Gentle reminders

I went to bed last night petrified. I had looked up the WOD for this morning and saw that it was Mini Murph. Yikes! I woke up before my alarm and made sure I fuelled up appropriately for it:

• 1/4 cup ground turkey (Tex Mex seasoned with lime juice)
• 1/2 oz cashews
• 1/2 banana (normally, I don’t do the banana, but this morning, I felt I could use the extra carbs. I’m glad I did this!)

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I hopped in the car and tried to get my head in the game. My butt was still sore from all the lunges on Monday so my head slowly started to tremble with fear. Just e gentle reminder that my butt still needs working on. I tried to keep a cool attitude though. Fake it until you make it kind of attitude!

Bo showed up and then there were two of us dreading the WOD. He also kindly gave me a 2-month supply of multivitamins for free. His wife had extras and he figured: share the love!

Coach AJ showed up and we warmed up. We discussed the WOD and strategy and I chose a plan of attack: 800m run, 10 x (5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats), 800m run. That seemed a little more decent than trying to do everything at once. The warm-up had some running in it and that made me dread the WOD even more. Just a gentle reminder that I am not an efficient runner.

We came back inside and set up our pull-up stations. I tried to do a few with just the red band, but seeing as there were 50 to do, I added the purple band as well. I was already tired and the WOD hadn’t even started. Just a gentle reminder that shift work, no matter the amount of sleep you get, wreaks havoc on your body.

3-2-1-GO!

I let everybody pass me easily and held out at the back. I did my 1st 800m run without stopping. It had rained earlier and although it wasn’t raining anymore, the air was cool and it felt good to run in cooler weather.I came back inside and jump don the rig to tackle my 1st set of pull-ups. I pretty much went with little rest for the 1st 5 rounds. I then allowed myself a sip of water and went back to work. I was determined to do all my push-ups RX and as I rested on my 6th set, I inhaled deeply and could smell the very typical rain smell in the air. It calmed me down and I kept going. Rounds 7, 8, 9 and 10 were a struggle. Not so much for the push-ups as I had anticipated, but the pull-ups were slowly doing my head in. I kept staring at the bar and my head was just telling me “Nope! No more!” Thank goodness, Coach AJ and Tracey were there to tell me to get back onto the bar. I listened to them, instead of my head and keep going.

After round 10, I took another sip of water and headed out for the last 800m run. Mark and Gail came out and ran with me. We did the first 400m and I was trying to potentialize on the downhills as much as I could and tried to pick up the spreed. I was struggling. I took of for the last 400m and Mark stayed with me. I felt like telling him to go back inside, I got this (after all, he had done the WOD with a 20# vest on and had finished way before I did), but I’m glad I didn’t. He was chatting me up while I picked up the speed a little more on the downhills. On the last uphill, Mark told me to give ‘er and not save anything. My head was saying I didn’t have anything left. Once again, I listened to Mark and picked up the pace until I was running full speed and made my way back inside. Just a gentle reminder that your head will want to quit before your body does. I looked at the clock: 31:10! I was exhausted, but so proud! I was expecting this to take me an hour! Just a gentle reminder that I am stronger and fitter than I think. When you doubt yourself, trust in the people who believe and support you.

I came back home on such a high! I showered,  dolled myself up and am now ready to spend a day with my entire family. The rain has picked up now and is a gentle reminder of the fall and winter weather slowly approaching.

All dolled up and on a natural high!

 

Rain on my car and Crossfit on my mind!

I still can’t believe how much my fitness has improved in the last few months. I am stronger, physically and mentally and a tad faster too. I am also more confident in what I can achieve and it is empowering to see how much I can get done. Just a gentle reminder to trust your body more than your head. While your head will screw with you, your body will show you how strong you really are.

In other news, French Nanny (from now on, she will be Nanny) is a delight to work with. She has picked up the slack this week when temporary Nanny got sick and she has raised above and beyond the call of duty. She has cleaned up my floors more than I do myself, has done our laundry, even though it wasn’t asked of her and she plays tirelessly with the girls, so much so that they fall asleep before hitting their pillows at night. To top it all off, she woke me up with coffee in bed yesterday afternoon, after my night shift! I told Ben he had some fierce competition: she makes me coffee AND she cleans! Lol! He said she was Mary Freakin’ Poppin! I will make sure to do everything in my power so she doesn’t fly away from us. Just a gentle reminder that there are still good, loving people out there.

