A Spooky Tale for Halloween

Happy almost Halloween y'all! Something very spooky is happening at Melrose Place my apartment complex.

So as you might know, I have been dating my neighbor since August. He's lovely and I enjoy the proximity of my apartment to his. I left my spare set of keys with him back when I left for San Francisco in September. He placed them on his key rack by the door and when I came home 11 days later, they were gone. I was annoyed but I wasn't overly concerned. He had invited a group of his coworkers over after a Braves game and he thought that maybe one of them took my keys home accidentally and was too embarrassed to admit it. Since his coworkers haven't met me and don't know where I live, it's not like they'd be able to break into my place.

But then this past weekend, the key thief struck again. Jeremy's roommate has two vehicles - his van and his car. He keeps his keys on one carabiner and hangs it on the key rack. Someone took the van and the car keys from the carabiner but put the carabiner back on the hook between Friday and Sunday. Yesterday he saw that his van had been tossed but it was locked and there was no damage indicating entry without a key.

And the plot thickens.

Pure Barre

I tried Pure Barre this summer and liked it so much that I bought some class packs and continue to go. I think it complements CrossFit training and has improved my core strength immensely. There's also just some days where I'm looking for low-impact and a lower heart rate, and Pure Barre fits that bill.

My family came down to visit me for my birthday in August. My mom, sister, and I celebrated with a class at Pure Barre together. Recently one of the instructors commented on how good they were so clearly they left an impression.

I don't know how she gets up on her toes like that, but I am impressed.

I took this photo last summer back before I was allowed to go to Pure Barre with them, mostly because they were afraid I might embarrass them. That's why I practiced very hard. I still refuse to wear long sleeves and bootcut jazz pants though, no matter if it's a requirement of their club.

My mom and I went to Pure Barre Huntington together when I was back in New York. These are her special 100 Club socks that she received for completing her 100th class. I really want a pair.

Remember Pure Barre Bingo?

And this is a photo of my sister and me at Kevin Rathbun Steak for my birthday dinner.

Austin's Lady Bird Lake

It was definitely hard to find time to workout on tour - mainly because I had to ask permission to do anything. The more I travel for work, the more I realize that traveling for work isn't really my thing. This coming from a person who has been traveling for work since 2012...

The good thing about traveling for work when you manage to carve out an hour to do something without your colleagues is finding local running routes. The Driskill Hotel had these nifty little running maps of Lady Bird Lake. I got lost getting to the lake so I ran about an extra mile.

Sunday Run

Frank and I flew back to Atlanta yesterday and got home a little before 2 PM. It was good to be back home and we spent some quality time on the couch. I knew I wasn't going to hit my step goal by lying on the couch and was facing a $10 fee for my Pact app if I didn't get moving, so I went for a quick run on the Beltline at 6 PM. The nice thing about living this far west is that the sun still sets at 7 PM this late into the fall.

Atlanta, I love you.

Trevor

The world lost a truly beautiful person last week. My friend Trevor passed away and I am heartbroken. Trevor taught me so much about friendship. His love for others was genuine, and he had an almost incredible ability to read and connect with people. I attended his funeral on Friday. Five hundred people showed up, and hundreds more expressed their desire to be there in person. If you knew Trevor, you'd easily understand why so many people came to celebrate his life.

River North CrossFit and HeritageBBQ Chicago

I flew to Chicago last Wednesday for stop 3 on the HeritageBBQ by COCHON555 tour. (Fun fact, we're supposed to write Cochon555 when it's found in the middle of a sentence, but I think it looks better always capitalized and since this is my blog, I'm going to be a rebel and do what I want.) I overslept and had to take a later flight, but it worked out for the best because I got on the same flight with two of my coworkers. We had so much luggage because we had to bring a bunch of stuff from Toronto and it really helped to have all three of us. We landed at ORD and then took a shuttle to the rental car place. I was able to put my functional fitness to use by throwing a 79# bag of pop-up banners on my back and dragging it to the shuttle stop. The driver made some cute comment about how I must workout and then tried to take the bag from me. His tone changed after that.

By the grace of God, my schedule permitted me to drop in at River North CrossFit for the 8 AM class on Friday. I felt like such shit from San Francisco and Toronto - exhausted, hungry, bloated, dehydrated, and just plain frustrated. Getting an hour to myself to do what I love made all the difference. My only complaint about tour is not really having the space to recharge - both in time and physical space.

CrossFit Golden Gate and the Start of the HeritageBBQ Tour

This past month has been a whirlwind. I left Atlanta on September 11 for the first stop of Cochon555's HeritageBBQ tour in San Francisco. Our event was held at Magnolia Brewing in Dogpatch and the light of my life Colton came to help us sell merchandise. 

I fucking love this kid.

We had incredible dinners at The Battery, Dirty Habit, and at our own event. By Tuesday I was dying to do a WOD and was able to drop in at CrossFit Golden Gate for the noon class before my redeye to Toronto for stop two.

Confidence, Humility, and Being a Girl

I was born in 1986, and as a girl born in the 80s, I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be and that I am just as good as any boy. But then I was also told that my teachers were more likely to call on boys than the girls in class, that I wasn't a good math student because girls were better at things like reading and writing, and that I needed to prove myself every day to be seen as smart.

Once out of school, I kept being told how women have to act confident and work to be taken seriously in a workplace full of men, especially white straight men. I think there were maybe 8 white straight men in all 53 offices over at TFA, but dammit, I needed to learn to hold my own and be taken seriously by them. Every other Facebook post is about leaning in, conveying confidence, and the double standard of women being seen as bitches at work while men get seen as bosses for the same behavior. I still long for the days when Facebook was full of pictures of you making duck faces with your sorority sisters while your boyfriend threw up in the lefthand corner in a delightfully fucked up photobomb. Now between engagement rings, sonograms, and new houses, I have to be told how to function in the workplace as a woman and in the world as a woman, and oh wait, now you think I've gotten too muscular and I no longer look like a woman.

So this morning my shrink informs me that his hypothesis on why I suck at dating is that my confidence is too threatening and I need to tone it down so others can feel more comfortable being themselves around me while they get to know me. 

I'm just going to let that marinate for a moment.

(My hypothesis is that I go on dates with people I meet on the internet and I sleep with my neighbors. Now who has that degree is psychology?)

Now I know he can't have possibly meant that I need to make myself less than so that a man will like me more. Apparently he thinks this will help women to like me more too. I politely told him what I think of his hypothesis and limited myself to two f-bombs and only one you've got to be kidding me.

I was ticked off but I'm usually good at receiving feedback, so I reached out to the person I guess I'm kind of dating to ask his opinion. Bless his heart, he answered candidly.

Bless your heart is fuck you in Southern.

Addicted to CrossFit

I really didn't think that I was going to make it to 5:30 AM CrossFit today.

But then I couldn't sleep.

5:30 Club - So Blessed

I was in class with Gina Gallo at Bikram Yoga Roslyn in June, and she closed out the 90 minutes by sharing a little wisdom about being busy. She told us that when our days are really full and we have so many things we need to do and want to do, we should be thankful to have such rich lives and feel grateful for the opportunities instead of stressed out or resentful. At that point I was being paid to not really have a job, no one was offering me a job I actually wanted, and I was so exhausted from not sleeping that I acted like a zombie with an exceptionally short fuse. I swore I would be so grateful the next time I had a rich full life.

Well guys, I am super fucking thankful.

So fucking thankful that I had to start working out at 5:30 in the morning.

Rivka and I so happy after 3 RFT 100 doubleunders, 20 sumo deadlift high pulls @65#