A Lot and Nothing All at Once + Cupcake Experimenting

So the weather has finally gotten warmer and I decided to take my blog writing outside this afternoon.  I want to say it's in the 80's as far as the heat goes while I'm home visiting my mom for Mother's Day weekend.  There has been very little but at the same time a lot going on in the past 2 weeks and I'll try to sum it up as best as I can without writing a horribly long blog for you all.  

Secret Church + Strawberry Pickin

Last week I had a quick not even a full day trip back to Charlotte.  My mom had gotten yourself and me tickets to an event called Secret Church with David Platt.  We didn't get there until around 730pm when the event started at 630pm.  So we only missed an hour of everything.  We were given a guide book with fill in the blanks to kind of follow along.  But man does David talk fast.  The booklet was filled with Bible verses that related to the discussion.  We we talking about praying for India and the Muslims in the country.  How some of them are persecuted for being Christians.  Mom and I left around 9pm.  He talks really fast and to think this thing lasted until 1230am.  And part of me wanted to leave because it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

So there is a place around Bragg called Gillis Hills Farms and every year they have strawberry picking and later n the year they will have a pumpkin patch. But ever since the strawberries have been ready to pick I've wanted to go pick some.  It's just simple fun to go out and find beautifully red strawberries and pick them off the plant instead of buying them in the store.  So the whole family headed out the strawberry picking farm in the Concord area, new nephew included.  He was 6 days old at that point.  The weather was disappointed as it was cold and a little drizzly.  But we picked 3 gallon containers full of strawberries.  Why I need that many straw berries is beyond me considering I don't even eat the things.  But my whole point of wanting to pick them, besides the fact that it is just fun to do, was I have been wanting to make flavored cupcakes.  Now I don't know why I wanted to make these but had been in that kind of mood since making the apple pie recovery shake the other week.  And I wanted it to be real fresh fruits.  

I headed back to Bragg later that afternoon because I was suppose to go to the food truck rodeo with Fidget on Sunday before he took off back to WA.  Yep, he was leaving me.  The joys of living in a military town!  It was something that I wanted to do as a treat for him that I figured would be fun for the both of us just to enjoy each others company and have some laughs.  But plans fell through and we didn't go and he ended up leaving a day earlier than what was originally planned.

So I hit the gym on Sunday afternoon since I didn't go Saturday because of strawberry picking with my family.  And the weather was nice again.  It called for rain at some point I believe but I was able to get plenty done and even though I was excited about experimenting with the cupcakes I just wasn't in the mood that day.   So I spent most of the day getting my food ready for the week.  

New Training Schedule Abound

So it's the start of a new week and I decided that it was time to try something different with my training.  Not to mention it would be my last time I would get to see Fidget before he took off on his trip only to not know when or if I'd ever see him again even though it has been mentioned about me visiting.  I was super upset with myself and will probably always kick myself for this because I completely overslept that Monday morning.  My alarm is set for 330am so I can be at the gym by 0500 and get and hour and a half workout in.  Well, what do you know?  I overslept until 6am.  So not only did I not get to see him one last time I had actually picked out a dress to wear that day specifically for that reason.  O the joys of being a girl sometimes haha.  But within all that going on I decided it was time to switch up my training a bit. 

So I have try to keep my training pretty much scheduled out in my head at least.  M/T/Th/F/S I go to the gym in the mornings and do all my lifting and on Wednesday mornings I typically used as an active recovery day and would swim.  We the Catalyst Athletic lifting programs I follow call for Mon-Thur lifting, Friday and Sunday rest day and another lifting day on Saturday.  So with how I was doing it I wouldn't get a rest day before the day I was suppose to do my heavy singles.  And trust my lifts probably felt heavier than they should have!  