Going With The Flow

Early wake up call for another Oly lifting class this morning.

What we did today

Power Snatch + OHS + Snatch x6 E2M

This was supposed to be a repeat of what we did 2 weeks ago, but since I was at work two weeks ago, it was my 1st go at it. Now that we have the smaller plates, I was able to get closer to the exact weights I needed in order to do 75% x2 (48.5#), 80% x2 (52.5#) and 85% x2 (mine was supposed to be 55.25#, but I did 55#).

My first round at 48.5# went pretty bad when I couldn’t do the OHS. I set the bar down and started the whole sequence from the beginning and pulled it off. My second attempt went well too. I felt a little sore on my upper back this morning from yesterday’s WOD, but it didn’t seem to affect my snatch today. It is still my trouble area though and I was glad to succeed both rounds at 55# without too much trouble. Maybe, one day, I’ll feel secure about doing 1 rep at 65#. I was just glad to see I didn’t have my usual fear of commitment about dropping in to the squat on my last reps and it felt a little more natural today.

Power Clean + 2 pause jerk (2s pause) E2M

I was thinking of getting up to my 85% (76.5#) for this one, but it turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated so I stayed at my 80% (72#). What we had to do was to power clean the bar. Dip as if we were going to jerk, but before splitting, we had to hold our dip at the bottom for 2s. We also weren’t allowed to re-dip before doing the split jerk. Turns out my butt was sticking out on the dip so I chose to stay at 72# and making sure I was tucking my tail in on each pause. I was getting tired towards the end!

I took my time coming back home and had forgotten Béa had her follow-up appointment with the dermatologist this morning. Ben was kind enough to take her in so I wouldn’t have to rush. It was nice! I had a lovely breakfast and then, New Potential Nanny showed up on time (how refreshing!) in order to spend the day with me and the girls and see how our routine goes. So far, so good! I like her. She’s really sweet and energetic and it doesn’t hurt that she speaks French, this way, I’m not the only one speaking French to the girls at home! I was able to run some errands all by myself during the day which is always nice and right now, she has taken the girls to the swimming pool to give me a break. The girls were super wired this afternoon, so it was nice to get an extra set of hands to help out!

Keeping my fingers crossed it will all work out for the best! For now, I will drop to the floor and roll my sore back without having to anticipate some toddler jumping on my belly! 🙂

Stress Management

So, we, as a family, have been under tremendous stress lately.

It all started last Wednesday evening, when I sent Nanny a gentle reminder that she was working the next day at 0830. Yes, I’ve had to send her reminder for every single one of her shifts with us, even though her work schedule is all entered in a Google Calendar shared with her. It’s been a struggle… She never responded to my text, nor my Facebook message. As I got ready for bed, I told Ben to get up a little early as I had the weird feeling Nanny wasn’t gonna show up the next day and he’d probably have to take the girls with him to work (I was working too).

As predicted, Nanny didn’t show up. Not only did she not show up, she never called or texted to give us a bogus explanation. I was at work and in charge and could have probably come home, but Ben assured me he could manage the girls and work. He came home exhausted that night and I was fuming. It had been the 3rd time Nanny hadn’t shown up for work without a phone call or explanation, she has been late a few times before as well and has never bothered to call us to let us know AND she has shown up to work hungover twice, smelling like a barrel of booze. The last time she did that (2 weeks ago!), I had a chat with her about the standards of care I was expecting when it came to my children and who was taking care of them and I thought I had been pretty clear that she had been sub-par and that I was expecting more out of her.

Well, let’s just say Nanny is no longer employed with us. She got back to me Saturday, asking if I wanted her to work on Sunday, she was in the hospital, her phone was dead, blah, blah, blah. Errr… First of all, check your schedule because you’re not working Sunday. Second of all, did you not read the email I sent you FIRING YOU?!? Third, you couldn’t find anybody with a phone you could borrow? Or, I don’t know, ask your nurse to call your boss WHO WORKS IN THE HOSPITAL to let her know you wouldn’t be in for work???

