I have to say, while Blogmas was a blast, it feels sort of nice to be back in the swing of things with normal posts.

Before we get into the food+fitness+animals (#prevetlife or something), I wanted to talk about one thing that’s been on my mind these past few days.

I love exercise. That’s no secret. And I’m lucky that I happen to love something that is so good for my health. But one thing I’ve struggled with in the past is knowing when to take a step back.

Yeah. Hello, stress fracture.

For years, I always felt like I had to work out every day, more than once often. Otherwise I wouldn’t be “fit.”

Ever since my stress fracture, I’ve exercised significantly less (but still regularly, to be clear). And guess what? I’m fitter than I was before, with all those extra workouts.

I thought I had to be dragging my body through workouts day in and day out; I had to run 3-4 times a week, spin, Crossfit 4 days a week, who knows what else. It was about quantity, not quality. But then I hurt my foot. And I got busy with various internships. I no longer had the free hours in the day to work out that I did in college, and ever since then, my fitness level has improved. Quality over quantity. In St. Louis, I found I didn’t really like doing runs the morning after a hard evening Crossfit workout, so I stopped doing Crossfit the night before. In the past, I would have struggled through the run. But now I decided I didn’t want to feel awful for the run.

This week, I had to convince myself to take a step back. My stress fractured foot is healed, but sometimes it gets a little bit sore, especially when I’m either wearing the wrong shoes, or jumping a lot. After walking around the city in boots on Monday, and then doing lots of box jumps at Crossfit Tuesday, my foot was bothering me a little bit. I didn’t want to step back, but I remembered how much worse it was to have to immobilize my foot for 6 weeks, so it was better to take some time off now than get that far again. I scaled my Crossfit workout this morning to take the jump out of burpees, and instead of my normal Thursday run, I decided to go to a much needed, low impact yoga class, and spend Wednesday off my feet for the most part.

I guess the main point here is, you have to listen to your body, and you don’t have to exercise 12341234 hours a week to be fit.

Back to life.

For some reason I have not been feeling yogurt in the morning, but I went with it because I thought it would go well with my amazing pears (it did). I had Fage 2% with Cinnamon KIND granola and sunbutter.

Tuesday was another packed lunch at the library, but I made it a little more festive by making a salad with pear, leftover turkey, and cranberry goat cheese. Plus crackers.

Persimmon bread was my afternoon snack. Plus some other random things because I’ve been so freaking hungry these past few days. That usually means Crossfit has been especially hard.

I’m not super big on pizza (especially with the whole GF thing), but my parents really like it. We went to a place that had GF crust, and my family and I split a brussels sprouts salad, and then my mom and I split a GF pizza margherita.

I got some ice cream for Christmas dinner that I really liked and wanted to get more of, so we walked to a local Italian grocery after dinner to pick it up. It’s really not exotic; Dreyer’s slow churned frozen yogurt, chocolate vanilla swirl. But I also picked up a couple of GF cookies! Chocolate chip, and chocolate mint.

Wednesday morning I tried Chocolate Cheerios for the first time, pre-workout. I like them! They’re definitely subtle.

Mid-morning, I took the crazy pup out for a walk at a park with some friends. They got to see crazy Chloe: at one point she was just running and jumping around in a circle, which is an interesting sight given I was holding her leash…

I have a problem with her riding in the car right now. She wants to sit on the center console. She does that with my mom which is fine for her, but problematic for me since she’s always really close to shifting gears in my car. On the way home, I tried having her in the front seat and she eventually settled down. Not ideal, but better.

And then began Aurora’s kennel. My parents were out of town for the day/night, so I was on full pet duty. Throughout the day, Chloe has been following me around (but being an angel), sleeping in every room I’m in. It’s actually adorable. I move rooms, and a few minutes later she comes in and settles down near me.

I had a lazy day. In the afternoon, I did a little baking. I made marble bread by making half persimmon bread, half chocolate banana bread. It came out really well!

I do enjoy spending one on one time with Chloe. She’s honestly much better behaved with just me, and it’s good to have some pup-sister bonding. We went for a nice long walk before dinner. It’s the end of December and despite the 30-something degree mornings, I can’t complain about the fact that I can wear shorts and walk Chloe outside (ignore the fact I was wearing 2 jackets). And this area is so darn beautiful.

