My 9 Loves...

It's the second day of my "10 Day You Challenge..." today is "9 Loves!"

1. This should go without saying...Alex. The person I've basically grown up with, tackled college with, traveled Europe with, and had so many hundreds of other smaller experiences that were no less important in shaping both me and my life. Thank you for always being by my side :)

2. My family. These people have all been by my side through all of my ups and downs and new adventures. It's hard to put into words how important you all are to me, and how grateful I am for everything. I don't have photos of everyone, but if you're reading (and even if you aren't), I mean it :)

3. My girlfriends. These girls may as well be family to me! We've all been through a lot together and  grown together. All of these women (and some that I couldn't find pictures with, as well!) are strong, smart, beautiful and successful. Thanks for all being great role models :)

4. Rowing. For a number of reasons, rowing has truly created the person that I am today. Rowing taught me the importance of teamwork, hard work, endurance, strength, and stamina. I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be where I am today if it wasn't for this sport. I should cut myself off here because I could go on for pages about rowing!

5. Cooking.  I adore cooking! I am so glad that my mom has included me in the kitchen since I could walk and talk, and that she let me start baking and cooking on my own when I was 8. There's something just so satisfying about created something delicious from an assortment of seemingly unrelated ingredients. There's something therapeutic about working with my hands in such a routine way. Cooking gives me a sense of accomplishment, and I love to feel that I've brought people together over a meal or desert. I'm really thankful that I learned about this skill so young!

6. Travel. It's hard on my mind and body to travel constantly for 4 months, but generally speaking I really love going to new places and learning about history and people that are different than me. I'm so glad I had this opportunity :) Each opportunity to travel is an opportunity to grow, learn, and better yourself. I think I will always be a traveler now!

7. Language. This goes right along with travel. I love being able to speak a language that isn't native to me! Speaking French this semester with fluency was one of the most rewarding things in my life thus far.

8. Books. This goes right along with language, in a way. Sometimes I feel like books played a big part in raising me. Books and my intense love for reading have shaped the way I think, write, and perform. Sometimes I can have the worst day, and come home and get lost in a good book only to emerge having forgotten about it all. I've also learned a lot from my books - which is something I only realized the magnitude of when I went to Europe and realized how much stuff I knew about many of the places we visited. 

9. Exercise. This gets it's own number separate from rowing. I seeing my exercise and my rowing as separate things - both of which I love. "Exercise" indicates the broader array of activities I like to do; yoga, running, strength training, swimming, cycling. Each of these makes me feel accomplished, strong, and fulfilled. The hardwork that I put into each of these activities helps shape and define me. I think my favorite thing about exercise is the feeling of accomplishment I get from it, whether it's just in practice or a session, or a race. My self-esteem might be at a low, and the accomplished feeling I get from a workout brings it right back up again. Exercise makes me feel strong, confident, and beautiful. Whether it's during the lowest and most mundane days (which are few and far between) and on the best days, exercise gives me a goal to work towards. 

With bright pink nails, of course :)

10 Day You Challenge.

When I saw PB Fingers doing this challenge, I was immediately intrigued for a mini blog series. After my exciting Europe posts, this might give my blog a little something extra to ease back into normal-life posts.

"10 secrets" is definitely a toughie to start off with... I'm not sure all of these are secrets per say but they are things I don't talk about a lot and that people may not know!

1. I used to be a "ballerina." Yep, before my life of lots of rowing and eventually running, I was a dancer! When I tell people this usually they are surprised at first and then they say, "I can picture that." I couldn't dig up any good pictures but I did find this one of my legs and toe shoes... I know it's a crummy photo but you get the idea. I'm sure you can all recognize my knobby knees :)

2. I'm not a native Clevelander. I have a California birth certificate! I was born in Los Angeles, where I lived with my parents for my first two years of life. My mom lived in Cali for over 30 YEARS before moving to Cleveland with me and my dad for his work and to be closer to family. Even though I didn't grow up in California, we spent many summers in Northern California where my grandparents lived and I have some of my favorite memories from there. I've traveled the world, and I still think San Francisco is my favorite place. 

The beach and mountainous views at the end of the Tennessee Valley trail.

