Excitment + First time at Crossfit feelings in GIF form

Whoa momma it has been awhile since I ranted to the interwebs. Not to say that I haven't needed a good rant, but thats not why I'm here right now.

I have a happy rant. Lots of exciting things are happening.

I can hardly contain it.

I need a name for that. Happy rant.

Drawing a blank here guys.

ANYWHOOOOO so lets get started NUMERO UNO: Today we took my grandma to north KC for a doctors appointment to which I opted to shop in Zona Rosa, where my paycheck was sentenced to die at Dick's Sporting Goods. Why, you ask? Well because, about a month ago I went there and tried on the best fitting shorts that have ever landed upon my ass, but one thing was off. THEY WERE 50 DOLLARS! Yeah! Fiddy doll hairs! Ridic! But I go there today, and BAM they were on sale for 20 dollars (holla) so I naturally bought two pairs, a sports bra, and 4 shirts..

But they were all on sale so YOLO mom stop looking at me like that. So much judgement.

NUMBA TWO: I tricked my mom into joining Crossfit, so I took her to her first introductory class last night. Allow me to take you through the phases of your first crossfit class.

When you walk in:

You see all the hard bodies.. Abs and ass galore.. You think to yourself, its not too late to run away, and then you're greeted by the trainer.

He asks you to sign the injury waiver, as you briefly consider killing yourself before the workout has a chance to, then you sit quietly in the corner like..

Then your coach tells you the warm up and you're like..

Mobility, stretching and jogging, oh my.. You finish the "warm up" and stare at the person that brought you there and they're like:

Then he tells you the WOD and you're like..

During the WOD..

Then he calls time and you're like..

Because...

But you're friend is like..

And it's true... You'll be back for more tomorrow, because you're addicted, and can't stop saying

Or maybe that's just me.

Okay I'm on gif overload...

Okay srry gtg (does anyone say gtg anymore?)

Cheers!

The most important things I have to say

I would like for you to watch this very short, very important 5 minute video.

Kill Them With Love


"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel." 

I'm tired of referring to myself as heartless. Cold. Empty.

I'm tired.

Of the hatefulness that encompasses so many people.

Of this greedy, self-centered, narrow minded race we are breeding and feeding.

Of people that are so focused on finding a reason for being, instead of just being.

Of worrying about the next big thing, instead of remembering what already works.

Why do we complain, time and time again, instead of searching for the light in a situation?

Why must we convince others to accept us, why can't we just accept that we are NOT alike?

Why can't we accept one another for who we are, instead of trying to change them?

Time and time again I've learned that the one thing I've wanted most, do not bring happiness when it arrives.

What happened to being genuine?

To laughing every moment, laughing so hard it hurt. 

When did we become so serious? When did we become so sad?

Why did feeling become a weakness?

Coming from a person that was once extremely selfish and egocentric, I am tired of not feeling.

I want.

To focus on making a change. Not for the world, but for someone.

To be surrounded by overwhelming love and feeling.

To experience more of the "little things," myself.

To see small things that bring happiness.

Find a STRANGER and make a FRIEND.

To cry when I'm feeling sad.

Shake out the stress you carry on your shoulders. Let it flow from your body.

Like raking all the leaves into a big pile and jumping into them. Laying there, staring at the sky. Do you remember how they smelt? The sound they made as they crunched beneath you?

The way it felt to climb a tree and sit on the highest branch. The serenity of the wind in my face.

The look of the woman's who spilt the insides of her purse in the parking lot, and the five people that stopped in their tracks to help her restore it.

Allowing yourself to embrace someone in a hug. And fell the warmth of it.

When it was absolutely rude to walk by someone without greeting them.

To admit when you are wrong, and see things through others perspectives.

Remember when striving to make a change in someones life was priority.

Remember that the smallest bits of happiness are often those that go unacknowledged.

That YOU are responsible for the difference you can make in someone else's life.

Witness the moments that bring a smile across a strangers lips, and bask in them.

YOU can be the one shining star in the darkest night of someone's life, or you can be the reason they have no light.

You will find happiness in other peoples happiness.