With my family gone, I had the opportunity to crank up the heat. I swear, my mom and I have totally different internal body temperatures. This morning, both kitties were huddled under the blanket for warmth. I clearly wasn’t cranking it up enough though, because Lilly was camped out on the heat vent.

I cooked myself up a simple but delicious dinner. Scrambled eggs with high quality cheese is always delicious. I used cheese leftover from our wine and wine night, and paired my protein with some olive-fig tapenade, avocado toast, and leftover Christmas green beans that I added truffle salt to.

Chloe and I planted ourselves in front of the TV with a movie, and I enjoyed another bowl of ice cream and a cookie half.

The other part of my kennel duties came later than evening when I had to take care of our little visiting kitty. He’s almost 19, which is crazy. We’ve taken care of him before, so he’s staying with us for a week. He moves amazingly well for such a senior kitty, and he’s a big sweetie. He, however, wasn’t a fan of taking his pill. I got it in him eventually, but he was a master at somehow spitting it out and gave me a run for my money!

And with that, I’m signing off!

The weather here is crazy. Get this: yesterday: highs of about 80. No jacket weather. Hot. This morning: similar. About 70 degrees. The rain started and it was warm. One hour later, the temperature dropped 10 degrees. And has been dropping steadily since. Lows for tomorrow are in the 20s. What?? I don’t understand crazy St. Louis weather.

This morning goodbyes continued at Crossfit. The workout today was a great one though. We did 5 sets of 5 deadlifts at 65%, and I used 155 lbs. Then the WOD was a partner “double Jackie,” which equated to 2000m row, 100 thrusters (35#), 60 pull ups split between 2 people. The coach matched us up, and I was paired with another coach. So I knew it was legit. We switched every 250m for the row, every 10 for the thrusters, and every 5 for the pull ups. I knew the pull ups were definitely going to be the hardest for me. I can’t really do more than a set of 5 for lots of reps, and my only rest time between sets was while my partner did her 5. So there was very little rest. The last few sets were tough! I already feel things in my shoulders.

Because it was so warm, I was strangely craving a protein smoothie afterwards. It went along well with my plan of using everything up, so I went with it!

Frozen banana, cocoa powder, milk, Quest salted caramel protein. Plus some snap pea crisps on the side. I’m a little obsessed and have then any time of day.

This morning I had to say goodbye to this goober:

He was being especially playful this morning. He started by tossing his rawhide bone around the pool, and then came right up to the glass and interacted with this kids.

What a goof.

I love the sights and decorations around the zoo.

I especially love the gumdrops.

Today it was supposed to rain, and I almost made it without getting wet. I just hate wet feet. I brought 2 pairs of extra socks to change throughout the day. My feet got super wet coming back from these guys:

Here’s Saka and Makini looking like they felt just about how I did about the rain:

Lunch:

Quest chips for protein and a salad with pear, goat cheese, and Newman’s Lite Balsamic.

And before I knew it, I was at my last observation. I was FREEZING. The temperatures had dropped quite a bit, and with wet feet I stood no chance. I had dry socks, but those only get you so far with wet shoes…

After work, I went to Whole Foods for dinner+productivity. I majorly struck out with the hot bar. All the delicious looking things either had wheat or tree nuts, so I ended up with 3 forms of potato. Not the end of the world though. Anything you can douse in ketchup, right? I also had some mango kombucha.

After eating, I pulled out my laptop and got some work done on my Microbiology class. While doing that, I noticed an add on my table for 4 Hands Stout. I went to 4 Hands on the Brewery Tour and have been loving their Chocolate Milk Stout ever since. Well, the add was for some of their seasonal flavors, Gingerbread Stout and S’mores Stout. What?? As it turns out, this Whole Foods had quite a selection of beer on draft. Right??

So naturally, I had to give it a try. With that discovery, my night of studying got a whole lot more interesting.

I ordered a Gingerbread Stout.

It was delicious. To be honest, not really sure I got the Gingerbread flavor, but it was great stout. Maybe a little milder than the Chocolate Milk?

