I don’t even know.. this shit’s so old now! Ugh. Thank God Russell keeps the site updated.

500m Row
20-HSPU’s
40-Box Jump Overs (24/20″)Feet must touch top of box
60-One Armed KB Push Press (55/35#)
80-KB Goblet Squats (55/35#)
100-AB Mat Sit-Ups
400m Run

I finished in 29:23. Just under 30 min. That was brutal! But I RXed it, minus the abmat and 45lb plate for my HSPUs. 😀 😀 😀

So… we were headed to Vero Beach for the weekend to see Dave’s family and to partake in a surprise birthday for his brother. I was running errands before we left, and decided to call the Ale House one more time to see if anyone had turned it in. They had me on hold for so long, I finally hung up, and as I did, I noticed it was 11:11 on my phone..

The night before, I had seen 11:11 three different times, and thought, wow… what are the odds? I haven’t seen this in awhile?

So.. I called back, and the girl confirmed that No, sorry, nobody had turned it in. 🙁

I decided to call YogaBerry again and ask, just in case. The girl who answered said “well, we have lots of rings here… what does yours look like?”

I described it in detail, from the white gold/rhodium plating on the underside wearing away to the 3 stones on top.. and she said quietly.. “I think we have your ring here..”

I LOST IT. She was all like “no! don’t get your hopes up! What if it isn’t it???”

I made a quick U-turn and headed to YoBe. I was there within 2 minutes and kinda went running in. She looked at me and knew who I was by how I was acting, apparently, and reached into the drawer and held it up. She asked “is this your ring..?”

I took one look at it and burst into tears. I couldn’t even move. I just stood there crying with my hands covering my face. The other patrons must’ve been like, what the hell..? Why is she crying??

Awesome YoBe girl then said “Noo!! Don’t cry!! You’re gonna make me cry!!!” and then the whole place was emotional! Hah All  could do was stand there and cry with my face covered.  I had found my ring!  She handed it to me and I immediately put it on my finger. I couldn’t even believe I had it back! All the anguish and stress and pain and guilt I had been feeling, all came down on me right then, all at once. I had my ring back.

I gave her a hug over the counter and she explained that an older lady had found it outside under the table (where Dave and I must’ve been sitting) and had turned it in. I have no idea exactly what day, but really? It was just sitting outside, under the table?? Wow… Unbelievable. What if I had looked there on that Saturday when we were at First Watch? Why didn’t I?

I don’t know.. lesson learned. That ring is not to be worn. Something so special and sacred to me as that, something so irreplaceable.. needs to be kept safe.

I went to my jewelers yesterday (Monday the 22nd) and dropped it off to have it cleaned, polished, re-plated and re-sized. When I bought that ring, I had it made in an 8.5.  Yesterday Bill measured my ring finger and determined it was a size 7 now.

MY RING SIZE HAS GONE DOWN BY 1 and a HALF! Really??? I could’ve even put on a 6.5 but it was a little snug. No wonder it fell off!

Here are some shots I took of it.

This one’s under this ASET tool thing. http://www.americangemsociety.org/aset-reg-tools

Keep in mind, the hole I had to look through was about the diameter of a drinking straw, if not less.. It took a steady hand to get my phone to take this shot. 🙂

My ring under the ASET tool

And this is my ring to the right of a new little ring I found on ebay. I’m having it resized to fit my finger. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s really pretty and really cute!

It felt really good to be back in the gym today. Like slowly my life is being restored, at least the parts of it I can control. As long as I make it to the gym, my body and mind take care of the rest. I just need to get there.

Today we had a tough one, but doable. It was just challenging.

10-1 squat cleans 115/75? I did 75lbs and RXed the weight.
1-10 lateral burpees

20 min timecap

I got all the way down through my set of 5 squat cleans, and the back pain I was having on the muscle, on the right side, was so unbearable that I didn’t want to finish, so I switched to power cleans.  Once I switched, I knocked the last few out, easy peasy!

I finished in 18:55, which was awesome. I wanted to definitely make it within the 20 min time cap, and I did!