Let go of your hate, of your sadness, of your stress. Just be here. Just be happy.

Here are some articles and links that I have viewed recently that don't relate to each other, but have struck thought on how I treat those around me.

TedTalk- Lollipop moments

26 Moments that made me smile

TedTalk- Stop thinking

He had brain cancer

Why bring a child into THIS world?

Cheers to changing lives, one smile at a time.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."

How big is yours?

Can we talk about how uber sexy all of the Worlds of Fun security guards are? Seriously, every freaking one of them. What, did part of the application process say "must have Hollister modeling experience."? Jeez. I didn't know who to stare at, the dreamy rent-a-cops or the Halloween characters. Didn't you know it's Halloweekends right now? 7 Haunted houses and all the awesome roller coasters mixed with so much faux fog that you can't see the person in front of you= a super spooky all around fantastic time. But you have to get the Fright Lane pass so you can bypass the three hour long lines. I'm not kidding. My favorite one is the Lure of the Vampire, obvious reasons. I'm obsessed with vampires. I won't go there. Moving on.

Yeah that's a dinosaur. They have a new exhibit full of ginormous prehistoric creatures. It's epic. 

Anyways. 

I bought a four-foot long piece of white fabric for a costume idea and I totally backfired. So now I have this big ass piece of cloth and no idea what the hell I'm gonna do with it and I can't return it. Sigh. I'm gonna have to be all creative and do something cool with it. Double sigh! This kind of brings me to what I'm gonna rant about today. 

Perspective. How big is yours? Before I started nursing, I can admit I lived in a very small box of perspective. I had a hard time seeing the bigger picture or life through someone else's eyes. I still to this day don't have much of a filter over this big mouth of mine, so I often forget how my words my effect others. But now, I realize that yeah, sticks and stones will likely break your bones, and the idiot that said words will never hurt him is definitely just that; an idiot. Words can kill, man.

Like the employee at K-Mart that you just yelled at for the past 15 minutes because she said your coupon was expired. Well maybe her kitten died two days ago and she still hasn't gotten over it. Now she's crying because your an asshole and Gracie won't be there to go home and cuddle with tonight. So she opts out for a gallon of ice cream which in turn makes her depressed and her self esteem even worse. Now she doesn't think she'll ever be good enough for a boy and buys 12 cats. But you, you still walk out with your $2.50 pack of sharpies that you get for 50% off because she had to call the manager and now she's the crazy cat lady. No this story is not personal I'm just making a long and drawn out point.

Before we open our mouths and say something that might be really mean, maybe we should take a step back and gain some perspective. Before you judge someone by what rumors you may have heard about them, take a chance to get their side of the story. Conflict resolution. Perspective. A beautiful thing. It's a thing I wish more young people knew about. Kids might not bully a peer into depression or suicide if they could gain a different outlook on that persons life. Maybe a friendship could have been saved, or a connection could have been ignited. Again, so many viewpoints come into play. Just some evening thoughts of mine.

Did you know I'm a huge DIYer? Yeah man, I'm totally a craftslady. My current project: A medicine ball. and I must say so far its coming out well.

Supplies I've used & their cost.
-Basketball. $Free.Fifty. Yepp. I did some asking around and my papa had a beat up ball.
       -I checked at Walmart, and a cheap ball was $7.
-Utility knife to cut open the ball. Also free, there's got to be one laying around somewhere.
-Rock salt. I was going to use sand, but my papa also had some of this laying around, so $Free.
       -A bag would likely cost $5.
-Liquid nails. $2 at Walmart.
-Tire patch kit. $2 at Walmart.
-Gorilla tape. This kind is best because of the grip. $5 at Walmart.
-If you feel the need, buy a funnel that has at least a quarter sized opening. Might save you some time and heartache. If you opt out, just buy your choice of booze to take the edge off.

*So all together you're looking at under $25 dollars and under 20 minutes of work for a medicine ball that would cost $70 retail. Sounds like a decent deal to me. Mine ended up weighting 17.5 lbs. Many people who used sand could get up to 25 lbs, but really I don't need a ball that heavy so this worked for me.

