holiday prep

happy easter eve :) .....as we are not usually home for easter, i have to say that we have NO ROUTINE whatsoever for how to celebrate this holiday....which is pretty interesting because we have such SET ways we celebrate every other holiday....not being the super religious family, easter for us has always just been about spending the day together...usually at the beach, and more often than not with kris' family.....this year, none of those things came to pass so we had to come up with something new....

what we decided on (since its just us and lisa) is CRABS!! holla!!  cant think of a better way to have a family day than to sit on the porch and kick  off spring, southern maryland style :)  the down side to this plan is that we had to clean off the porch....which could be certified as a disaster area...without exaggerating i can say that our porch in the winter functions as a lacrosse storage bin - and a giant collector of pollen....so the first thing we had to do today was wade thru the mess that we call our porch.....and we actually managed it, without any fighting or anything -which in and of itself is a minor miracle :) and i found this pic buried with my old group ex teaching stuff...which of course brought a huge smile to my face and reminded me ONCE AGAIN how lucky i am...and also how some things never change!!  that pic is from 2005, when both the boys played baseball - and i was just ramping up my teaching a notch....and just like now, i use my visual stuff to get and stay motivated....

what do these quotes talk about?  MOTIVATION, COMMITMENT & FLEXIBILITY!!  how ironic, right?  the EXACT same things i 'm still looking for today!!  i thought that was pretty neat...and it brought another degree of perspective to what i've been going through....my circumstances may change, but inside i'm basically the same - the same kinds of things motivate me and make me happy....i just have to remember that.....i may not always get to do what i want, but i eventually manage to find time somewhere for the stuff that i find fulfilling....so its allllll good in the long run....

the other funny thing that happened today is that i roped jake and luke into helping me take a test....yes, thats cheating -sue me.....i have to be honest and say studying for my personal training cert was one of the hardest things i've done post school...i read everything, i watched the videos, i listened to the audio almost constantly, and i seriously studied for that exam....it was very hard and i really really really dont want to have to do it again....my challenge is that i'm not really doing anything with my certification at the moment....i'm not training or even working in the gym - which makes my REcertification somewhat challenging....so i decided to take the online nutrition class....i DEFINITELY should have known better....here's where i say that the only C i ever got at brown was in (are you ready?) PERSONAL NUTRITION...yes, personal nutrition....advanced critical analysis of shakespeare...A, russian lit...A, personal nutrition...C - so apparently i was suffering under some kind of delusion when i thought, sure let's take THAT as my recert class.....

to say i have been quietly stressing about this online exam would be putting it mildly...its another one of those weights that have been hanging over my head.....and my deadline is quickly approaching....so i did what any self respecting parent of 2 extremely intelligent boys would do, and i made them sit with me while i took it!!  and boy am i glad that they are smart....because i STILL have ZERO retention when it comes to biology and physiology.....as soon as i see words that dont make sense to me, my eyes glaze over and i move on mentally....how HORRIBLE is that??  i have total confidence in my ability to train someone - and ZERO confidence in discussing nutrition....so i thought this course would help....NOPE!!  because again, i dont absorb any of it....i guess the good news is i have the books as a reference on my phone if i really NEED to figure something out....but the moral of the story is go ahead and ask me about working out....but never never never ask me for food advice (altho that should probably go without saying at this point :)

its also fairly funny because the second part of my recert is cpr/aed certification....again - if you collapse in the middle of my class, i'm calling 911....and panicking....i am SO NOT the girl that jumps in to do cpr....not happening....i'm the crazy loon that has a nervous breakdown in a crisis...not the calm, step by step person....and while i have been cpr certified for the better part of 10 years, you can STILL bet i wouldn't remember how to do it...nor would i have the presence of mind to actually perform it....back at gold's when i regularly had a few older people in my class, it was running joke with me bc i literally asked them every 5 minutes if they were okay...because i would say at the start of class, please dont have a heart attack in my class because i will panic and not help you....so its probably a good thing that i'm not in the fitness business full-time huh?? i'm good on mechanics though :) and i can make you a kick ass plan....i better partner with a nutrition and cpr person at some point if i decide to be a real trainer when i grow up!!

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”  ~Thomas Edison

i totally agree with this statement.... i think that nutrition is such a vital key to our overall health....and i find it absolutely hilarious that i dont understand it....i THINK i do, in very general terms....but how food actually interacts with your body is way above my pay grade...and i wish doctors actually treated nutrition as a serious field....i want to go back to the old days where you had GPs who actually knew you and cared about your whole system....not just their little bitty part of it....but that's a topic for another day...my point is, its a very complex system that needs SERIOUS study....not just as an add on to a personal training cert for the crazies of the world like me....just my opinon.

because as a newly "certified" personal nutrition expert, i can tell you that i plan to eat absolutely nothing good for me tommorrow....my diet will consist of chocolate, sugar, shellfish and potatoes....and probably some beer just for good measure....whatever you do, DON'T get food advice from me....EVER :)

i hope you all have a lovely easter.....i'm actually really looking forward to being home....and hopefully i wont run into the window of the new church tomorrow thinking its a door!!

For I remember it is Easter morn,
And life and love and peace are all new born.  ~Alice Freeman Palmer