may your days be merry and bright...

As you find rest and comfort this holiday season, I pray that each soul is illuminated with the knowledge of the immense gift that was given so many years ago. It is astounding to me that through a small child, adoption into the family of God, into His grace and acceptance, and ultimately, eternity with Him was offered. As you light the lights, open gifts, and feast heartily, let the knowledge of such a gift consume and fill your heart.

May your days be merry and bright...filled with the light of the One who has come and will return soon.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

my birthday (and other things)

Feeling a bit odd about turning 24...I feel like 24 is officially past college age and into young adult. It is so close to that quarter century mark too...

don't get me wrong, I know I am young and I feel young...I just feel as if I may be transitioning into a new age range and it's odd.

BTW, my birthday is Sunday, the 20th. My family has learned to do such a good job of separating this event from Christmas events, down to birthday balloon wrapping paper. I feel so celebrated. I mean, I am competing with the Savior's birthday so it can be hard.

Another thing, I am super pumped about seeing Rodarte's collection for Target. They are really cool designers and I find it neat that their lines hit stores on my birthday. Thank you, Style Rookie for informing me about this design.

Here are some peeks at the line: (also, this model is not very appealing to me but, whatever)

Lace tights, 12 dolla make you holla!


a rib cage, cooooooool...aaaand I could never pull it off but me like-y!

Ok, I am obsessed with this pleated tulle skirt. Genius.

totally tavi

please commence scraping yourself off the floor since i'm sure you all have fainted over the shock of my posting 3 times in 4 days. this is partly due to an easy work week and partly due to my determination to change my wicked non-blogging ways.

So I was in the library with a student yesterday and was flipping through a copy of Teen Vogue (hold your mocking please, i work in a high school, my options were limited. besides, i kind of liked it.) and i stumbled upon this impish little thing:

ladies and gentlemen (but probably just ladies), please meet Miss Tavi Gevinson.

she is a 13-year-old fashion blogger. no joke. her about me reads as follows:

Tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats. Scatters black petals on Rei Kawakubo's doorsteps and serenades her in rap. I have no where near 4 million readers. Rather cynical and cute as a drained rat. In a sewer. Farting. And spitting out guts.

this precocious little creature is FABULOUS. maybe i'm really behind and you all already have discovered her, but maybe i have stumbled onto her FIRST! i wouldn't say i LOVE her style but the fact that she HAS style is astounding. i mean i wouldn't really call my hodge-podge of a closet style, but more a collection of things i like and can afford.

Her posts are as quirky, creative, and genius as her style is. The fact that this girl knows Rodarte, Prada, and Alexander Wang and can flippantly say "I'm not really a YSL girl"...Tavi, I LOVE you!

She is inspirational, you should all go visit her blog (linked above). So much so, she was invited to NY Fashion Week and several BIG name designers have custom created little diddies just for her. It is encouraging to know that there is such young and fresh inspiration out there...and that she hasn't been stifled or made to feel insignificant. It really exemplifies the power of the internet and blogging in our world today. So all you inspirational bloggers out there, keep blogging, someone will find you someday!

acorn epidemic

2 posts in 2 days....shocked???? I know, me too!!!!!!!!

Anyway, we seem to be having a bit of a problem with these little guys.

The problem is, Judge (our dog) is obsessed with them. EATING them. And for some reason, this infuriates me. Mainly because he turns into a psychotic creature during our walks. Now, it is important to note that Judge is a world-class leash-puller. But we have been working on breaking this bad habit. Usually, we let him off-leash to run around and throw the ball for a few minutes and commence with our walk. But then the acorns started dropping to the ground. So the leash-pulling reared its ugly head once again.

Judge will pull, crane his neck, and twist every which way just for a nibble of these seemingly tasty goodies. He will ignore my splendid pitching skills and let the ball fly past him as he roots around in the grass for a scrumptious morsel. So now, instead of keeping him from pulling towards humans and animals, I have to keep him from pulling towards the acorns.

And all this would be fine if he digested them. But, since we have a "clean up after your pet" policy at the apartment complex, I assure you, these little treats are NOT digestible.

