Well HELLO! Let’s catch up!

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Literally WHO IS THIS!?

I figure there is no better time to [finally] blog again than when I am home sick with COVID. *womp womp* Is this what it takes for me to get my blogging act together??

Yes, actually, it definitely is.

I am very grateful to say that I have only been moderately sick with flu / bad cold symptoms this week. Started with a mild cold, then to a high fever, lots of fatigue, and all that traveled down to lower respiratory symptoms, which is where I’m at right now. The pesky (to say the least) virus appears to be making its rounds a little more again where I am. I hope you and yours are staying well ♥︎

Anyway, onto more exciting things. Let’s catch up! At the end you can find a montage of photos and videos of life recently.

Easter

He is Risen! Happy Easter season! And almost May!

I keep telling people that, starting from Easter weekend, it’s like all my weekends are going to be filled with plans after plans all the way until mid-June. And then it feels like the year is pretty much over at that point. It might as well be Christmas already; that’s how quickly it feels like time is flying.

I had the opportunity to spend Easter in Boston with my beloved friends who are still living up there since we all graduated college. All of my closest friends are still the ones I met through the Boston University Catholic Center (and now their new friends who they’ve made since then!). If you are a seasoned reader of this blog, you know I am pretty obsessed with them.

To love Him more and more

This is my petition to Jesus for this year especially. It’s simple and it has always been my petition, I guess. But more explicitly now, I desire to love Jesus more and more deeply, truly, and completely from all those small and perhaps imperceptible places of reservation in my heart. I am a slow work in progress, but He is helping me a lot.

What a pitiful state of humanity to need so much help just to love Jesus who has Loved us to death, but thankfully, He doesn’t mind us asking for the help.

Work

Can you believe I’ve been working as a doctor of physical therapy for 1.5 years already!? Neither can I.

I am still working at an outpatient orthopedic clinic, helping people with things you’d expect: neck, low back, shoulder, elbow, hand, hip, knee, ankle, post-op rehab, concussion (a fave of mine to treat!), headaches, vestibular dysfunction, balance/gait dysfunction… The list goes on. I’m learning a heck of a lot, and I hope to continue becoming the best clinician that I can be.

Training

Well this week training has been a big wash due to having COVID and not really loving the feeling my trachea gets when I try to do any sort of physical activity. Just these past couple of days I have been able to do some lower intensity KB things with lots of rest in between sets. I am grateful for that.

Otherwise, I am still training with kettlebells at home, though I recently joined my high school friend’s gym that he owns to start picking up the barbell again and to use other pieces of cardio and conditioning equipment that I don’t have at home. I am indebted to KBs and all my friends who have taught me how to use them, because they certainly have made me stronger and faster in ways that 6+ years of working out on my own could hardly do.

What am I training for? As cliché as it sounds, I really am training for life and work. My struggles and successes with strength and aerobic training (mostly strength though…aerobic I need to work on) help me to truly understand what I am asking of my patients and to give them the best cues for motor learning. It also makes my actual physical job easier!

I train 3-4 times per week for 15-60 minutes, depending on how much time I have. Making it work!

I would do another Spartan race perhaps… (I did a Spartan Beast (15 miles!) back in October and I am just now realizing that I never mentioned it on this blog! It was a grind but it was so fun.)

Eats

Check out the video below for a peek at some of the things I’ve been eating. I would no longer call myself a “healthy living blogger” based on the merit of my nutrition, but I would call myself a “healthy living blogger” by virtue of how much I don’t overanalyze my food anymore. I think it’s relatively nutritious, but ask a registered dietitian. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, I do still love peanut butter and banana though. And dried figs with Greek yogurt. Some things don’t change.

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Here is the little spring montage covering life as of late. I created this because my media storage on WordPress is nearly full. I used to embed my Instagram posts on here to spice things up with media, but I decided to make my Insta private because creepy accounts/people abound on the interwebs, and it’s not worth it to me to keep my profile public, since my goal is not to grow a huge following. Instagram is way too palatable and addicting of a platform (as opposed to WordPress) with all of its algorithms that draw cool people, yes, but alsoooo unwanted eyes, so I’ll just keep the bubble closed.

Hence, a montage here to keep things exciting. Enjoy!

