house have proven to be somewhat helpful, but did not take away the lead balls of fire which have replaced my eyes. So, where are we now? I think I may have mild sleep apnea. It runs in my family and anyone who has ever slept in the same house with me can attest to my "lumberjack snoring" capabilities. This would explain why the Advocare Nighttime recovery and Natural Calm sent me into fits during the night. People who have sleep apnea and try to use sleep aids often have the opposite reaction, because their body is fighting to breathe. That's not terrifying at all. Not one, pants-pissing bit. The reason why I'm tired all the time might be because I'm not actually sleeping. Doi.

"The simplest explanation that covers all the facts is usually the best."

1:28

ONE MINUTE AND TWENTY EIGHT SECONDS on a 400m, not on a track, on asphalt, WITH a turnaround.

Hauling. My. Ass. AND I was not being chased by hell hounds or badgers on PCP, I was just going as fast as I possibly could.

For the sake of simply going as fast as I possibly could.

Because apparently, I am a runner now.

Isn't that curious?

Hello My Name is Erika....

And I have been addicted to Crossfit for two years.

Two years ago today I started the standard CC warm up of high knees, fast feet, jumping jacks, squats, push ups, and rotations. The most commonly spoken phrase during my first warm up was:

"Wait, I need to throw up."

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING related to my present physical capabilities was built from the ground up. I was given millions of opportunities to back out over the next five months of training. Each workout, mostly due to my underlying medical condition, was emotionally battering. I was always last, I was always lifting lighter, I was always physically sick and shaking. In my mind I was "that" person, the one behind everyone else, the weak one, which instead of being completely demotivating as it had been my entire life, something else was happening in my head. Being last was the most motivating thing EV-ER. I wanted to run, I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be a completely different person.

And so I did. When my doctors told me I had to stop exercising I was terrified that my momentum would fail. The past was a death trap in my mind, so each day I did everything that I could to move father and farther away from that place. I convinced myself that no one believed in me. That sounds harsh, but it worked.

The first time I ran 400m without stopping, I sat on the steps of my house and cried. It took me NINE months to get there.

My training became a kind of "I'll show them what I can do...." statement.
And if there is one thing that I love to do, it's showing people how well I CAN do whatever it is they said I couldn't. Square peg WILL go into round hole. Got it?

Friends help. My experience would have been very different had it not been for Catherine plugging away beside me. Someone to run to and complain about how hard it is to sit down, or "can you believe we just did that?" That friend circle has since exploded, and now, if a workout is missed I will get texts from the coaches, emails from friends, and just telling them "I was tired so I slept in" is a ridiculous excuse. Accountability is key. (Thanks for keeping me solid peeps!)

What motivates you to be better to yourself and to others? How can you inject that motivation into every aspect of your life to keep you going when everything around you beckons for you to stop? How will you silence the devil on your shoulder?

2 Year Anniversary WOD:
30 Box Jumps
400m Run
30 Burpees
400m Run
30 Med Ball Cleans 20# ball
400m Run
Time: 13:37