She was supposed to bring our keys Saturday evening, she canceled. She was supposed to bring our keys Sunday afternoon, she canceled. I told her I needed the keys today at 10am or else I would be forced to change the locks and it would come out of her last pay check. Don’t fcuk with the BabyMama Bear! Not surprisingly, when you threatened to take money away, she showed up, but was missing the key to our shed. Ben took some money out of her last pay to replace the lock (it’s the second time we’ve had to change the shed lock because she had lost the key previously).

I don’t like being angry. It takes a lot of negative energy out of me and it does nothing good for me. However, don’t take me for a fool either. When it comes to my children, I could easily tip into the rage range of emotions if you try to bullshit me.

We have been super lucky with a temporary Nanny coming out of the blue. She is the daughter of a co-worker and she will fill-in for us until we find somebody permanent or until the end of the summer, whichever comes first. She is young, but responsible, the girls love her and have a good time with her. I don’t need to remind her when she has to come in and the fact that she picked up so spontaneously and has had no issues with the girls takes some stress away from the whole situation.

Needless to say, the Nanny search is on. I really wish we could find somebody long-term, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. I have some interviews lined up for this week and for now, I feel reassured when the girls are with temporary-Nanny.

I kind of really want to go to Crossfit tomorrow, but with only 3hrs of sleep post night shift today and only 2 meals in my body, I know that I won’t be rested or fuelled enough in order to perform. I will stay home and maybe work on some KB stuff in the yard and do some DUs. Ben and I are already exhausted from a long year of work, this is something we didn’t need to deal with. We are very much looking forward to our little upcoming Cuban vacation.

I got to come home to this little darling who snuggled up to me in bed, hugging me and kissing me. I don’t care that I look exhausted (I was), no makeup on and am ready for bed, I love how real this picture is:

Best Perks of Motherhood

Work’d To The Bone

I managed to “sleep in” until 0700 this morning and then got ready for a really busy day. First, there was the WOD:

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Work’d:

5 rounds of 4 minutes/round divided as follows:

2 minutes to do:

• 10-8-6-4-2 deadlifts
• maximum pull-ups without coming off the bar
• use the remaining time to do maximum DUs (not consecutive)

Use the remaining 2 minutes to rest and load up your bar heavier for the next round of deadlifts.

I did FG2+ with the following modifications:

Deadlifts:

05#x10, 105#x8, 135#x6, 135#x4, 155#x2

Pull-ups with red and purple bands:

7-5-5-4-5 Those were a bit frustrating because there were so many of us on the rig that I kept kicking (and getting kicked) by the person in front of me.

DUs: 7-10-9-4-8

Total score: 64. Very low, but my deadlifts were heavy as sh**! and even though I still don’t master my DUs, they are much better than they were a week ago!

I then rushed to the grocery store, came back home, did 3 loads of laundry, cleaned the upstairs, cooked dinner for tonight and now, I’m finally sitting my butt on my lovely couch! The Nanny has been a good help this morning by keeping the girls out of my legs while I was cleaning

My Birthday Girls!

Today is a very special day in our household. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s our daughters’ birthdays!

Today, Rina turns 4 and Béatrice turns 2! We had a pretty fun day in store for them and it started out at our favourite breakfast joint, where the were allowed to open their presents from Aunty Sandy:

Sticker book!

Puzzles!

They were pretty stoked about the colouring books,stickers, crayons and puzzles and we even had to do some puzzles before breakfast arrived. We then went for a stroll downtown to browse at Capital Iron (another favourite of this little family) where we found some outdoor lights and a timer to decorate for the holidays. While we were browsing through the lightroom, the girls thought it was a blast and I have to admit, I kind of just wanted to stay there for a while. It was such a neat idea to display the different lighting options in a dark room and I love the mood it put me in!

She’s just so cool!