When I am not sick at home and when I am working, life is quite full to the brim. I expect that to be the same moving forward into spring and summer, but with Sunday school being over, I hope to add a couple more posts per month to this ol’ blog (which is 9 years old this year!). No promises, but I’ll try! I still love doing this.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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So tell me:

What is a highlight of your spring so far?

Have you returned to any activities recently as things have opened up more?

Anything exciting coming up for you in the month of May?

Solidarity!

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

pray.

A big thing for which I am grateful these days is the solidarity I feel with my family, friends, patients, colleagues, role models, and strangers quite honestly during these times…and just during life in general. I am realizing more and more that one of the things that ENERGIZES me and gives me motivation is knowing that there are others who are laboring and toiling alongside me (in the theoretical sense, not the physical sense because…you know).

I have been praying a lot about the Holy Family (i.e., Jesus, Mary and Joseph) being with me in my mundanity and also in the stresses of work. I imagine their humble yet incredibly loving actions in their daily work, and that brings me a good deal of consolation.

eat.

I made these pumpkin cheesecake crumb muffins this weekend, and they are perfectly sweet and moist. A good crumb wins me over every time.

move.

Workouts continue to be planned approximately 5 minutes before I do them depending on how I am feeling and how much time I have. Last night I had 40 minutes from start to finish, so after a warmup, I did 5 rounds of 10 KB snatches on each arm (35#) followed by a 15 minute HIIT:

3 rounds (30 sec hard work // 30 sec rest):

pushup burpees
KB swing to reverse swing
beast to alternating kick through (I paused at the beast position longer than this person does in the video and did the kick through with greater speed)
crossing mountain climbers
skaters

groove.

I put up some Christmas lights this past weekend inside and outside the house, and it’s really quite ~~pitiful~~ humble, and I call the decor setup my “frat house festivity,” but seeing even just a glimmer of cheer makes me happier than Christmas decorations ever have.

Also, I tried to learn this Kyle Hanagami choreo to the song “Monster” by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber, and I’ll say it was moderately successful, though I don’t look as good as these dancers, and there are a couple links in the choreo that I have not gotten down. But learning choreo again made the dancer in me very happy!

This was a quick post, but I have been wanting to pop in for a while now! Hope you guys are having a marvelous week so far 🙂

So tell me:

What is something that FIRES YOU UP to keep going when things feel like a drag?

Are you decorating your house for any of the upcoming holidays?

Crumb topping – yay or nay?

Do you ever watch videos a million time to learn the dance (“yes,” say all the Tik Tok fans of the world)

The Aftermath of Inspiration

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

This is the diary of an extraordinarily ordinary person.

Also the diary of a person who has not worked consistently nor been in school for almost a month, so I’m just derping around, reflecting on life, wasting time, and finding things to do. Luckily, work starts on Monday.

Recently (not just during my post-school intermission, but even throughout this past semester), I’ve noticed that I have rarely felt passionate about the things in front of me, whether that’s school, relationships, activities, fitness goals, or just life in general.

Please do not take this the wrong way! It’s not that I’m not enjoying life, but I’ve been lacking some intrinsic “oomph” that drives me to set my heart on something.

The only thing that my heart is truly set on is pursuing a deeper relationship with God, which I guess is fine because that’s the foundation of everything else. But I still can’t help but feel frustrated that my disposition has been kind of bland and aimless recently.

It’s easy to be inspired to do great things (or small things with great love) through prayer, enlightening conversations, beautiful songs, thoughtful articles, and Facebook videos with heart-tugging montages (#honest). What’s not easy is facing the aftermath of inspiration. The aftermath that involves…doing normal, everyday things.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves seeing and choosing to love the face in the mirror that has zits all over her forehead (including one particularly pesky and red one).

The aftermath of inspiration that involves emptying out the sink trap, my least favorite thing in the sanctuary that is the kitchen.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves re-studying notes from the past year at the dining room table.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves responding to emails.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves conversations that don’t inspire or excite you at all.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves sweeping the floors of the millions of hairs that three long-haired girls shed in their apartment (haha ew, but I know some of you can relate).

The aftermath of inspiration that involves NOT looking at inspiring things anymore and just doing what you need to do.