If you’re up to date on my incredible life, you’re may be wondering if I found my ring yet, and the answer is no.. but thanks. 🙁  I’m still searching, in fact I went through 5 more garbage bags tonight (from the KITCHEN.. gross.. old chicken, coffee grounds, onion peels.. at least we’ve been eating healthy..) but I’ve found that whenever I get my hopes up, I only get let down that much more, so I need to accept the fact that it’s gone and just get over it and move on. Keeping the faith and thinking someday it’ll show up again is only going to set me up for failure, especially since I can’t control the outcome or its whereabouts, and all that jazz.

Does that seem really negative? Welcome to Realist Alicia. The real me when strength and positivity and motivation and success and joy and happiness aren’t present. Defeated, Realist, Alicia. The “what the fuck is the point of continuing to search when it’s probably in a landfill somewhere” mentality. That’s kinda where I’m at. It’s really super awesome. The feeling comes and goes, sometimes I’m fine, sometimes I just can’t believe at how horrible of a person I am for being so careless with something so important and irreplaceable.

Fuck I sound like I just lost my soulmate of 65 years. It’s just a ring. It’s just a few stones. I need to get over myself and realize that most people are only concerned out of politeness, not because they actually give a shit. I hate fake, forced sympathy. I don’t want anyone to choke out apologies out of obligation.  I know some people genuinely feel for me, but I can only be this way for so long. I need to get over it, and deal with the realization that it’s most likely gone and won’t be found.

I was going to go to the gym this morning BUUUUUT (there’s this but…) as I was getting dressed for the gym, I realized something very personal, special, and near and dear to me was missing. It’s an heirloom, that I stupidly wear daily, and everywhere. I lost my ring.

My schedule stopped and everything else came to a screeching halt. Dave and I spent the day tearing everything apart in search of it. I’m talking we bought a metal detector to go through the vinyl trash (which is what’s left over after peeling decals all day, which I did yesterday), after we picked it all apart piece by piece. I’m talking pulling trash out of the dumpster, crawling into the dumpster and digging around, ripping sheets off the bed, shaking out folded laundry, inspecting the garbage disposal, taking the washing machine apart, searching the grass, dug through our garbage at home, the vacuum cleaner.. seriously, I’m going to x-ray my dogs if I need to.

Everything I’ve done today, I’ve been consumed with searching. I called the two places I went to yesterday, nothing. I’ve texted people, I’ve emailed customers.. the nicest people too. Everyone reassuring me that if they find it, they’ll let me know. I can’t believe I emailed customers.

I’m a mess. I’m going through the 5 stages of grief, except I keep going back and forth from Anger to Depression to Acceptance. I can’t pick just one though, because there’s a chance it IS around somewhere.. then again, in our line of sticky business, if it got stuck to some material when I was working yesterday, my time to find it is limited, because that material will be trash very soon, if not already.

I’m such an asshole. Dave always warned me to be careful with it, that I shouldn’t be wearing something so special and so completely ENTIRELY IRREPLACEABLE. I take it off for the gym and for cooking, but.. that’s it. And now it’s fucking gone. Something I’ve held on to since I was like, 7 years old, and I fucking lost it at the office, or somewhere in between. I used to hide the original ring in my dollhouse, I did for years, and I knew it would be safe there. If only I was still that smart.

Anyway.. life is still on hold. I go back to feeling normal, and then I realize it’s gone, and I have this wave of emotion sweep over me. Then I try to do the whole ‘it’s only stuff’ thing, and that doesn’t work too well. I don’t know what to do but it makes me sick just thinking about something so special and important to me being gone for good. 🙁

It’s just stuff, right? Meh. The first picture was taken the day I picked up my ring, back in Sept 2010. I had the ring custom made to accommodate the 3 stones. The two outside ones were from that ring I hid in my dollhouse, and the center one was from my grandmother’s wedding ring, which my mom later had set into a ring for my Dad. Awesome. Nothing important, no big deal. Probably in the fucking garbage somewhere and I’m running out of time, yet every time I go digging through the trash, it feels like I’m doing it in vain, and I don’t know why.