We continued shopping and strolling and I finally found my perfect hydration bottle! (Camelbak PODIUM BIG CHILL in steel blue) I had been looking for this specific bottle for a while now and was elated to finally find one! This one contains 25oz so I know that if I drink 2 or more of these a day, I’ll be well hydrated! 🙂

Look in the background: 2 glass ornaments the girls received for their birthday!

We came back home for a quick lunch and then Béatrice went on to punch the birthday cake before I could put the candles on it. Thank goodness I had taken a picture of it last night! Now, I will admit, this cake and icing is from a box. I am NOT a baker. I can take good pictures every once in a while and I can decently knit, but a baker, I am certainly not. I did, however, do all the writing on the cake myself. It wasn’t an extravagant cake, but the girls were happy with it and considering they are only interested in the icing anyway, I’m glad I didn’t fret over it too much!

Ta-Daa!

We cleaned up the cake as best we could and put some candles on it. We sang “Happy birthday” to Rina and she got to blow her 4 candles and then we repeated with BeZU and she got to blow her 2 candles. They were pretty stoked about it! Then, they opened up the remainders of their presents and I can honestly say, I think they were pretty spoiled and happy with what they got!

Having fun with their Jello Kitty dolls!

They are currently napping and we are awaiting a potential nanny candidate to show up for an interview. I am very sad to see Nanny leave (at the latest, she wants to be done on February 1st). She has been the best nanny we have had so far and she has even agreed to train our potential new nanny. We were supposed to interview another one at lunchtime, but she cancelled this morning. I don’t know what it is about nannies, but if it were me and I was unemployed, I would do pretty much everything in my power to make sure I show up for an interview… Rant over. Looking for a nanny is stressful, I’ve talked about it before. I can only hope that Nanny’s replacement will be just as good as she’s been to our family. Wish us luck!

Just Another Day In My BabyMama Life!

Rina woke up at 0500 this morning. I was pooped and stayed in bed while she went to the washroom and I didn’t think about it until 0530. It was too quiet in the house and Rina wasn’t in bed with us…

I got up and found her in the washroom, at the sink, with the faucet running and trying to wash her hands. Upon taking a closer look, I discovered that her hands and fingers were covered in a multitude of shades of nail polish. The sink was also painted with those same colors as was the countertop and a bit had gone onto one of Ben’s sweaters that he had left in the washroom the night before… Great! I spent the next 20 mins trying to was her hands, the sink and countertop with nail polish remover. When I was done, the entire house smelt like nail polish remover. Bleh! I took her to bed with us and slept for about 30 mins before getting up for the day.

After my morning shower, I was looking for my glasses. They weren’t where I usually leave them. Weird… I asked Rina if she had taken them and she pointed to the glasses case that I keep on the countertop and said:

I put them in the box, Mama!

Huh! She has never touched or played with my glasses before so I was suspicious. I unzipped the case and found my glasses, covered with nail polish! AWE-SOME!

I managed to remove all of it with nail polish remover, but now, the lenses are a bit cloudy… I guess the remover must have altered some of the anti-reflection treatment on the lenses…

After breakfast, I was trying to send an email to my mom when the Mac Spinning Ball of Death kept appearing on my computer screen. The more I tried to do things on my computer, the more the ball would spin and the applications would crash. I panicked. I have all of the girls pictures since their births on my computer and have NEVER. BACKED. THEM. UP! A few days ago, I realized we didn’t have ANY pictures of Beatrice’s birth. That’s because Ben had them on his previous computer (whose hard drive also died on him) and we lost them when the computer went kaput! Thank goodness my mom had copies of them and shared them back with us through Dropbox! I had just gotten the pictures back, I wasn’t gonna lose them so quickly! Time to bring out my external hard drive and get to work before my hard drive died on me. I managed to rescue everything and Ben left for work with my computer with hopes of being able to fix it without me having to buy a new one. I wouldn’t mind a new MacBook, but I can’t afford one right now.

You don’t realize how much you use your laptop until you don’t have it anymore. Looking up a recipe, printing out a knitting pattern, sending emails, blogging. Thank goodness I still have my iPad and the wireless keyboard!

