Are we surprised?

I'm sure this isn't a surprise to anyone reading this that my attempts to blog are usually thwarted by my own busy schedule and short attention span. I can't promise 2016 will be different, but I can promise that I'll try!

What I've been up to!
In December of 2015 I got engaged!!!! My wonderful boyfriend surprised me by luring me to "celebrate his birthday with our family and some friends" downtown. I was tricked into coming to "pose for the family Christmas photo" and instead saw Brendan standing in front of our families and friends waiting to ask me the most important question of my life! In the last month, we've managed to choose our date, the venue, a photographer, and will soon be selecting a florist and even getting to dress shop! I'm so excited to be a bride!

Stay tuned for how I asked my bridesmaids to be part of my special day, and some crafting ideas you can borrow for your leading ladies! 

Where have I been?

Well, I think I said something about being terrible at blogging from the beginning... considering that it's been 5 months since my last post, I was not incorrect.

The good part about not blogging for five months is I am also slacking at taking progress photos, so this next one is some seriously noticeable progress!

I've been working on doing a pull-up progression to get to being able to do a strict pull-up. (see below).. so far I am on week 1 and my poor hands are a little frustrated at me. I managed to find some lifting gloves for barbell work at TJ Maxx of all places (Nike lifting gloves for $9.99... okay!) and some gymnastics grips with pink velco, which is always a great identifier for my things. I slept way way way later than I planned on today and missed open gym, which was okay with me until I started baking a peach cobbler.

This summer I worked really hard on recording my lifts in an app called myWOD and managed to increase my squat clean max by 15 lbs., and my back squat by 40 lbs. (other lifts we haven't done a 1RM in a while but I'm sure they're increasing as well). It's been fun sending photos to my boyfriend and Crossfitting friends and having people who can relate to my excitement!

Some of my goals for myself are to compete in a competition this fall, get consistent double unders, and get a strict pull up! I have never been able to do a pull up in my life, even in middle school PE so this is going to be a big moment for me when it finally happens! 

I take no credit for this pull-up progression, I just inputted it into Excel so I could read it better. Currently I am doing this with a band and aim to use less and less help from bands until I can do a strict pull up with no assistance.