I will never own diamonds like that again. I don’t deserve to.  I’m so sorry, Daddy, for being so careless. 🙁

For the first time ever, I RXed a WOD with Double Unders. I was BEEEAMMMMING when I finished!!

We worked on Front Squats mostly, and the beginning part was 4 rounds of max reps of front squats at body weight. I COULD’VE done it, but I chose not to, since my reps would’ve been like.. 5. total.

I ended up squatting 165 with Jake at the gym, and I got a total of 20 front squats at that weight. I was walking around earlier wondering why my butt muscles were sore, and then I remembered the front squats.. aww yeeaaah.

The WOD was the following:

8 min AMRAP

1 power clean
1 front squat
1 push press

20 DUs

Each round, you increase the rep count by 1, so then I did 2 power cleans, 2 front squats, 2 push press, etc. but the DUs stay the same at 20.

I ended up finishing 4 full rounds and then did the 5, 5, 5 part of my 5th set. I didn’t make it to the 5th round of DUs, BUT the important part is, I ACTUALLY DID THEM!!! I didn’t do them very well, and they absolutely aggravated my calves and shins, but I fucking did them. I was super excited and proud of myself!!! 🙂 *beaming*

and now my body is paying for it today, but that’s alright. That’s what BCAAs are for.. tomorrow’s Saturday WOD should be fun. hah

I’m back into my slacker ways. It’s amazing how great it is to work out when you have nothing else going on, yet once you get back into your busy as shit routine, it’s so hard to make time or find time or to justify working out. I laid in bed for 20 min this morning toying with the idea of getting up to make the 7a class, and I went over the WOD in my head, got up, walked around, checked the AC, pet the dogs, and went back to bed, saying that my feet and calves just weren’t ready for those DUs yet. I also only had 5 hours of sleep, so I just kept telling myself I’d go tonight.

Now.. I HAVE to go tonight, since I didn’t go yesterday (sorry Jamie! I let you down..) But again, with all this shit coming up, and happening and being BUSY, it’s nice to just.. relax… ahhhh… which is exactly what I did last night when I finally got home. I even made some sweet potato hash in bulk, but not before I returned my ORGANIC sweet potatoes that I had bought two days earlier that were turning wrinkly and mushy and GROSS. Fuckers didn’t even last 2 days. So.. 9:30 at night and I’m returning organic produce.. who does that?? The girl who spent $10 on sweet potatoes does.. and I bought a whole bunch of regular old GMO sweet potatoes instead. And they were amazing, let me tell you.  AND they’ll last for another 2 weeks on my counter, too. damn it.

So anyway.. Hero Omar.. We did this on Tuesday! He was bruuuutal. Oh NBD, thrusters and burpees..

10 Thrusters 95/65 (I RXed!)
15 bar facing burpees
20 thrusters
25 BFP
30 thrusters
35 BFP

18:28

My goal was to beat my friend Garrett’s time, cause he challenged me to! We were looking at his time, of 18:36 and I was like.. alright! Let’s do this! And he said something along the lines of oh yeah you got this.. so.. towards the end, I had to step it up and just keep moving with the burpees. One, and then another and then another. I would much rather have done regular burpees but noooo we had to hop over the bar (no skipping or side stepping, but a singular, feet together, forward facing jump) Just KEEP MOVING.

and I did it. 🙂

The day after my Mommy’s birthday, we were still in Traverse City and at the suggestion of my friend, Kyle, I decided to check out Traverse City’s finest Crossfit facility! It was awesomely brutal. I even got up a little early to make sure my pot of coffee brewed properly, or I would’ve been in BIG trouble.. The box was about 20 min away from where we were staying, so I also wanted to make sure I could find the place, and to allow ample “freak out cause I dont know where I’m going” time.