The rest of the day was spent dealing with mega tantrums (Rina) and feeling defeated by my knitting. It seems every project I’ve started lately doesn’t go my way and now that I have well over a foot of my Easy Blanket done, I have to start over from scratch as I’ve made a mistake somewhere and I’ve spent the last 3 days trying to fix it without success. I’ll just start over and hopefully, it will go seamlessly! To add to my distress, I know I will have to miss Crossfit tomorrow as Ben is flying out for the weekend on an early flight. Anyone reading willing to volunteer to come watch the girls at 0530 so I can go to my beloved 0600 class?!?

On the bright side of things, we have hired a new nanny and she has been coming in a few days a week to figure out the ropes of our house and the girls. She is doing a good job and I’m quite pleased with her! She came in tonight to do the evening routine (dinner, bath and bedtime), which means this Mama was able to bathe by herself! The luxury I tell you! It also means that I’m sitting in the livingroom, typing away while the girls are being bathed. Double treat for me!

Keep Your Chin Up

Today, I did something I’m not proud of. I walked out of the box after the WOD not establishing eye contact with anybody, head bowed and crying. That is NOT who I am and I will explain how I got there

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I started the Thrusters at 55#, but it was too heavy. I needed to warm-up to a lesser weight, so I scaled back at 45# and went from there. I managed to get up to 60# before failing on the 3rd rep at 65#. I tried for a second time for a set of 65#, but I couldn’t even get the bar over my shoulders, so I was done!

After those Thrusters, it was time for the WOD. My legs were already jelly and still sore from the lunges on Monday… 😦

I got my 26# KB ready and my 20″ box as well. As for the Walkover Push-ups, I had looked up the video link:

I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I knew I wanted to finish at least 2 rounds. After the 1st round, I was aiming for 3 rounds, even though I was struggling. In the middle of the 2nd round, I started fighting back tears. I’m not sure where it came from, but I had a big lump in my throat and I just felt like bursting out into tears. I took a couple of deep breaths and kept plotting along, all the while, swallowing the tears and the sobs. With 2 mins left, I managed to finish my 3rd round and I was aiming to at least complete 1 Box-jump. I didn’t make it there, by only a few seconds as I finished my round of Taters.

I crouched up on the ground and let the tears flow, trying not to sob uncontrollably. I gave Coach Caleb my sad score of 162 and walked out, head hung low and tears still flowing, more heavily now. I know exactly what happened. I wasn’t crying because of my score, I was just letting go of the accumulated stress of the past few weeks. Being alone with the girls, Ben being away, the whole “trying to find a suitable nanny” saga had taken their toll on me and I broke down. I had been pushing down my frustrations and the WOD just brought it right out to the raw surface.

I sat in my car and had a good cry, until another lady from the box noticed I was crying and sat with me in the car. I know her face, but I don’t even know her name, so I feel bad about that, but she listened to me and gave me a warm hug. She also said she would put out feelers for potential nannies amongst her acquaintances, which I thought was really nice. Then she told me something that really helped: “Chin up Mama, you got your good cry out, now it’s time to look on the positive side of things. You did good today and Crossfit helped you get out the bad stuff. Now, you can focus on the good stuff.” She was absolutely right. We hugged one more time, said goodbye and I drove home.

On the radio, the cheesy Katy Perry song was on and even though both Ben and I are sick of this song, I cranked up the volume because

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

P.S. Thanks again lady from the Box. You were a friend and a good ear to listen to my snotty blabber when I needed one. See you Friday! 😉

Keep Calm and Cable On!

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my sleep-in days. Don’t get fooled, sleeping in means my alarm goes off at 0700 instead of 0500 (for Crossfit). I was especially looking forward to sleeping in this morning. That went down the drain when Rina showed up in our room at 0630. I motioned to her to come snuggle next to us, only to be replied with “Mama, pants are wet.” Ugh! I followed her to the bathroom to remove her pee-soaked pyjama pants and socks with the mandatory stepping into the pee puddle with my bare feet (Yuk! When will I learn to turn the lights on when she tells me she peed herself?!?)