Gross!

in the mood...

before i start...just want to say...my blogging has sucked for the last month. i had this wonderful idea that i wanted to make my blog posts more frequent and inspirational and all that. yeah. anyway.

in reference to the title of this post. this morning i was very thankful for Crossfit. i had one of those mornings where i did NOT want to get out of bed, did NOT want to work out, was hating myself and Tommy for prioritizing fitness to the point that we wouldn't just take a random day off. and we can't work out after work today so i HAD to wake up. so after dragging myself out of bed at 5...dragging myself into my asics...dragging myself out the door and in Tommy's truck...dragging myself into the gym...dragging through a 20 minute warmup of lightweight squats, pushups, pullups, back extensions, and stretching...I was thankful for Crossfit.

Because the workout today took me 7min26sec.

it was "Fran"
21-15-9 (reps of the following)
25lb Thrusters
pullups (assisted for me still)

It is days like today when i was grateful i didn't have to move my body through an hour long run. but knowing the torture would be over soon...was motivation enough. sometimes i miss running. and then i have mornings like this morning.

well, see you kids later, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month. anywho, who's excited for this?

being "fit"

I realize I haven't been blogging about my current fitness regimen which is kind of a large part of my life. Every morning we wake at 5 to do the prescribed workout, which means every NIGHT we are lights out at 10pm. On the occasion that we might get in bed a little late sometimes we will sleep in which means that we work out after work, and then again in about 11 hours the next morning. Thus, incentive to not sleep in. Not only this, we have adjusted our diet to what is affectionately (or unaffectionately, if someone beside me has cake) known as Paleo/Zone. For more info on this visit http://www.zonediet.com/ or http://www.paleodiet.com/.

I can honestly say that I am a true believer in the importance of nutrition to athletic performance or really performance in general. We have seen increases in energy, strength, stamina, intensity, speed, etc. Decreases in inflammation (bloating), blockage (of the digestive sort), fatigue, tired-ness.

I decided to commit to Crossfit (http://www.crossfit.com/) and the nutrition plan because I had a fitness assessment at LifeTime and was disappointed by my numbers (VO2 max, % body fat) considering my previous running habits and commitment to "healthy" food. So I figured I would give Crossfit a go and really start eating "clean" and see if it led to improvements.

Crossfit is really cool. Now I know alot of girls out there shy away from weight-training, ESPECIALLY heavy weight-training for fear of "bulking up". But (if you follow the nutrition plan) it won't happen! That is such a myth. Yes you will bulk if you are consuming more calories than you are spending and if those calories are lots and lots of simple glucose (ie bread, pasta, sugar, potatoes). But girls just aren't physiologically designed to be bulky.

So the prescription for world class fitness in 100 words?

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.

Now this program is hard to get used to...it requires MAJOR practice and training to practice lifts correctly. I would NEVER encourage someone to do heavy lifts without proper study or instruction. Crossfit posts great videos that teach these things and both Tommy and I have watched and watched and practiced and practiced to make sure we are doing things safely. We don't do "snatches" simply because they are a very complicated and dangerous lift that we have never been formally trained on. We don't go to a Crossfit gym so we can't practice much of the gymnastics stuff as easy in Lifetime.

What is also cool is that it is totally scalable to any fitness level. Can't do dips? Cool, do them on the bench. Can't do a pull up? Cool, do them assisted. (My goal is to get my first unassisted pull up by Christmas!). The goal isn't "you have to do this much weight," the goal is "do it intensely." If it isn't intense, it isn't Crossfit.

So I (hopefully) will start blogging a little more about this, posting Zone/Paleo recipes, writing about PRs (personal records), etc. Until then....
some of Crossfit's Elite....

Please notice the blood running down Carey Kepler's arm...

um, someone please buy me this shirt.

seriously, this is just fabulous.

blast from the (forgettable) past

I was looking through some of the first tagged photos of myself on facebook and came upon this pic...




Why does this picture even still exist? Jess, this is a bad bad thing you have.

new look.

Do you like the new look and title of the blog? I am worried the title is too cheesy. Quirky or cheesy? I'm fine with like goat or brie cheesy...it's cheese but sophisticated and classy. When we get to like kraft singles cheesy I will change the title in an instant.

Yesterday, Tommy and I were talking about the different gym personalities we encounter. First of all, this is actually the first time we have actually belonged to a real gym. All through college and last year (b/c I was the spouse of a student) we went to the SLC. So we are Lifetime-ing it up and it is interesting.