Instructions are pretty self explanatory.

-Cut the fucker open with your knife, a hole a little bit bigger than a quarter. Probably so that funnel you bought will fit inside. 

-Put the funnel in the hole, smart ass.

-Next, take the rock salt you stole from your neighbor or sand that you stole from the beach and fill the fucker up. 

-Close the flap and clean the surface with a wet rag. 

-Let that shit air dry then put some Liquid Nails on thur. 

-I guess the patch is likely optional depending on how sturdy you want the hole to be. So if you're choosing to patch, read the back of the kit and follow those instructions that are even shittier than mine. 

-Let the shit air dry again and then tape the fuck out of it. 

Boom. Wall balls for days. 

Next: buy a wall patching kit.

Kidding! Cheers to widening your perspective. 

Oh my belly

I swear, my life revolves around how my belly feels. Like today,  when I rolled out of bed at 230pm, I wanted to hurl myself off of a cliff. I actually would still jump off of it given the chance but I do feel slightly better.

Well last night my best work friend Jess invited me to the HiHo bar to watch the Cardnials whoop the Dodgers ass's (and they did in case you didn't know.) Jess officially adopted me onto the Cards bandwagon since I never really watched baseball. I feel special. She also says this is my boyfriend, I won't argue. 

I came to the conclusion many years ago that I hate beer. After many attempts trying to make myself forcefully like the shit it's never worked out. But Jess thought she had the cure. She thought she knew the answer to my issue. So last night after many Reds Apple Ales I found myself facing her challenge. 

So I started chugging. Busch lite. Better known to me as cat piss. YEAH, I said it. I tried, hard. Chugged lots of beer, to no avail. It still tastes terrible. If I'm going to drink alcohol and have to face the detrimental feelings the next morning, I for damn sure am not going to drink something that has the equivalent of puddle water that has had a dead animal marinating in. Blah blah blah Courtney you're so dramatic. Whatever. Sorry Jess, I love ya, but your challenge failed me. I will be expecting you to try harder next time. ;) 

So in between chugging beers and cheering at the tv, we had a quality conversation. About life, love, traveling, all that mushy stuff. Her and I are the same person. Minus the blonde hair and her love for a ginger. I know right. Totally kidding. Her boytoy is a great guy and I'm totes happy for her. They're gonna make pretty babies dispite the hair bc they both have good genes. OK let's get back on track.

I want to talk about being a human. Can I be real for a second? If we could read each other's minds one hundred percent of the time I can guarantee that we'd all be alone. Why? Because people are not perfect. We all have negative thoughts about one another. People can be annoying, people can disagree, people can have opposite opinions. Simple facts of life. There will often times not be a person that you love everything about. BECAUSE WE'RE ALL IMPERFECT. Are you getting where I'm going? I'll continue. 

All of your thoughts that are negative regarding a person you care about are often shoved to the side. Tucked into the back of your mind or ranted about to your mom. You tolerate certain things, because they don't make or break your relationship. It's only when these feelings raise their ugly head that causes issues. If  everyone always said the first thing that comes to there mind, a lot of people would probably walk around pretty pissed off. Just my opinion. That's why these things are meant to stay within the cavity of your cranium. 

Maybe that makes me a bad friend. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way. Maybe I'm just over sensitive. Maybe all of my problems would be solved if I just spoke my freaking mind. Who freaking knows. 

I'm done. But first

HERES JESSICA! So lovely. 

Cheers to holding back. Or not. 

Just sittin here chillin

So I'm sitting here. I just woke up, so I'm chillin on my couch and I think to myself, I'm kind of hungry. Then I think, what did I eat yesterday? My stomach is straight up empty. Like a cave with no bats empty. Shits echoing in there.

I remember now, I woke up late. All I had time for in the am was my butter/oil coffee. No biggie. Kept me going on a super busy work day, until around 1pm. But then I was so uber busy at work, I couldn't eat until around 3. So then I got to eat a skimpy spinach/lettuce salad with guac and tomatoes, mushrooms, and banana peppers. I was hungry again by 5, and I had time so I ran back down and got a small salad and some broccoli. Got home, and by 8 I was ready to get down on some food. I had some leftover butternut goodness so I plated up some of that. So over all, I didn't each much. I didn't eat enough. And this bothers me.