After cleaning up the puddle and the carpet, I came back to bed to read a bit on the iPad before getting up for the day and the usual routine. I sent a text to the nanny I met with yesterday to see if she would be available to meet up with Ben later this week, but it turns out she might move to Calgary and she needed time to think things through. Seriously? Why is it so hard to find a nanny for the girls? It is time-consuming and I’m getting so frustrated about the whole thing. So now, instead of perusing the classifieds and nanny websites, I’m taking a break and working on knitting cables. I’m currently working on this little project for Rina:

Monika Sirna’s Everyone’s Cowl and Everyone’s Hat

It has cables in it, which I have never done before, but thanks to Google and YouTube, I’ve been working away at it! Knitting is a good stress reliever for me and Rina will have a warm cowl and hat in the end… Win-win if you ask me! 😉

My A$$ Is On Fire!

Ben came back last night and it’s good to be a family of four again and not feel so much like a single mom. (Nothing against the single moms out there, but being a single parent is TOUGH!) That also means I was able to go to Crossfit this morning! Yay!

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I PR’d my deadlift and hit triple digits (lifting-wise) for the first time since I started Crossfit! Yay! I Here were my reps:

75-80-85-90-100#

I was a happy camper and I think I could have kept increasing the weights too, so I’ll keep pushing next time!

The WOD looked simple enough, but it was just as its name states: you just had to chip through it!

I managed to do the FG without any modifications (15# OH walking lunges, 15 pull-ups with red and green band and 100 single skips). Straight pull-ups are a whole different story compared to kipping ones and that’s why I went with the red and green. I cam in last out of 6 with a time of 7:28 and my tush was on fire after all those lunges! Nothing wrong with that, it means I’m working it out and getting stronger! 😉

Event though we weren’t that many people this morning, everybody was chipper (see what I did, chipper for Chipped UP! ;)) and we were all joking around. Coach Caleb was back from his little vacation and from the sound of it, he had a great time. It was nice to see him back this morning!

As for me, even though Ben is back, he’s also back to work, so it’s yet another mommy-daughters’ day today with the usual: laundry, cleaning and nanny hunting. Here’s hoping we don’t go too crazy today as it’s raining outside and I guess we’ll have an indoor day… Hope yours is a good one!

My Motivation

I’ve had a few conversations lately about my motivation for doing Crossfit and although my primary reason is to be a “better me”, I also do it for the benefit of my family. My husband always scolds me whenever I look at the WOD posted on the blog the night before I go in and my answer is always the same:

It doesn’t matter what the WOD is. It’s always hard and I’m still gonna show up for the 0600 class. I love the challenge, the time I can take for myself to focus on my own little person. Plus, I paid for the membership, so I might as well go! 😉

Coach Caleb was sick this morning (get well soon!) and Coach Cam (the BOX‘s owner) took over the class. We were also talking about motivation and how some people “cherry pick” their WODs. I just don’t see the point in “cherry picking”. My view on things is Crossfit is there to make you a better, well-rounded person/athlete. If you skip the WODs that look hard or, let’s say, include burpees because you hate them, then you’re not working on your weaknesses. Chances are, by skipping things that scare you or that you don’t like, they will always remain hard and therefore unpleasant. If you push yourself though, you WILL improve and maybe even learn to love (yeah right!) your obstacles!

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I managed a new PR for the back squats at 85#! That really pumped me up for the WOD! 🙂

We did this one back in August and I had done the TG with 18# Russian KBS and knee push-ups, finishing with a combined time of 3:05

Today, I did the FG with 50 singles, 26# Russian KBS and full push-ups finishing with a time of combined time of 4:06. Yes, it did take me longer, but I’ve increased the difficulty of this WOD so I’m pretty happy about my time. The hardest part of this WOD was definitely the EVERYTHING! It was my 1st time doing them with the 26# KB instead of the 18# and 5 rounds of double crunches took its tool on me. Not to mention the push-ups. I did it though and there’s nothing like this sense of accomplishment!

I will leave you with a few pictures I took yesterday of my main 2 motivators. Love these girls more than words can say!

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Now wish me luck, I’m placing an add for a nanny to take care of those gorgeous girls when I go back to work. If you know anybody interested, send them my way! 🙂