I spent an hour or so sipping that and doing homework before picking up a treat to take home and eat in front of Netflix, cozied up with a kitty.

Honestly, this is all I wanted for this night. A coworker invited me to a speakeasy downtown, which sounded like a ton of fun, but after freezing my butt off all afternoon and with rapidly dropping temperatures and crazy wind, I did not particularly want to venture outside again!

Wish me luck as I brave the cold tomorrow!

But then I decided that that just wouldn’t do. I needed to figure out how to turn myself around, because I had scary visions of my entire rest of my gap year in potato-land. As I mindfully made this decision, I wanted to do a post on it, because we all have potato days. Here are some things I did to bring myself out, or that made me smile.

-I started referring to myself as a potato which I definitely found amusing. It lightened the situation.

-I decided to make a blog post about coming out of bad days, therefore forcing me to focus on the small positives throughout my day.

-I started my morning with a workout. Exercise first thing ALWAYS helps. We did 4 sets of 10 back squats today (yuck) at a relatively light weight. Then the WOD was 5 rounds of 150m run, 15 box jumps, and 10 hand stand push ups (which I did off a box). At the start of the WOD, I just didn’t feel like moving. But one round in, I felt much better.

-I made myself presentable. Looking good on the outside always makes me feel better on the inside. I didn’t have the option to wear cozy clothes (zoo uniform), but I considered not wearing any makeup, and decided I would feel better if I actually put the extra 2 minutes in.

-I hugged a Yoyo on the way out the door. A selfie occurred. He was not amused, and both kitties were a little suspicious about why I was chasing around trying to hug them, but it lifted my spirits! Especially because then they got riled up and started wrestling and it was kind of adorable.

-I took a second to appreciate the pretty leaves outside on my way to the car. I love fall.

-I played my current jam on the way to work.

-I got an awesome parking spot at work (also I love my Spanish music. Enrique <3)

-The zoo is starting to put out holiday decorations and I love it!

-Polar bear eating lettuce. Enough said.

-Watching and listening to little kids can be endlessly amusing. They all LOVE our polar bear Kali. This comment this morning that a kid was repeating over and over cracked me up: “He’s a beautiful specimen with a giant butt!” True.

-Vegetables. The best way to feel better and to start eating better again. Nothing crazy, just veggies. I had a salad with champagne vinaigrette, humus, goat cheese, and an egg for lunch.

-Productivity. Sometimes I feel guilty about not getting things done and it can be a little bit paralyzing. I took some time on my lunch break to get ahead on Microbiology reading.

-Timehop. I love it. I wish it would somehow be able to look at pictures on my computer since I’ve deleted most from my phone, but I saw this gem. I was a minute early on 11/11/11 at 11:11 I guess!

-The Sun Bears were pretty active today, which made them fun to watch!

-My zoo buddy hung out with my for the very end of my observation while I was a little bit overwhelmed, and it was helpful to have an extra set of eyes! Plus she brought me a cookie <3

-I made plans with myself to do something more interesting for dinner than eggs and lettuce, so I stopped at Whole Foods so I could get dinner and spend some time afterwards studying.

The food wasn’t that great since I was early and it was probably still from lunch. But I was enough out of my potato-ness that this didn’t bother me.

-Kombucha. Always helps.

-A delicious and healthy dessert to eat while curled up on the couch. I had half a piece of healthy pumpkin bread with semisweet chocolate chips, vanilla Halo Top, and whipped cream.

-Spending the rest of the night snuggled up with Scooby, watching a Rom-Com set at Christmastime, while eating said bowl of deliciousness.

And now I don’t feel like a potato.

First, I wanted to talk about Monday’s Crossfit. We did the Crossfit Total, which is finding the 1 rep max of back squat, press, and deadlift. Since I’ve had 1001 injuries lately, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew my squat wasn’t going to be a PR. I surprised myself by hitting 190# on the squat! I don’t think I’ve lifted heavier than like 165 since hurting my foot, so I was super happy with that. I hit 80#, which tied my max on press (definitely not my strongest lift), and fell quite short of my max on deadlifts at 225, which was to be expected because I haven’t done heavy deads in a while. My total was 495#. I looked back at the last time I did this, New Year’s Eve 2013, and I actually got the same total! Given my deadlifts were pretty low this time (I PRed deads that day), I was happy with my squat progress! I’ll take it!

