Lots of ladybugs

Some of the best advice I've ever received came from a sappy romance movie "Under The Tuscan Sun" In the movie, one of the women tells a recently divorced and VERY depressed woman a story, she says when she was little, she would spend ours chasing ladybugs but could never catch them. Eventually she just become so exhausted she would just lay down and fall asleep and when she woke up, she was covered in ladybugs. It doesn't matter what your frantically chasing, be it weight loss, a job, a dream. Sometimes the best thing to do is just be still for a moment and it will come. There is a process to life and to quote my favorite person Bob Harper " JUST TRUST THE PROCESS!"

Pick Up and Keep Going

Well this blog was supposed to be written yesterday and it was going to be written about setting goals but that will have to wait! As many of you know, I had a running accident yesterday. My shoe caught two brick tiles that were buckled up and it threw me onto the pavement. I ended up taking a trip to the ER to get my wrist checked out because it was questionable if I had broken it but I am glad to say it was not. I came away with road rash covering my left leg, a scrapped up right knee, a bruised hip, roadrashed hands, and badly sprained wrist haha I like to think of them as battle scars! There is a big lesson here -which is why this blog is not about goal setting! When I fell, there was a bus full of people coming home from work. As soon as I hit the pavement, I looked around to see which valiant person was going to come to my rescue and help me up... and to my shock ( and horror) no one even motioned towards me or called to see if I was alright. I was clearly injured and yet no one offered me help. I sat there for two seconds in total shock and then it hit me harder than I hit the ground, I AM HERE TO PICK MYSELF UP AND KEEP GOING, its going to hurt but it had to be done. While the fact that no one seemed at all concerned was a bit rude, it was not a statement of helplessness for me. I knew I had to pick myself up and get moving back home where I could then tend to my wounds and sitting there waiting for someone else to come help me was wasted time that I needed to spend taking care of myself. Everyone falls in their life, be it on pavement, on their diet plan, financially or in any other aspect of life. Too often we waste time looking around for someone to come pick us up but the reality of it all is that its just waisted time when you can do it yourself. It may hurt but you can do it! I didn't wait for a TV show, some crazy medical intervention, or until I could afford a gym membership and personal trainers to take back my life and you shouldn't either. I was out running yesterday because I was having an awful day and while it might seem like falling and having to go to the hospital would have made an already bad day even worse, it turned out to be a great reminder that in all of life's problems, I am here to pick myself up and keep going even when it hurts... I always seem to find the answers while running!

A SHUT UP and PUT UP weekend

What an amazing weekend! My friend and I spent our Easter weekend in what would turn out to be a SHUT UP AND PUT UP camping trip in Luray VA. While I have always grown up camping, this weekend was a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I had kayaked and the first time I tried repelling. I went into this weekend with alot of worries, I didn't know if I was strong enough to hold my own bodyweight in repelling or that I would have the endurance to paddle 13 miles down a river or be able to keep up on the hikes. There are a million and one reasons why I should have those fears, I'm still overweight, I have an injured knee , a huge fear of heights and I'm having some Lupus problems. All of those are great excuses on why I wouldn't be able to do what I did this weekend. Yet when the time came and the harness was on, I just clipped in and went over the edge. All of that worrying about not being strong enough almost stopped me from even trying and I knew that I would just have to dig down deep, SHUT UP about all my excuses as to why I might not be able to and PUT UP. Boy am I ever glad I did! I loved repelling and cannot wait for the next time I get to harness up! This is coming from a woman who a year ago was challenged to slide down a children's fire pole and was so paralyzed with fear of heights that I clung onto that poll for over 20 min. unable to slide down it... fast forward to this weekend and I was hopping down the side of a ravine! I also discovered that I LOVE to kayak!! I always tell people " Oh I don't have any upper body strength" but this weekend proved that I cannot keep saying that any more. I started out that day by putting my kayak in the river convinced I would make it to mile 8 - because i knew that was the first of only two pull out points along the way. I "knew" that there was no way I would be able to paddle for 13 miles. Then all the sudden the mile markers kept passing me and I hadn't hit what I thought for sure would be the end of my kayaking trip, a wall of fatigue! But that never came and the next thing I knew I was pulling my kayak out at mile 13 wishing we could have continued even farther. I had my mind set that 8 miles was all I could do but my lesson in repelling the day before reminded me to not tell myself what I can and cannot accomplish but rather to just SHUT UP and PUT UP! Now that I've come home, I started making a SHUT UP and PUT UP list of all the things I want to do - despite any fears or doubts I may have to try them and I can't wait to start scratching them off as I do them!

I'm BAAAACK!!!

Hello there everyone! I know I know, its been forever. Things got really crazy since I moved back and I'm finally finding my groove. I will do my best to catch everyone up as much as I can but let me just say there are some great things happening on my end. I hope to start video blogging. It will include workouts, cooking ideas and just about anything and everything! I hope that everyone will tune in and PLEASE spread the word to friends and family! I'd also love to hear from you what you'd like to see. I have an ever growing list of recipes that I've received requests for as well as topics to cover so please post in the comments or email me at alexis.mundis@gmail.com with your ideas and suggestions!!! I am looking forward to the next post. Also sunday I will be uploading pictures from my camping/rock climbing/whitewater canoeing trip this weekend!