There is a DISTINCT difference between the 5am crowd (that's when we normally go) and the 6pm crowd (when we hit the snooze). The 5am crowd is CONSISTENT. They tend to be older and a little more reclusive, but they are there no matter what. At 6pm, it's about being skinny (if you are a girl) and ellipticizing for an amount of time that only results in muscle breakdown rather than muscle conditioning. For the guys, they are big, creatine-eating, bicep curling monsters whose aerobic capacity is probably that of an 85 year old woman. Of course these are frightening generalities but I wanted to emphasize the difference.

Then you get the individuals. There is this one woman who ALWAYS wears tight, black spandex pants. She wears a sweatband around her head and she wears glasses which she keeps on with a thick band almost like goggles. Another is this one girl who is either walking, ellipticizing, or stair-climbing. She is EXTREMELY tan and she does all these movements very fast and kind of spastic. And her left leg is always coming out really oddly. She wears like a billion pieces of jewelry, mostly bracelets during all of this. Then my personal fav, Foam Roller Body Builder Guy. This guy looks like an 80s body builder. He is very toned but not BIG and hulk-ish. And he wears this goofy haircut that is parted on the side and combed over (think Ken doll). He comes in every morning and spends about 20 minutes with his foam roaller before starting his workout. It's pretty entertaining.

But yesterday, when Tommy and I were doing front squats, Foam roller guy said I had good form. THAT'S right Mr. Foam roller guy, I DO have good form. And it was my first day to do front squats. Booyah.

she's baa-aaack

no this is not some freaky re-telling of Poltergeist, rather a declaration of my return to blog land.

Since we moved from Waco, we have not had internet so I depended upon Tommy's Iphone for world wide access and I was definitely NOT going to write a post on that teeny tiny keyboard.

Some updates in Byrd life:

1. We moved to Dallas to a townhome in uptown...about twice the size of our waco apartment and suddenly we had all this space we didn't know what to do with!

2. In the meantime, we were driving up north to see family and friends like a billion times a week, I got a job in Frisco (more on that later), and found that all the amazing qualities of living in uptown are not quite in our budget.

3. So we moved again! This time to a town home in Addison/North Dallas. We like a number aspects about this: both of our commutes are shorter, we are closer to family and friends and potential church options, and in general we like the apartment itself alot better. We have only been there 2 weeks and it already feels more like home than the other place.

4. My job. So I was offered 2 jobs: one at a mental health agency caseworking like I did in Waco. the other was at Frisco High School (my mom basically got me this opportunity). After much thought and prayer we decided to NOT accept the caseworking position. I would have had to use my own vehicle and been driving all over the DFW metroplex. Also, it was a position with clients at a lower functioning level than my Waco job and I don't think I would have really enjoyed that like I did in Waco.

5. At Frisco, I am an aide in the Special Education Specialized Behavior Support (SBS)classroom. These kids aren't necessarily academically or functionally challenged (ie mentally retarded) but have emotional/social/behavioral issues. We have several with mental disorders. So I went from working with crazy adults to crazy teenagers! It's quite a paycut but there are so many opportunities in education that I thought it was worth a shot. I am already attached to our kids...want to fight for them...want to see them succeed.

6. I am going to be an aunt! My sister is 3 months pregnant! Pray for her b/c she has fibroids on her uterus so that makes her semi-high risk. She is due late February/early March. I am so pumped to be Uncle T and Aunt Celina!

That is all for now, I shall be updating much more frequently.

Jesus, bring the rain...

It is a gray, rainy day in Waco today. I was driving and this MercyMe song came on...I had never pushed beyond the cheesy contemporary Christian aspect long enough to really listen to the words. Combined w/ the weather conditions, this song hit me really powerfully.

Lord, let this be the prayer of my heart...

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
The dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what's a little rain
So I pray

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

the weekend

One of the most fun things about being married is that you have a built in best friend. This weekend Tommy and I took our first "married trip" or maybe you want to call it a "romantic getaway" to San Antonio, Tx. I LOVE San Antonio! I don't know why, its usually crowded, there is an extreme amount of homosexuals, and the Riverwalk restaurants are all expensive. But I like it! We went to the Riverwalk but I love other areas such as the area near Fiesta Texas where it is really hilly and there is this amazing shopping center called La Cantera. I also like the little city of Boerne outside of San Antonio. It's right on the Guadalupe, and is the cutest little town.