The aftermath of inspiration that involves dirt-ordinary things that are necessary in order to achieve greatness, to change lives, to become the men and women who we are created to be.

I feel like I get on an inspiration high with so much consumption of social media. It’s obviously a great thing that there are so many uplifting, inspiring, loving people out there; I am grateful for everyone who puts out positivity in this world. There’s never enough of that. However, recently, that’s where the inspiration seems to stop for me.

I watch the inspiring videos, read the inspiring articles, and then go back to the tasks of life with very little passion. I really do believe that some people go forth with a “get after it” mindset 24/7, but I…just don’t. Like, I’m doing what I need to do and seeking opportunities to be better, but I’m not trying to “get after it.” I’m just doing what I ought to do.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t have many goals right now, and for the goals that are already set out for me (i.e. finish school with a doctorate in physical therapy), I’m kind of lackluster about them (except for the Spartan Race in August; I’m stoked for that). So I do what needs to be done, expecting it to either fulfill me in the moment or expecting myself to feel some sort of passion because, “This little task will pay off in the end when I reach my goal, right!?” … But nope. Neither of those things stirs in my heart.

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throwback to last year’s Spartan Race lol

That’s the problem though. I always want to feel like I am fulfilling some profound inspiration that budded in my heart at one moment, but the aftermath of inspiration involves emptiness sometimes. It might involve wandering. It might involve doing things cerebrally for a while instead of doing things emotionally. It might involve doing little things with great love but not feeling love at all, because love is a choice, after all.

(I do believe that you should be at peace with what you are doing; how you feel is so important and should not be forgotten!!)

if you feel like 1-year-old post-nap Alison all the time, re-evaluate what you’re doing

Speaking of inspiration, I just read this in a Sisters of Life magazine, and I think it’s relevant to my situation:

“We have tried to learn the great art of being with others… It’s a way of receiving another — looking at the person before me, not as a project or a problem to be solved, but as a gift, a unique masterpiece of God’s love. It’s developing the habit of gazing at this person with the heart…” – Sr. Maris Stella

I think this can apply not only to people, but to every task that may or may not feel like it’s lending to my ultimate fulfillment.

So I guess the aftermath of inspiration isn’t really “aftermath” at all, but rather a true gift in and of itself. The dirt-ordinary task, the people in front of you right now, the opportunities and experiences you are given today — this is the greatness, the life-changer, the essence of becoming who we are created to be. And seeing it as such is a habit that needs to be developed, so maybe that’s what God is helping me to do now.

I think it’s time to let life inspire me as it happens rather than feeling the need to do everything because I am inspired. Does that make sense? And if passion for something does take over my heart one of these days, I will be all the more grateful.

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idk this is an old gif in my media library, but Beyonce is always a good choice

Have a great Thursday! God loves you. I love you.

So tell me:

THOUGHTS!?

What Moves You?

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

I GOT 14 HOURS OF SLEEP ON SUNDAY NIGHT.

I conked out a little before 7pm and woke up at almost 9am. I needed it though. This past week, I’ve gotten anywhere from 3-6 hours of sleep per night, but I am happy to report that this was mostly because of long, wonderful days.

egg sandwich that I packed with me for my flight from Florida to Texas — very happy I brought this

also very happy my flight provided Biscoff cookies 🙂

Remember the Alamo!

As I said on Friday, I was in San Antonio, Texas for a Catholic conference called SEEK. The theme of the conference is, “What Moves You?”

So with almost 13,000 (!!!) other students (plus a whole lot of religious sisters and brothers, priests, missionaries, and others), we ventured on a four-day journey to reflect on this question.

can you find Boston University?

Even though I felt like I was moving through a can of sardines the whole week, it was absolutely incredible to grow closer to Jesus Christ with so many other young people.

Our days consisted of breakfast provided by our own BU missionaries (thanks so much1 ♥︎)…

they even had pb because they’re the most considerate of souls

…followed by Adoration and Mass with over 13,000 people…

…then a little Battle of the Sexes game show fun before our separate men’s and women’s talks. Fun fact: I was the contestant on Battle of the Sexes on the third day.

thanks, Jaime 🙂

A little background: The men won the Battle of the Sexes the past two SEEK conferences. The score by the third day when I went up there was 4-3, women in the lead. But the men had one more lifeline, while the women had used both of them by third day (we had two total for the week — ask the audience and ask a religious). So the pressure of regaining the title for 7,000+ women was on my shoulders. Good thing I had a very strong sense of, “Trust in God; this isn’t about you,” in my heart by the third day.