Today, like I said I'm sittin here, and I don't want to eat anything! I'm hungry, but I don't want to eat. WFT! THIS CAN'T BE!

Not normal! Mayday! For reals, I know this is not good, my body is going to go into straight up starvation mode and horde all of these next calories. Lose lose.

But I just have such a negative outlook on food, esp veggies at this point. I don't want to look at em, I don't want to smell them, and I for damn sure don't want them close to my mouth.

And I'm not a failure for it! This detox was a good idea, but I'm going to need to do it when I've had more time to plan my meals so that I won't get burnt out, and that I'll actually have food stocked. Because the only green shit in my fridge is spinach and kale, and I can't go there without barfing at this point.

Realistically, I didn't eat badly to begin with. I eat real food. So, I'll try again soon. Like on payday or something.



CHEERS TO BACON BITCHES

Squashy

I adore most of my class mates. They usually are for the most part, pretty amusing. Between silly questions/comments that show their obvious lack of knowledge (adorable) or questions/comments that show they have humor. Example: On break, a few of us were talking about green veggies, and I start talking about all the stupid broccoli I've eaten today. So my fellow classmate, Kelly, says, "Speaking of farts" (dear god) "I had the best farts ever from this pear I ate the other day. I could have floated away with them bad boys." We all cracked up I still crack up thinking about it.

What does that have to do with anything? Zero. I just think it's hilarious that every time I hear or even think of the word "fart" I chuckle. What a stupid word. 

Anyways. 

So did y'all hear about Chris Pine? Maybe gonna play Christian Grey in the movie? I really have no room to talk about how exciting this is since I haven't read the books, but anything Chris Pine makes me uber... erm... yeah excited.  Who is Chris Pine? Only a super sexy Star Trek nerd. 



I KNOW RIGHT!!! I'm gonna have to hop all over this bandwagon.

So I did something really stupid. I started this "detox" if you will. Basically, there is one simple rule:

-Eat only vegetables that are green or grow ABOVE the ground, for 7 days. 

Now, the doctor that I was reading that did this also used a medical food protein shake 4x per day. Since I can only find ones that have soy protein or rice protein I've decided to omit this and just snack more. 

Today is day one for me and I have a relatively negative outlook on it. I admit that I did feel nauseous upon finishing my salad at lunch. I think it was more a texture issue than taste/effect from the food since I feel better. I don't feel anymore tired than normal- normal being the key word. But I do need to try to have a better attitude. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about drinking today! Only because I've found a new love for hard cider. Good shit. ANYWAY six more days Courtney, stay strong. 

I'm in no way promoting vegetarian diet. If you know me, like know me know me, like I've allowed you to see me feast, you know I'm a straight up carnivore  Bacon, BBQ, steak, come to momma. But after this week I'm strictly doing it to try to heal my gut and learn more about foods I may be sensitive to. Before starting, I know my gut can't handle gluten/other grain proteins, legumes (beans), soy, lactose (dairy) (though I can tolerate a small amount of butter), nor foods/drinks with high amounts of sugar. So this detox should set me up well to be able to do some trial and error. Because I'm a food hacker, yo.


Ending the first day, I feel good. Its just about bed time. So what did I eat you ask? 
Breakfast: cooked spinach and yellow squash (gross) and some bulletproof coffee.
Snack: Few pieces of spinach.
Lunch: Spinach and kale salad with avocado, tomatoes, jalapanos, olive oil, and salt.
Snack: Guac.
Din din: Zucchini noodles (zucchini strips, tomato pastes, spices) cauliflower rice (same thing<-) and some butternut squash cubes with cinnamon butter and coconut oil.

Soooooo yeah. That's it. Not excited about work tomorrow.


Here's Chris Pine again

Yeah, you make me smile, too, Chris.

Cheers to staying strong.