Other workouts—running! 3 miles is feeling good on my foot right now, so I’m starting to slowly build a little speed (as in, I pay a tiny bit of attention to it.. I ran my first Garmin run this week! The first 3 mile run felt awful, but the second felt better, and my time even improved a tiny bit. I honestly don’t care about how much speed I’ve lost, because I knew that was going to happen. I’m ready to slowly build back up that endurance!

It was a good week at the zoo. The weather is finally cooling down to be quite pleasant, and I’m just hoping that sticks around!

The Tasmanian Devils are my favorites. They’re nocturnal and are usually sleeping when I see them, so it was a treat to see them up and moving around!

I’ve also been enjoy a lot of downtime snuggling with the kitties, Scooby and Yoyo.

Food:

Sunbutter and jam with my Aunt’s homemade blackberry jam! I needed some things from home and the shipping fee was a flat rate, so my parents there in something heavy!

I’m on a huge spaghetti squash kick right now. This is spaghetti squash with marinara, avocado toast, and broccoli.

I finally found watermelon yogurt! It’s good! Topped with granola and sunbutter.

My typical work lunch for now if it isn’t a sandwich is a peach, goat cheese, and chicken salad. Plus a savory granola bar. I like these. I thought the concept was a little weird, but they’re basically like crackers.

The zoo has Dole pineapple whips (soft serve) and I’ve been eying them since I got here! Friday during lunch was finally the time! So good.

Weekend happenings:

Friday afternoon my roommates invited me to go watch a big local bike race that evening, so I stopped by the grocery store on the way back from work to pick up some beer to bring. I happened into a pretty big free fall beer tasting, which was pretty cool! I ended up buying one of the beers, and it was really delicious!

Then, we headed over to the park to watch the races. They’re so fast!

We hung around for a few hours before heading out to dinner at a place by the house.

Saturday morning began bright and early, though brighter and earlier than necessary thanks to the aggressively needy Yoyo who figured out how to open my door, and subsequently found his toy at 5:30am. Then, it was off to teach spin! It was a good class, but small thanks to the gorgeous weather and the holiday weekend.

The main event Saturday was meeting up with my really good friend’s sister, who happened to randomly be in St. Louis! We met up at Rise for coffee, and it was great to catch up with her and meet her friend! They’re both dental students, so it was interesting to compare their experiences with all the vet stuff.

Sunday definitely did not go as planned. I was planning on going to Open Gym at Crossfit to make up the Saturday WOD that I missed, but when I got outside, I was greeted with a flat tire on my rental car. I ended up Ubering to Crossfit because I didn’t think the rental car place was open yet, and did the following workout:

heavy set of 3 sumo deadlifts (It was supposed to be 1rm but I probably haven’t done sumos in a good 2 years)

30-25-20-15-10-5

box jumps

wall balls

I wanted to do this one because it was pretty friendly to my hand, which is still pretty painful.

Then it was time to deal with the car. I was especially sad because I really liked driving that car–it was the same kind I drove in TN! The whole process was honestly pretty painful.

But now I have wheels again, so I can’t complain. I don’t have much going on the rest of the day. I have to work Monday morning so I’ll likely keep it low key! I might head to a park with a book, because my allergies tend to get a little bad after being around the animals all day!

What did you do for the long weekend?

Friday morning began with a visit to the beachside juice stand. My fresh squeezed orange pineapple juice was enjoyed beachside, with some yogurt and fruit.

First kitty spotting of the trip by the beach!

After we cleaned up, we headed to Lahaina. Folks-it was a scorcher that day! Upper 90s and humid.

My dad is constantly in search for the best lau lau (pork wrapped in taro and banana leaves), so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant with local fare.

Teriyaki chicken for me!

Dessert was much anticipated-a gluten free bakery! We shared a cream puff and then I had a chocolate cupcake with lilikoi (passionfruit) icing.

It was impossible to tell the cream puff was gluten free, and the cupcake was phenomenal. The cake was moist and dense, and the frosting was the perfect tart counterbalance.