Rachel filmed this for me:

Funny how I didn’t know the second question, which had to do with women’s rights… Rachel said the night before, “They chose the worst possible person for this.” A little bitter about that comment, but she’s not entirely wrong.

It ended in a tie (he got two right, I got one right), so later that night there was a tiebreaker that THE WOMEN WON. I’m convinced that Our Lady of Victory was interceding for us 😉

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Anyway, after the Battle of the Sexes and the respective men’s and women’s talks, we all broke for lunch, which was provided every day.

always some variation of sandwich, chips, cookie, and water

After lunch, we had two 40-minute breakout sessions. There were so many talks to choose from each time. Throughout the week, we were blessed to hear a plethora of phenomenal speakers provide inspiration, insight, information, apologetics, and testimonies about different topics in the Catholic faith.

The second talk ended at 4:45pm, and then we were on our own for dinner. We usually went for some Tex-Mex food, because…we were in Texas.

tacos and tamales are my faves

Although, one night my Californian friend, Sarah, took us to In-N-Out — apparently an essential experience for all of us who had never been.

“They all just look so happy there.”

regular cheeseburger, no onions + vanilla shake

thanks for the photo, Domenica!

‘Twas delicious!! Even if I was stuffing it into my face in our Uber as we rushed back to the conference that night.

At night, we would have a keynote at 7pm, followed by different programming each night. One night there was adoration with all 13,000 people (chillingly powerful). Another night there was a comedy show by Michael Jr. Another night there was a performance by The Oh Hellos (if you like folk rock, you HAVE to check them out!). Another night, my friends and I ditched the programming and bought ourselves ice cream from CVS.

ice cream and fellowship ♥︎

Also, San Antonio is a pretty sweet city. Everyone is so kind; it kinda throws off us northeasterners a bit.

our mascot living his best life in San Antonio

So now to answer the question, “What moves you?”

After this SEEK conference, here’s what I’ve learned moves me:

The unchanging nature of things, especially the unchanging nature of being a woman in a world where the model of femininity is constantly changing (see Lisa Cotter’s talk for more on this!).
The Law of God, which is based on love.
God’s Mercy and the mercy of others in my life.
The fact that, although there are logical reasons to believe God exists, “for most of us, God is not a hypothesis; He is a personal experience.” – Matt Fradd
“We are not the sum of our failures and weaknesses. We are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son.” – St. John Paul II
“God is not just the destination; He is the inspiration.” – John O’Leary
The fervent prayer and worship of so many young people, as well as their support, kindness, and drive to use their talents for the sake of the Kingdom.
The sight of lively and radiant nuns, brothers, friars, priests, and religious.
God not just being a big part of my life but God being my life.
The fact that a guilty conscience is helpful, but shame is not from God.
The gift of writing, which is so helpful for focusing during prayer.
The fact that what breaks my heart breaks God’s heart.
The honest and vulnerable testimonies of men and women from every (and I mean every) walk of life.
“If God is going to spend so much time designing the unique circular patterns on your fingertips, how much more will He care about the love that is in your heart?” -Sr. Bethany Madonna
“You will become what you love.” – Leah Darrow
Just as we can’t exercise and then go feed ourselves with whatever crap foods we want, we can’t just go to church/pray and then feed ourselves with media and activities that point us away from God. It’s a lifestyle.
Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist.
These people:

seek

the Boston University crew! thanks for the pic, Veronica!

So tell me:

What moves YOU?

A fun fact or two about last week!

Have you ever been to In-N-Out before?

Sports and Faith

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

I thought I could consider myself an athlete.

Until I watched the Olympics.

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But then I saw the Ford (?) commercial about how “we are all athletes” and was like, well, fine, if you insist.

In all seriousness, check out Krista’s post about how you know you’re an athlete. Anyone can be an athlete. You don’t have to have 21 gold medals like someone.

michael-phelps-game-face

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I watched the #PhelpsFace shenanigans live on TV, and it was the most appalling and hilarious thing I’ve seen all year.