Anyway, highlights of this weekend's Riverwalk adventure included:
1. Top highlight would probably be the man in a slinky red dress w/ tennis shoes. I'm not kidding. Normal man head, no makeup or wig or anything...he was just wearing a dress.
2. Boudro's Burger. Boudro's is supposedly one of the best restaurants in the country and we had an afternoon reservation on Saturday. While we were standing outside waiting to be seated, we saw this amazing burger served to someone. We both had to get it and it was PHENOMENAL. As well as the tableside guacamole we ordered.
3. Cable! We stayed up super late on Saturday night watching cable. We haven't had cable all year so when we are somewhere that has it, it is a huge treat! We actually had to get that stupid HD converter box for the TV.
4. Riverboat cruise. I have been on this silly boat ride probably 10 times but for some reason I love it!
5. The Alamo. I mean, it's the Alamo. It's so Texan.

All in all it was a very fun trip for us!

I'm running The Texas Half in Dallas this Saturday. In celebration of race-week nutrition, training, etc, I have decided to post a little ode to technical apparal.

You know how they advertise "cotton...the fabric of our lives..." WRONG. Not for a runner. For a runner, cotton is one of the most deplorable fabrics of all time! It clings, sticks, and stinks, and doesn't wick, dry, or breathe. Thus...the wonders of DRI-FIT, polyester-spandex blend, environmentally UN-friendly technical fabrics. Once you say goodbye to cotton...there is NO return...

So you thought running was just about the shoes? Let me introduce you to a whole new world...

First of all, the shoe. These happen to be my perfect shoe. Let me just say that NIKE does NOT do the running shoe well though they are my fav for all other tech-apparal. Along w/ running shoe shopping comes a whole vocabulary w/ words like "mid-foot support", "overpronation", and "advanced cushioning system".

Then the shorts...Now I know we all love and know the Nike Split Track. But let me tell you SIZING is the big deal here. Too small, they ride up, especially if you are blessed w/ curves like I am. Too big, and there isn't enough coverage in the middle and HELLO CHAFING! These are best for sunny, warm days...over 60 degrees.
My new found love...the running capri. With these you get maximum movement, minimal chafing and less sweating. Negatives...if you want to carry your phone for safety, these make it a bit difficult.

For cold days, we're talking less than about 38 degrees or lower, especially when you run in the dark at 6 am, the compression tights are the best option. Like the capris, great for movement. But I've worn these on a long run where my ending temp was in the 50s and it was HOOOTT.

Ah the singlet. The liberating feeling of running without sleeves just MIGHT be one of the most euphoric experiences in life. I'm not kidding. Plus, you get a great tan! Mine is a pretty blue color...not this yucky black.Ok, so I think every female needs to ditch the old high school/college/youth group t-shirts and purchase one of these UnderArmour Tees. They will REVOLUTIONIZE your workout experience. I'm serious, I was all about the old Zeta tees at the gym and then I got one of these. The breathability is amazing! The only downside is they can get kind of stinky post-workout.Who knew that Dri-fit around your head made a difference? Again, I was true blue w/ my pink Baylor hat and got a hat like this one. Somehow, it holds my sweat yet stays dry all at the same time. And I think the fact that it is white makes it a great sun reflector. Ok, no more excuses against the cold! One of these little puppies will keep your ears and head so nice and toasty on cold days! I have a pretty purple and pink one.This is the one thing I have not purchased but is next on my list...right now I'm wearing some apparent "moisture wicking" cheapos from Kohls. Which comes the one downfall to this post...tech apparal is PRICEY. Even socks, which I didn't get into, can run into $10 or $12 a pair. But I figure, these are items I am wearing several times a week...I definitely get more wear out of them than most of my other clothing items. Whatever the cost, tech apparal is worth it. There really isn't a comparison. And no trying to get those cheaper brands they sell at sports stores...somehow, there is a difference. Although my one paradox is that I have one favorite sports bra...and it was $8 at Walmart.

actual conversation

this was an actual conversation I had today, with an actual client.

Client M: Ms. Celina, I ordered a few movies last month for christmas. (referring to his cable bill)

Me: Well, I'm sure that's ok.

Client M: Well, Ms. Celina, you just tell me how many I can get.

Me: probably somewhere between 1-3 a month. no more than that, ok?

Client M: Probably not even that. It won't happen again, it was just for Christmas.

Me: ok. What movies did you watch?

Client M: Some alkfjdla (a word I didn't catch).

Me: what was that?

Client M: Some porn.

Me: (stunned)....Oh....ok.