We walked through downtown Wailea, burning up the whole time as we stopped in and out of shops. Finally, we reached our destination: Dan’s Greenhouse. This is a little hidden treasure-we’ve actually been coming to this little shop every time since I was a child. This is also where I got my beloved plumeria plant that has lived in my dorm the past 2 years! But the best part??

Miniature pot belly pigs! I’ve mentioned before that I don’t eat red meat, and these guys are partly why. I think I stopped eating pork around 5th grade, after absolutely falling in love with these guys. This little guy was just a ball of energy. I believe he was 6 months old-he was 8 pounds but will grow to about 15. They eat a vegan diet-similar to what they eat in the wild. If you overfeed them or feed them a too protein rich diet, they can grow to up to 70 pounds! You can pay to feed them, which is more than worth the money. I got to sit on the ground with him in my lap, as he gobbled up berries, kale, and oats from my hand.

I think the photo quality reflects just how wiggly he was!

On the way to the car, we stopped for a dole whip for my dad and iced lattes for my mom and me-plus some much needed time in air conditioning!

My final stop in Lahaina was Enjoy the Ride-a spin studio! They had a big screen in front that displayed a real terrain which was cool. The class was fun but not the hardest I’ve ever taken-it was perfect for the vacation!

Scenes form the drive back to Wailea/Kihei.

Dinner was at Three’s Bar and Grill. We started with a miso kale salad-I’ve had a couple of these while here and I’ve really loved them! For my entree, I had fish lau lau, which also included purple sweet potatoes and kale.

Dessert was gluten free lilikoi cheesecake. Gluten free cheesecake is something I’ve seen pop up on several menus around here!

Saturday morning was another highlight. We began with a trip to Starbucks for a quick breakfast (I had a smoothie plus sliced pineapple from Starbucks!)

On the agenda was the Grand Dairy Tour at the Surfing Goat Dairy. This tour allowed us to see the production process of the small, humane certified dairy. We got to feed the goat, milk the goats (!!!-so excited), herd the goats, and finally-taste all the cheese! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Their cheeses were top of the line. We bought some to et during the rest of the trip, and are planning on ordering more online to send home! The blueberry and the lime goat cheese truffles I tried were delicious as well!

Next stop-higher upcountry for lunch and pineapple wine tasting!

Lunch was at the ranch burger place across from the winery. I had a taro burger on a gluten free bun.

At the winery, we did the complimentary tasting where we got to choose 3 types of wine to try. I tried the sparking pineapple wine, the rose sparking, and the sweet raspberry dessert wine.

I was really torn about taking home a bottle of the sparkling pineapple or the sparkling rose. I liked the rose more, but the pineapple was really unique!

We took a complimentary tour-and I learned that they produce a really small amount of their award winning sparkling rose-it’s made with grapes grown on their property, and because they produce so little, they only sell their award winning rose on the property, so I felt good about my decision to get that! Scenes from the tour:

The rest of the day included a decaf Kona cappuccino, exploring some shops in Wailea, goat cheese, and room service.

Um-check out this cheesecake. Lilikoi cheesecake with a gluten free brownie base. YUM.

So-can you tell I kind of like animals?

My gosh, I feel like a 5 year old talking about “what I want to be when I grow up.” Well, I figured out I want to be a veterinarian. I don’t know what type specifically, but in my limited experience, I’ve loved it. Anyone who I’ve told my decision to who know me says, “That makes so much sense. Why didn’t I think of that?”

He loves me.

The crazy thing is that I was so unsure for so long about what I wanted to do, but ever since I made this decision, I haven’t looked back. I’ve never been so sure of anything, and I’m prepared to work extremely hard to make this happen. I discussed this possibility on the blog a year and a half ago-my gosh how I wish I had just decided then! But then I don’t think I would be as certain as I am now.

So what does that mean for me? On the plus side, I’m a Bio major so I’m not behind on the course work. On the minus side? I have a lot of experience to gain before I can apply. This quarter is looking crazy. I need to get lots and lots of experience hours while also keeping grades up, which is likely to be a lot of work based on my 1,200 page Physiology textbook.

This means I may not have as much time for blogging. I’m not leaving you guys, just know that I’ll have all that going on!