Word up

Hey party people. How's it going?

Don't answer. Or do. Anyways, I've got a lot to say. I can't rant here, yes? Of course I can. It's MY f*cking blog. And I can say that. F*ck. F*@$. Fudge. Blast, I need to stop cursing like a sailor. That's not attractive, right? RIGHT? F*ck it. THATS HOW I FEEL.

What makes me so angry this morning? Well, I'm beginning to realize things I should stop doing. Drinks I should stop drinking. I.E. WHISKEY. Huh? Who cares? GREAT question. Why does it matter so much, you ask? Who cares about a little whiskey? That stuff is gross, Courtney. Ew. Ladies don't drink whiskey. (please insert disgusted look on my face RIGHT THE F*CK HERE)

I love whiskey. Love. That's right. I think I love whiskey more than I have loved any man. Have you heard that song by Jana Kramer? Whiskey is it's name. And no, this is not my sappy way of saying some dude reminds me of whiskey. I'm saying this because I like the song and what is the name of it? Whiskey! Imagine that!

Is this getting annoying yet? I'm annoyed. Is there anything else that's upsetting me, you ask? Why, yes, there is!

Today is about accepting for me. Accepting things that are bad for me. Like:
(you're going to learn that I live in Denial most of the time)

-Getting all worked up about silly things, like choosing not to drink whiskey anymore. If you love it so much, Courtney, why are you giving it up? Well, because I have been in denial for quite some time. I know that, in drinking whiskey, I'm essentially drinking a mixture of mashed up fermented bread blended with water. And sugar. Two things that I preach are terrible for you. Maybe because they are *slaps self in forehead*. Alas! It makes sense now!

-I need to buy a better quality coffee, if I'm going to continue drinking it. Every morning I start off my day with a big ol' mug of Folger's coffee, blended with 2tbs coconut oil and 2tbs grassfed butter. Well, I'm learning that often times many popular brands of ground up coffee is full of mycotoxin spores, or mold. See my issue is, I'm lazy. So buying expensive high quality coffee beans sounds like a lot of work to me. Probably because it's just more work. There I go again getting all worked up. The work is worth it, I accept the challenge. 

-I don't eat nearly enough veggies. But I recently listened to a podcast by Underground Wellness and Dr Andrea Maxim was the guest, and she was talking about detoxes. I plan on writing a whole blog about detoxes and sort of sum up the information provided. Anyways, it's a seven day detox involving eating only green veggies or veggies that grow above the ground. Also she has a food powder that you may choose to drink during the detox, more on this later. Challenge accepted. 

-I crave terrible things that are terrible for me. It's terrible I tell you. You know who some of the most spoiled employees on the planet are in regards to being provided free pastries and donuts? Nurses. This is just my opinion, and not proven, but based on the fact that every time I work there are donuts everywhere. Pumpkin. Flavored. Donut. Holes. Remember how much I like pumpkin spice? Yeah. I eat those donuts. Then 15 minutes later I look 3 months pregnant because of the terrible bloating and I regret it and hate myself. Not a good emotion to have related to eating. Goal: don't freaking give into work donuts. Willpower. Challenge accepted. 

-I don't study enough. Enough said. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's stupid and annoying and I have better things to do. Like listen to podcasts about things I actually enjoy learning about. I sense a change in career paths in your future, Courtney. Yes I do. But for now I need to study more. Challenge accepted. 

So today is a special day. Aside from all f these challenges and relizations, it is Man Crush Monday. As if I need a day to remind me of my man crushes because, for y'all I definitely don't. But today's addition is *drum roll*.....

Matt Chan. Heeeeellllllloo. He is a Crossfit Games competitor, super funny and sarcastic, and over all one hunk of a man. He stands up in what he believes in and is definitely not afraid to dish out the truth. For proof I'm providing you with a YouTube like that I can't/still don't know how to hyperlink on the blogger app so my apologies. http://youtu.be/udCcLJvZFdc

Watch and enjoy his beauty. Please. I sure wil be.

Here's some more. 

And some more. 

Cheers to challenges. And Matt Chan. ;)