The Perfect Time to Clean Out My Closet

Tomorrow it will have been a week from Hurricane Sandy.  As I wrote in my last post I was lucky, I was not affected at all, but I have friends that still don’t have electricity or anything.  Being that I have been in an area that wasn’t really hit, and that we are all stuck here because the trains aren’t running to very many places I have been pretty much booked solid at the salon.  All week I heard stories about some of my clients’ families being stuck in an area hit hard by Sandy, with no electricity or worse.

The subway is slowly coming back together, but there is still not much gas around and there are still a lot of people in shelters and there is still a lot to clean up.  The building that my salon is in The Loom has been taking donations this weekend and has been making trips to different areas dropping off everything that people have been bringing in.  I took this opportunity to go through a lot of the clothes that don’t fit me anymore.  Originally I wanted to sell most of it, there were a lot of outfits still with tags on, and some coats that I might have worn twice at most, but given what is going on I decided that the best thing to do would be to donate it.  Most areas aren’t accepting clothing anymore because so many people have already given so much but what I was seeing on all the donation pages they were still desperately in need of plus sized clothes.

Perfect!  So today I packed up all my clothes and Jake helped me lug them all the way there since we couldn’t get a cab and I didn’t have enough gas in my scooter to drive there.  I also packed up most of Angel’s cat food (don’t worry I ordered her more) so that something could go to the shelters that are taking care of all the animals that are now homeless as well.  Angel might not have liked seeing her food go away but I am sure she would be happy to know other Kitties will have food now.  It feels good to get rid of so many of the clothes that have just been hanging around, and awesome that it will go to people that need it.

These photos on Buzzfeed are heartbreaking to see that this is happening only a few miles away from where I live.

Click here to see the rest of the photos

If you want to help there are so many ways.  If you live in the area BushwickDaily.com has a post linking people that are car-pooling volunteers.   You can also donate to The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, or The Humane Society.

Even Jake’s wrestling company, Warriors of Wrestling is also trying to help out.  They just had to cancel their November 10th show because of the state that Staten Island is still in, but their next show on December 1st they will be donating their proceeds to a charity benefiting Staten Island.  Even better, each wrestler in the show will be donating their pay to one of their biggest fans that lost everything.  If you were ever interested in checking out on of Jake’s wrestling matches that would be the date to do it!  The website is not updated yet for the Dec 1st show, but bookmark their page www.warriorsofwrestling.com and check back soon, it will have all the information and the link to buy tickets!

 

I lived and laughed through Muck Ruckus 2012

Saturday of course was the 5 mile mud and obstacle race that I entered called Muck Ruckus in West Orange, NJ.  I convinced my sister to run it with me and then with less than a week before the run my cousin Sean decided to run it with us!  Muck Ruckus was a charity for multiple sclerosis which our mom has as well as Sean’s mom so it was definetly a charity that was near to our hearts.  It made me feel good that not only did i raise money, but since I got my sister and Sean involved we raised triple the amount that I would have by myself.

The day started off super early, I had to be at Penn Station and on a train heading to NJ by 8am, and our wave of the run started at 11.30.  Sean and his wife picked me up (she has an awesome blog called Welcome to Deluxville) and then we met my sister Ashley and her family.  Even my mom and dad showed up to watch us!

my dad giving us a pep talk lol

The obstacles started out immediately.  When we got to the first one Ashley, Sean, and I just thought it was a few dirt hills, then we get to the top and to our surprise they were slides into mud!  They wasted no time getting us dirty at all.

one of three

first slide down into the mud

One of the issues with the dirt hills were the rocks.  Sliding down the last one I hit a huge one that hurt so bad which Sean’s wife caught on camera lol

my cousin Sean

Ashley

This obstacle was towards the end of the run, by this time we were probably at around 4 and a half miles and completed i think at least 18 other obstacles!  This one we had to jump off the platform into 6 feet of muddy water, it was a little scary at first so we hesitated, but it was pretty fun after we finally did it.

This was the second cargo net we had to climb, I wish I had a picture of the first one, it was HUGE!

This one was fun, it was a giant swing that you had to stand on and make it swing then you just had to jump off into about 4 feet of water!

the photo that was posted on the website to hype us for the run

Our actual obstacle didn’t have knots on the end!  I was at such a disadvantage because the ropes were so short, so not only did i not get to get a high enough grip but without a knot at the end i just slid right off as did my sister.

show off! lol

And crossing the finish line!  Our official time was 2 hours and 46 seconds.  I finished in 392 place out of 731!!!  Pretty awesome!