3. Once I owned pet GERBILS! Sometimes even I forget this about myself. I definitely sort of fear rodents now, but when I was 12 I got to keep the two class pet gerbils! I loved them until they turned crazy and tried to kill each other. 

4. I love to sail. On the other side of the country, my other favorite place growing up was in Rockhall, Maryland which was right on the Chesapeake. My paternal grandparents had a home there, and I have some amazing memories of fishing, sailing, going to the beach, long bike rides along the bay, ice cream cones, crab catching, swimming in the neighbors pool, and pie with fresh cherries from the backyard. Sailing was a huge activity for us there and I loved any chance I got to learn how:

Grandpa, of course, was always right near by :)

5. I used to have a big brown dog. Yes, from ages 7-16 Sam was one of my best companions. I don't think I've ever met a sweeter, more loving dog, and I think about him every day. Even when I was in Europe, he would come to mind and I would think about how he always was there to greet me when I came home from school, loved swimming at the Metro Parks, and adored attention. He was a huge goof ball and could always lighten the mood when the goings were tough. Whenever someone would come to the door, he would frighten them with his big, deep bark and then when they came in, he would promptly drop to the ground and roll over to be pet :) We miss him so much!

6. I love to climb. I hate heights, but climbing is one of my favorite activities. When I was 7, someone had their birthday party at the Cleveland Rock Gym and I was the first one to scale the wall. Ever since, it's been something I love doing! I would love to climb real rocks one day (not sure how that will fit into my schedule :)

7. My hair hasn't always been this curly... Nope, I was born with straight (ish) hair! The curly gene didn't kick in until I was just about 12-13, and I feel like I'm still getting used to it!

8. I play an instrument. From ages 10-15, I was in the band! I play the flute, and continue to play whenever I'm home from school (it doesn't come to Oxford with me). Being able to read music is one of my favorite skills, because it makes it so much easier to pick up any other instrument! Thanks to this skill, I can also play a few songs on the keyboard/piano, and thanks to my wind instrument knowledge, I can pick up a saxophone, clarinet, or piccolo and play it almost as easily as the flute! I definitely plan to make my kids one day learn to play instruments, I think it's an important life skill.

9. My eyeballs are heterochromatic. Who knew that this phenomenon had a name!  This is a cool little fact that most of my family doesn't even know. "Heterochromia" is when one of your irises has a different in coloration. For me, it's my left eye (but my webcam flips everything to be mirror image so in this photo it looks like my right eye). My eyes are blue-grey but part of my left iris is hazel!

10. I donated my hair. This is another thing that's hard for me to believe about myself... but one day about a year ago I went from this :

to this:

All because I felt I was so lucky to have lovely hair and couldn't imagine what it would feel like not to have any, all while battling for your life at the same time. Donating my hair was something that was on my bucket list and I'm so glad I did it. 

The next part of the challenge will be my "9 loves..." stay tuned!

Happy Memorial Day!

Kept busy again today and had a fun Memorial Day weekend with my family. Slept in a little (now 8:30 is sleeping in for me, aghh!) and did some finishing touches on our new scrapbook... It's finally complete!

Headed out for a run and did 4 speedy miles. At home I did some 8-minute abs  followed by 8-mintute arms because I was feeling ambitious. I also stretched a lotttt and did some planks. After lunch I headed out to the beautiful metro parks with my family and did another 4 miles (these ones slow). This was my first time running in the metro parks and I LOVED it and think I'll be doing a lot more of that this summer...next time hopefully I will go earlier when it's not so hot! My grand total for the day was 8.02 sweaty miles and had to reward myself with custard from the Popcorn Shop of course.

Hung out at beautiful Chagrin Falls for a few minutes with my mom and sister and of course our ice cream.

After getting home I decided something needed to be done about my watch, which has been in smithereens since Dublin...

Decided to make a quick trip over to Target with my gift card... It took every bone in my body not to buy approximately 42 other things that I absolutely "needed" ;) Target is my happy place.

My new watch is pretty fancy...

Wrapped up the evening with a family bbq and read my new book outside! I'm LOVING the warm weather... I know I escaped the polar vortex but I seriously felt freezing every second I was in Europe. Wearing shorts is the BEST feeling.

Hope you all had wonderful Memorial Days - have a great week :)