The place itself is inside an old elementary school, which I thought was kinda badass. They’ve converted about have the old school into various offices and rooms for all their equipment. Never seen anything like it, really! There were so many out of towners who showed up, that we ended up doing the entire WOD and warm up outside. This usually means it’s going to be worse than normal. 😀 I think there were around 30 people total, and only around 5 or 6 were residents.

Our WOD:

We ended up doing 400m sandbag carries, and OHS. 5 rounds of them!!

I think the rep count was 15 OHS, of which I did 65lbs for, and then the 400m run, with a 30lb sandbag.

I ended up finishing in 33 min, I believe? It wasn’t pretty. I only really ran for the first 400m with my sandbag. The rest was a brisk walk/jog thing. The sandbags they used were really bumpy, and not the smooth, fine sand I’m used to at CFTC. No biggie! The bags had a shit ton of handles, so you could grab them anywhere, it was just a matter of getting comfy with it. Good stuff. Thanks guys, for letting me drop in!! I’d definitely recommend this place. 🙂

Traveling WOD!!! I love traveling WODs, because I get to visit new gyms and meet new people.

If anyone ever told me that someday I’d say shit like ‘I love traveling to new gyms to work out while I’m on vacation, oh and I love meeting new people, YAY!’ I would’ve rolled my eyes and argued with them til we were no longer friends.

Yeah, well, now I enjoy doing that. Thanks CrossFit!  So.. yes, Crossfit Connex is my mom’s home CF box, in Madison, WI. I had the pleasure of going in on Wednesday at 6:30a and working out. YES.. I got up at like, 5a and went to the gym, while I was on vacation. John was so sweet and even got up to make me coffee! Aawwww!!! I really have a hard time working out without coffee first, so this made my morning.

It was just myself and a newbie at Connex, Doug. (See?! New friends!! We’re already friends on FB, too!) Kief was there to cheer us on and keep us motivated, too. Talked us through the lifts, and really just kept us going. Thanks Kief, I appreciate that!

After an awesome warm up, we did a shitload of thrusters.

It was supposed to be the following:

20 min EMOM
even min do as many squat clean thrusters as possible
rest on the odd minutes.

I hate squat cleans, especially with weight that’s not so heavy (they really hurt my back after awhile)
so I opted to do 55lb thrusters instead.

I ended up getting 138 total thrusters in the 10 working minutes. Good stuff!

Thanks Emily and Kief at Connex, for having mee!! Always a pleasure.

So I went to Wisconsin last week to visit my mom for her birthday.. I arrived on 7/2/13, and had every intention of working out at her gym, Crossfit Connex that day, but do you remember my Cheese Bread post?? Yeah.. I went to Stella’s, and I bought cheese bread, and I ate it.

and it made me sick. Miserably sick. Here’s what I wrote on FB about it.

I did it to myself.. I asked my Mom to stop for hot and spicy cheese bread from Stella’s Bakery, ate almost half a loaf, and now I’m wondering why I’m all lethargic, sleepy and mopey. Oh man. This gluten free lifestyle is not forgiving when you overindulge. ‎#lessonlearned

Yep.. I was sick. Like laying on the couch and couldn’t move sick. Like, I need to drink as much water as possible to flush this shit out of me sick. Like, lethargic and passing out and couldn’t keep my eyes open to send a text message sick. 

I remember last year when I ate bagels for the first time in 6 weeks, and how miserable I was, but I didn’t think cheese bread would do it! I was hoping it wouldn’t, anyway.. then again, half a loaf of hot and spicy cheesy anything should make anyone sick.  My experience with my bagels last year was similar to my experience last week. No doubt it’s the wheat, bread, gluten. No more.

For the rest of the week, I ate pretty well, and I gradually felt better over the course of a few days, but I was kinda bloated all week though. I never felt back to my 100%.

I am officially gluten free, because it AFFECTS MY LIFE. Bread makes me sick. I am choosing to not eat it, and by doing so, I am choosing to be healthier and happier. It’s not necessary and I don’t need it! Eating a paleo diet and doing Crossfit has made me a healthier, happier, and better person.

Bye, Stella’s! You’ve been great and the memories will be wonderful.