So this week I decided, which should have been a long time ago, to actually follow the training cycle with rest days on the proper days as written.  It was weird not walking into the pool on Wednesday morning and hitting it on Friday morning instead.  And not to mention I was completely exhausted by the time Friday afternoon rolled around for another trip to Charlotte.  But it all paid off this morning when I finally C&J 140# (squat clean).  O and not to mention I did that twice!  It felt so easy standing up out of 140# this morning I couldn't believe it.  It's been a struggle for me for squat cleans, and it has mentally broke me down more than any other lift I have ever done.  To the point where I've almost started realize that that lift isn't going up anytime soon with out some corrections to my form that I have no idea what needs to be done without a coach.  

But hitting that this morning felt great!

So...about that running. 
I am sad to report that I haven't ran in 2 weeks!  I'm disappointed in myself but also for some reason don't want Fidget to be disappointed in me either.  We used to run together once a week and that actually helped make me go running.  He would make me run further than I would if I was every by myself and it was always good company.  I think it helps motivate me when I have someone that expects something out of me, but I'm not sure he does so I guess I better start expecting more out of myself when it comes to this whole running thing.  It is definitely going to be hard breaking my routine of going home straight from work and start getting ready for the next day but you have to put in the effort if you want some things in your life and training to improve.  Nothing magically improves overnight because you wish it will, you have to work at it.  No one said it would be easy but that's the best part about when you accomplish what you said out to do.  You know how much hard work has gone into what you just accomplished.  So my goal for tomorrow is 2.5 miles an old route that takes me almost passed my place of work.

Cupcake Experiments

So as I mentioned earlier I have been wanting to experiment making natural flavored cupcakes by actually using real fruit for the past 2 weeks.  The first thing I needed to do was try and find a recipe for paleo cupcakes.  Which isn't too hard to do with the internet these days.  I always use theses as a guide for cooking and then tweak the recipe as I need it.  So Thursday night I finally broke down and made my cupcakes, and also the fact that I didn't want my more than I needed strawberries to start getting mushy.  So my flavors that I had been wanting to try: strawberry (obviously), strawberry banana, banana, banana peanut butter, lemon raspberry, and chocolate peanut butter.  I didn't end up making the chocolate peanut butter because I honestly at around 945pm became a lazy cook and left it as vanilla.  So I pureed some strawberries and raspberries, and diced some strawberries as well in order to sprinkle some strawberry pieces into the strawberry cupcakes.   I made two of each flavor except I only made one banana and one vanilla.  My mistake:  putting the banana and banana peanut butter next to each other so I couldn't remember which was which.  But I made them to take to school for some of the teachers that I always work with.  

I couldn't resist trying it before I took a picture of it.  Paleo Vanilla
Cupcake with non paleo vanilla bean ice cream and carmel.

With the strawberry banana I wanted the banana to be the main focus of the cupcake and then have swirls of strawberry in them.  So I mixed that batter with banana and then placed some strawberry puree on top and used a toothpick to swirl it in.  The strawberry was easy, just add the puree to the batter and the same went for the banana.  The banana peanut butter I had to make sure the peanut butter wasn't clumped together and which I might try something a little different with those next time.  Maybe just banana batter with a dollop of peanut butter in the middle.  It was fun experimenting with the different flavors though.

I spent the weekend in Charlotte for Mother's Day.  And that afternoon I helped my mom plant some fruits and veggies in her garden (strawberries, zucchini, cucumbers, cabbage, squash).  I actually enjoyed doing it which was the least thing I expected to do.  We were going to try and head down to the food truck neighborhood rally in Steele Creek but by the time we would have gotten there it would have been too late.  So we went to a Greek restaurant in
Concord instead.  It was good, but I guess I got something that I could just normally fix at home so it wasn't anything special.  It will definitely be worth another trip and to try something different. 

Sunday I spent some time at the lake with the family and we took a boat ride.  It was nice to be out on the lake again and can't wait to go back more this summer! Another thing to look forward to!

~God Bless

"Training strength and endurance mentally, physically, and spiritually."