I’m not sure why I thought blogging would be any easier?

Vet school apps have me doing a lot of reflecting. I’ve changed so much in the past 4 years, and it’s really hard for me to remember who I was back then and what I was like. Having my blog is invaluable. I’m so glad I started it during my freshman year. It’s taken me all the way through college, through so many changes. It’s just incredible to have all that documented. Plus, having my original thoughts on why I wanted to go into veterinary medicine, in real time, is super helpful as I write my essay. With new experiences, things change, and it’s really nice to be able to go back to my roots. I also feel like when I’m blogging, my posts are more raw and authentic than when I’m actually writing. My essay was feeling really stiff, so I sat down, in wordpress, and typed up a blog post reflected on my vet experiences. I can’t post it for privacy reasons, but it was a great exercise.

In a similar vein, I discovered a whole bunch of pictures from high school and middle school that I’ve never seen before. I thought my most awkward years were undocumented. That is not the case. Why did I think bright yellow sweatpants were a thing??

Actually, going through the old pictures was super interesting, and I think there needs to be a post about all that at some point. And don’t worry, some embarrassing pictures will be included.

I found one picture from 2011 that I feel like perfectly sums up who I was then.

Softball glove. Cat. That’s all ya need.

Last night, we made my fig and goat cheese salad, with the fig bounty from the farmer’s market.

This morning I went to Crossfit. It was hard. I took one look at the workout and knew it would be a rough one. For the strength, we worked on cleans. I worked up to 110#, which is not close to my 1 rep max, but the heaviest I’ve gone since my foot injury, and all felt good!

The WOD:

30-20-10

thrusters (55#)

pull ups

Here’s the thing. In the past month, I’ve stopped using a band for pull ups, and have been kipping. But everything has been in smaller sets. I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do a set of 30. (This is of course with breaks in between some of the reps, but it’s not the same as a full recovery). I didn’t even get a band out because I figured I would dive in and not give myself a way out. And here’s the thing. Thrusters make anything after thrusters feel way harder. I broke my first set of thrusters into 15 and 15 to avoid burning out right away, and then attacked the pull ups in 5s, so doing 5 and then coming off the bar, and coating myself with chalk. Honestly, I think grip strength was a major factor here too. But I got through the set of 30. Then 20. Then 10. I finished as a chalk monster with jelly arms, but accomplished! Seriously, chalk on my forehead, chalk in my hair, chalk on my shins. I though it was going to take me forever, but somehow it was only 13ish minutes? I don’t think I’ve ever done that many non-banded pull ups! While having a stress fracture stunk, there is always a silver lining. I could not have done this a few months ago. Even when things get rough, you have to look for the positives, and hold on to what you do have!

Post workout breakfast was my current go-to. Plain Greek yogurt with sunbutter, cinnamon KIND granola, and a peach.

I spent the rest of the morning working on my app, and then made the same fig and goat cheese salad for lunch. Real talk: 2/3 of the figs didn’t make it into the bowl. I love figs.

Also-Something kind of fun. We tried grilling watermelon last night! I still don’t know what I think. We have a charcoal grill, so it was a really smoky flavor. I made a mint/honey glaze for it. The watermelon felt like it should be savory. I think I liked it best with a little salt, a tiny bit of glaze, and goat cheese.

Have you ever grilled watermelon?

800m run

300 double unders (or 400 regular jump ropes)

200 hand release push ups

100 pull ups

Between you and your partner, you have to do that. Even with banded pull ups and knee push ups this was killer! I stayed an hour after class to steam clean the mats. Confession: my hands were getting blistered from this. #wimpyhands

Let’s back up a bit though, shall we?

Thursday night I played in an All-Star game for my slow pitch softball league. I was a little nervous going in-I hadn’t played in over 2 weeks because of my calf injury (which thankfully feels fine-I’m going to give it another week probably before I really start training again). Well, it turns out I had nothing to worry about! I played first base, which as it turns out, I like way better than outfield. In slow pitch everyone kills the ball, so outfield usually means chasing down home runs. I hit well too-and landed the title of female MVP!

I’m ready for playoffs next week!

We went out to dinner afterwards to celebrate. Since we were in Palo Alto already (my games are at Stanford), of course I chose to go to Lyfe Kitchen, which is basically my favorite place ever.

We started with guacamole and house made tortilla chips, plus garlic roasted artichokes.

The food came sooo quickly! For my main course, I wanted something with veggies (I had eaten a lot of carbs earlier in the day), so I ordered the quinoa crunch wrap, which comes with a side of hot sauce. 

It was delicious and fresh-and of course totally up my alley since it was loaded with avocado.

For a little after-dinner treat, we went to a local pastry shop and found this:Have you guys heard of the Cronut? It’s a cross between a croissant and a donut. My spin teacher was talking about them last week-apparently there’s a donut place in New York that sells them, and they’re super popular! What are the odds that less than a week alter, I’d find them right here in Palo Alto? 

I didn’t get one-they were out. To be honest, I’m not sure I like the idea of a Cronut…But I’d probably try it once. We ended up with some other assorted pastries to share.

My favorite was the twist-it had sweet potato filling!

Friday morning at spin class I got to tell my teacher about my findings-and of course enjoy a great workout. After spin, I took an awesome nap (5:45am spin…) and awoke with the biggest craving for overnight oats. This was really strange. Why? I’ve only made them once. And I didn’t really like them. But my mom bought me a few flavors of Chobani to try (pomegranate and banana), and I haven’t really been feeling my yogurt bowls lately. So, I whipped up a batch according to Julie’s recipe. I used the pomegranate yogurt for these. I then popped it in the fridge, and let it sit for…all of 10 minutes. Good enough for me! It still thickened up quite a bit! Topped with fruit and sunflower seed butter, and I was good to go.

 The rest of the batch was enjoyed as a snack before Crossfit, topped with cacao coconut butter.

Not quite as photogenic, but still delicious.

Crossfit included wall balls which really stunk. On the plus side, nothing required chalk in the workout, so that made my job cleaning up a lot easier. 

Also, the owner of my box gave me this Crossfit shirt-apparently when you finish the intro program you get it, but I never did that. 

And finally, that brings us to today. For lunch, I tried my hand at avocado egg salad. The result resembled a cross between egg salad and guacamole. I have absolutely no problems with that. I mashed up avocado, hard boiled eggs, yellow mustard, garlic powder, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper. I served it on a slice of whole wheat toast, alongside yellow watermelon (!) and carrots with hummus.

What a colorful lunch! I have never in my memory had yellow watermelon, and I really like it! It tastes similar to watermelon, but has a slightly different flavor. I found it at Whole Foods and just had to try it. 

After lunch, I decided to whip up more overnight oats with the banana Chobani for when the craving struck later on. I split the batch in half, and added cocoa powder to one half. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching baseball and helping my mom bake a cake for my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday. And by helping, I mean licking the spoons. I’ll post a picture of the cake tomorrow!

Have a great night everyone! I’ll leave you with this-apples from my neighbor’s yard. I swear, his soil can grow anything! In our hard, we’ve had zero success. Do you grow any fruits or vegetables? What is your favorite type of cake? Thoughts on overnight oats?