Friendsgiving

After college I started a little tradition of Friendsgiving...or what I have entitled my Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving Feast. The holidays are all about spending time with family; but my friends are also my family and before we all head off every year I love being able to pull all of us together to enjoy the same thing we will with our family. A Thanksgiving feast! With all the trimmings.

I've been doing it now for 5 years, and every year is different. Each year has a new obstacle to overcome (typically its with one of the side dishes going awry). One year it will be not having enough space to cook all the food and transporting the turkey from one location to another (cooked - with the juices going all over the car...awesome smell afterward let me tell ya). The next year it will be the turkey not being cooked on time. THIS YEAR was the mashed potatoes. My beloved potatoes. MY FAVORITE PART of thanksgiving.

I tried a new recipe this year, and must have mismeasured or something....added to much milk to quickly and they became mushed potatoes. A somewhat runny potatoes that were not clear mush but not real potatoes.....damn it. They did settle somewhat after standing a bit....but not to MY liking. They still tasted good and everyone seemed to like them (as there were ZERO leftovers), but it was my own personal disaster.

BUT besides that it was a wonderful day. Full of friends, food, drinking, football. I find myself constantly reminded of how blessed I am. To be surrounded by such amazing people. My friends and family are the most wonderful source of love and support for me. The only thing missing from the day was my sister who was unfortunately stuck home sick. But I did send her leftovers that she was able to enjoy days later when she regained her taste for food.

Hoping everyone else is able to spend their holidays truly grateful for what they have in their lives. Because no matter how hard things may get, and how hard our lives can sometimes seem the one thing we should realize is that typically we're better off than majority of the population. We're unbelievably spoiled in our lives and if I can provide only a portion of the happiness in my life to those around me then I can feel like I've done at least something right.

Peek a boo!

My organizational skills at their best...damn I'm a nerd

Turkey - all wrapped in love and yumminess!

Mom helping with the prep work

more organization

veggies extreme!

the aftermath...yum yum delicious

Ms. Rich and I pregaming 

its as big as my FACE!

All decked out for the party!

The 30 day challenge....Update

Approximately 17 days ago I set off on a 30 day Bikram challenge....I made it successfully through 12 of those days (Yay me!). And now I sit 2 days later having not gone to yoga for the last 2 days. :(

When I set out on this journey it was to give myself something of a challenge while I was on a 'no run' ruling. And believe me it was challenging. The first week was amazing. Each day I went and I felt wonderful. I was motivated and excited each day to go. It was how I felt cleansed at the end of the day. Then in the second week I had a few days of being 5 minutes in and thinking "dear lord get me the hell out of this room."

But I pushed through those times and when I got out I DID feel better. It was my own inner struggle. But I think I then pushed it too hard. I thought I could do everything at once. I could do yoga AND my personal training sessions (which kick my ass to the wall by the way), and I'd be all happy and fit and things would be great. Well apparently I'm not superwoman. Go figure (and damn I'd been banking on that fact!). On day 13 my body failed me. I just didn't have the energy to do it. I fought internally with myself for several hours before class saying 'Yes you can do it. You've had tough days before and its just one of those.' It wasn't a fight to prove how bad ass I am. Or how fit I was. It was a fight to prove that mentally I could concur anything, and I felt by NOT going that I was somehow failing myself.

So hours later, I had to come to grips that maybe I should listen to my body and that it wasn't a failure on my part. And that maybe the failure would've been if I had pushed myself to go and ended up fainting or getting it injured. I made the decision not to go and to preserve my energy and start again the next day if I felt I could handle it. And I'm even more grateful now that I could understand my body's limits because the next day I got sick and was in bed for 2 days.

I'm only now feeling back to 100% and reevaluating where to go from here. I know that to just hop right back in would most likely put me right back into bed, so for now I'm going to just plan to go to try and do yoga when I can along with my personal training sessions. I think for me the lesson in all this is realizing that while I love and need to be ambitious I also need to not view every set back as a failure. There are twists and turns in the road, and its how you respond to where your path takes you that really defines you. Without setbacks there is no room for growth. And what I want most in this life is to constantly grow and improve myself. Hopefully I can be that person.