Anyway, we all know that Olympic athletes are downright inspirational. I was a little girl who always strived to be athletic in her younger years but never had natural athletic ability. However, I have really taken off in a burst of confidence these past couple of years as I’ve grown to love fitness.

Although I don’t participate in organized sports right now, and I definitely don’t even train like a middle school athlete, I am proud of how far I’ve come just dabbling with new feats at home. In some of my harder workouts and accomplishments, I feel like I’ve finally gotten a minuscule taste of the drive of a great athlete.

I’m sure you agree that it would be SO COOL to be an Olympics athlete (p.s. my blog/fellow BU Terrier pal, Gemma, is running track for Ghana in Rio this year!!! check out her guest post WIAW from last year here). I have glimmers of hope inside me that I could at least be a competitive athlete again if I really wanted to.

But I don’t want to. There are many ways to achieve your purpose in life, and sports are probably not my way. If you asked me, “What is your purpose in life?” I’d say something about doing God’s will and bringing others to Him.

That being said, there are so many parallels in the journey of an elite athlete and the journey of finding your purpose in life, whatever that may be. In my case, I’ve found that I can draw major inspiration from athletes for my own faith journey.

1) It’s difficult to start.

It takes a very special breed to say as a beginner, “I can’t wait to do that workout that will set my lungs and muscles on fire.” Likewise, I never said, “I can’t wait to go to church!” until maybe a year ago (read: 15+ years into being taught about and teaching the Catholic faith).

It’s a choice to start doing what will make you better every day, whether you’re in training or you’re trying to grow closer to God.

2) You have good days and bad days.

Pretty self-explanatory. Athletes get tired, sore, probably hungover every now and then. They don’t break records every day and they don’t get better every single day. But they use those off days to get better overall, and that’s how it is with the faith.

There are days when I am welling up with enthusiasm for prayer and good works. And there are just as many days when I don’t want to think of God or I don’t feel like He’s there.

The only way to get through those bad days is…to get through those bad days, with a constant reminder of the end goal and a reflection of how you can learn from the trial.

3) It’s easier with a community.

CrossFit raves about the community of support all the time, which I think is why it is such a success as a sport and an industry.

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I’ve talked about how my faith has grown leaps and bounds thanks to the incredible community of men and women at BU’s Catholic Center.

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You push others, they push you, everyone falls over, and that’s the end.

This is where I say, “just kidding, you help each other back up and move forward.” 😉

4) It hurts.

There is so much we don’t see elite athletes experience “behind the scenes.” The sacrifice, the pain, the internal turbulence and pressure… But they know that those are necessary experiences in order to become a resilient and freaking amazing athlete.

There is so much we don’t see in people who are faithful, joyful, and unbelievably at peace. Maybe they did have a great life, but maybe they didn’t. There is sacrifice, pain, and internal turbulence behind the most peaceful and joyful people I know. Getting through those trials is what makes them resilient and freaking amazing human beings.

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^^^One of my favorite quotes ever.

5) It’s worth the blood, sweat, and tears.

Watch Aly Raisman’s documentary and see how difficult her training was before London 2012. Now look at this chick—3 Olympic gold medals (and counting?). Seems worth it. final-five-medal-ceremony_ap

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The end goal at the end of this journey called “life” is eternity with our Creator, which I think seems preeeeeeetty worth it. And He told us it would be hard. And it is hard, but…

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In all honesty, publishing this post is hard. I know my audience, and I know this doesn’t cater to everyone, but my slogan up top there is “pray. eat. move. groove.” Pray comes first. Faith comes first. God comes first. And I wouldn’t be sharing this if I didn’t believe in the depths of my heart that you could possibly feel the same about Him, some way, somehow.

Whatever your creed is, I like to believe that people have goodness in their hearts to want to help others and spread joy in their lives, which is never easy. So here’s to using athletes as inspiration!!

(pretty terrible flow of paragraphs at the end there, but guatever, I need to go to sleep.)

So tell me:

How do great athletes to inspire you (if they do)?

What would you say is your purpose in life? Have I asked this before?

Daily Moves and Grooves

pray. eat. move. groove.

Tag Archives: inspiration

Well HELLO! Let’s catch up!

Solidarity!

The Aftermath of Inspiration

What Moves You?