Wet and tired, but it was so much fun!  All three of us are going to do it again next year!  I have to give my sister credit for finishing as well as she did.  Not only was she not well trained for something like this, but she also had a baby in January!  And Sean signed up less than a week in advance so he didn’t get to prep much either.

I was so excited that my heart rate monitor was water proof so I could wear it for the run, this way I could track my heart rate, (I’m not going to lie, I kind of ignored it hehe) but most importantly I could see how many calories I burned during it.  I wasn’t expecting it to be over 1000 calories, but that is pretty exciting!

The one bummer was that I broke out in a rash on my hands after the race.  I have a latex allergy and i don’t really know what i touched that was covered in latex, but my hands are still all red and itchy and its Wednesday!!  Next run I am totally going to wear gloves to protect my hands just in case.

After the run my boyfriend Jake had a match in Staten Island.  Since my sister and her family were up from Philadelphia for the run they figured they would go see Jake wrestle.  The one problem was, my sister and I were covered in mud so thanks to my “black card” membership at Planet Fitness we stopped into a gym right around the corner from the venue and showered really quick.  I have to say that alone made my $20 membership worth it for the month haha.

My niece Casey and her dad Andrew modeling a lucha libre mask

Dirtbag Dan, Benjamin Quinn, and my bf Logan Black walking out to their match

And still the No Limits Champion hehe.  If you want to check out a match go to the Warriors of Wrestling site and check out when the next one is.  They are super fun (even though I am a little biased)

Now that I finished up that run, I have the Color Run 5k Sunday August 26th which I am super excited for.  It might not be muddy, but it is still dirty!  If you have never heard of it check it out, it looks awesome!  The two NYC dates sold out in less than 24 hours!!!  And now that I got my sister hooked to the mud runs, she wants to do The Hell Run in October so hopefully we get to do that one as well.

What a Longggggggg week

amazing color and style i did at my salon

This week has been super eventful and packed so I haven’t been able to update my blog, but have kept up with my workouts and stuff, in fact worked harder.  I was decently busy at work and also hired a trainer that I worked out with twice last week.

My trainer, Alex started with me on Tuesday morning.  He did more cross training stuff with me, but did a pretty good job showing me some new moves to help get me out of my slump.  I woke up the next day with super sore legs, so sore that I walked noticibley funny, and i made it worse by wearing platform flip flops so i just walked awkward all day.  I worked out by myself Wednesday then Thursday I was back with Alex again at my meathead gym which was fun.  Friday and Saturday I went to Planet Fitness by myself and did intervals on the arc trainer and abs.  Sunday is usually my day off from the gym because I usually stay at Jake’s house for the weekend and his gym won’t allow guests (lame!)  but this weekend Jake stayed over beacause one of my best friends, Tina was in town so we all went to the gym together Sunday and Monday.  Sunday I did an arm day with Jake which was really fun, we usually don’t work out together because a lot of the stuff he does I can’t do, but I definetly want to try to do that more with him.

my stats for the week thanks to my Polat FT60

I really worked out 8 sessions but on the first day with Alex I didn’t wear my heart rate monitor, and on Sunday when I was doing a bicep curl the monitor unsnapped and fell off and didn’t count it!  I’m super excited because I ordered the S1 Foot Pod to track my running, so I can’t wait to see next week what it says!

Tina came up to not only hang out, but also to see Jake wrestle, he had a match Saturday night which turned out to be really fun.

Jake is front and center ❤

For the main event every minute a new guy entered the ring, and the only way to be disqualified was to fall out (or be thrown out) of the ring.  It got pretty crazy, but it was really exciting, I was glad I got to go to this one.

If you live in the New York area, and you like wrestling, you should totally like the Warriors of Wrestling’s facebook page and go to a match!!

We also got to see the new Batman movie, shopped in Time Square, and ate at one of my favorite restaurants (and the place Jake and I went on our first date) Wild Ginger.  yum!

I tried out a recipe for a protein peanut butter cup that my roommate Lydia found on a YouTube channel called Lean Body Lifestyle

I followed his recipe however I used my vegan protein powder by Vega.  The vega protein needed a lot more water than if I used a whey protein, so mine came out a little thicker, but its still pretty good, I can’t eat a whole one, it filled up a whole cupcake wrapper!  but i will definetly make them more once i finally finish the two that i made haha.