I love Boston.

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

It’s too early in the week to be this emotional!

Essential physical therapists. Last night, my latest clinical instructor sent me photos of herself and other PTs decked out in PPE (personal protective equipment) up the wazoo. She and several other PTs have been working at the Boston Hope Medical Center, a field hospital at the Boston Convention and Events Center that is running solely for the treatment of patients suffering from COVID-19. She updated me on how life has been working in a field hospital, which she says has been “amazing and interesting,” but she also hopes that it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

MDs, nurses, PTs, OTs, RNs, SLPs, military personnel, and so many other health professionals are all working together day in and day out, which we all already knew, but I feel a renewed and deepened sense of pride in the profession of physical therapy, which yes, is an essential service for people with acute respiratory illness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Marathon Monday in solidarity. Yesterday was Patriots’ Day in Boston, which is always the day of the Boston Marathon. The marathon has been postponed to September for obvious reasons, but Boston finds a way to grow stronger through this iconic event, even during a pandemic. For one, my BU PT classmates (all scattered across the country now) posted photos and routes of their short or long runs on a shared google drive, so that we could support and inspire one another in light of the circumstances.

I am blessed to live near downtown Boston, so I ran 2.62 miles there (total coincidence that it was exactly 1/10 of a full marathon) to the finish line on Boylston Street and then back home.

Some people were at the finish line waiting for their loved ones to finish the marathon, which several people unofficially ran yesterday anyway. What spirit!

Side note: I did not love running with mask. I would take it off when there was not a person in sight, but would put it back on when I approached people. Just a little extra cardiorespiratory challenge, but I suppose I can suck it up (literally) and offer it up for those with COVID-19.

Moves.

Saturday – Yoga video and walking.

Sunday – 100 burpees throughout the day + this fun workout (that included some of said burpees) with my kettlebell:

Squat clean and press (both hands on the KB) (3×12)
10 burpees
Mini modified pull ups using the footboard of my bed (3×10)*
10 burpees
Single arm KB cleans (3×10 each arm)
10 burpees
Double KB swings (3×10)
10 burpees
Asymmetric squat creeps (the last exercise in this link except with only one KB) (3×14 total, switch arms halfway)
10 burpees

*I made this exercise up in an effort to mimic some sort of pulling motion. I might post it on my instagram story later. It looks silly, but it worked my lats. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Monday – 5.2 mile run

Gosh, I love Boston so much. I’m not leaving until July, but my heart is already breaking a teeny tiny bit.

It’s funny. I remember a very distinct moment in high school when my parents and I were visiting my brother (who went to Northeastern University) in Boston. We were driving behind Boston University’s campus on Storrow Drive. I looked out the window and thought, “Eh, I think I could do without a city like Boston.” Literal FOOL, Alison. I love being proved wrong by God in the best way possible.

I hope you are all having an excellent week so far.

So tell me:

Do you have a city that just steals your heart for one reason or another?

Any inspiring COVID-19 stories you’d like to share?

If you’ve been exercising recently, what have you been doing?

Finals Week: Brought To You in Part By Bread

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Ohhhhh we’re halfway there.

WHO-OA bread is everywhe-ere.

I’m halfway through finals week, but since I don’t have any exams until Thursday (plus a research paper due tomorrow), I’m feel like I’m on study autopilot. Like, “meh, time to stuff more information into my brain today.” I’m not as overwhelmed as I’ve been in past finals weeks, which is great, but it’s a little weird too.

Fortunately, there have been pockets of fun amidst the stream of studying. Many of the fun things have involved BREAD (or a variation of it).

Pita chips with spinach artichoke dip two nights in a row.

Night 1: Last Thursday I stopped by the Admissions Ambassadors (aka campus tour guides) end of the year gala to mingle for a few minutes and eat some hors d’oeuvres. I was severely underdressed since I needed to study and wasn’t planning on staying long, but I just ate the fabulous spinach artichoke feta dip in the corner, took some pics, and ducked out.

Night 2: A few friends and I went to the senior art exhibition by the fine arts students here at BU. I was also underdressed this night because I came from work/studying/walking in the rain all day, but the art was the focus of the night anyway.

there is so much cheese under those crackers

Friday morning bagel run with so many friends.

My friend Sarah (the girl who has been getting me to run more recently) has been wanting to have a “bagel run” with people for the longest time, and her dreams finally came true.

First, Sarah and I ran ~2 miles together and then stopped at Bruegger’s Bagels to get 16 bagels + cream cheese for everyone coming to the bagel run. We individually packed them in Ziplocs because we’re the moms of the group.

Then we met up with 15(!) of our friends to run 1.5 miles to a dock by the river to eat bagels!

100% brought peanut butter to share

It was such a fun little event! There’s also an epic playground by the dock, so we obviously had to play there until a dad with his two little kids came, lol.

Moves and grooves at their FINEST, I say. Thanks, Sarah, for organizing! And thanks, friends, for coming out on a Friday morning! ♥︎

Turkey, pepper jack cheese, and mustard between bread or with crackers.

I am so into this “after school snack” type of lunch right now. Doesn’t this remind you of something you’d find in your lunchbox as a kid??

strawberries are in season and on sale, praaaaaise

Also, there were [vegan] chicken nuggets in the dining hall. They’re not the most amazing nuggets in the world, but that breading brings me back to the good ol’ days of frozen nuggets warmed up in a toaster oven.

BBQ sauce all the way

Blueberry cobbler a la mode.

One of the best desserts in the d-hall in a while.

Frozen nutella hot chocolate checked off the food bucket list with Rachel.

This isn’t bread-y, but I had to include it. This frozen nutella hot chocolate is from Paris Creperie, and it was delicious!

The best way I can describe it is: nutella frosty.

It was also so nice getting to catch up with Rachel — it had been a while!

Free cookie cake from the Google Allo cookie truck.

Basically, if three people downloaded the new Google Allo app and started a group chat on it, this random Google Allo cookie truck gave you a free cookie cake with personalized frosting.

Free dessert sounded good to us, so Zoe, Sarah, and I took a study break to get one. We had them write “Regina Caeli” on it, which means “Queen of Heaven” (aka Mary). Because we’re Catholic and we were coming from the Catholic Center and we like Latin.

That same night, Sarah, Domenica and Kelsey were wearing matching America socks. Look at how adorable they are!

I also definitely brought my yoga mat and foam roller for everyone to use #finalsweek

Sunday morning French toast with Megan.

It has been one of our goals to make perfect French toast ever since we came back from Ireland, and Sunday was finally the day. I bought some quality brioche from Trader Joe’s + used some of my thick whole wheat bread to make, if we do say so ourselves, excellent French toast. We used this method!

Megan is a purist and drizzled hers with some maple syrup and powdered sugar. She’s also a stacker.

I Alison-ified mine with peanut butter, caramelized bananas, and maple syrup.

We each had 2.5 slices (so, yes, I ate all of that above) with a glass o’ milk on the side, and it was blissful.

Perfect avocado toast is BACK.

I hadn’t bought avocados for a while since they weren’t on sale, but Target had 4 for $4, so I jumped on that.

one with avocado + sriracha, one with pepper jack cheese // carrots and hummus // strawberries and Pirate’s Booty at the end

I ♥︎ pirate’s booty

Baking peanut butter banana bread / chocolate chip banana bread with PJ and Kelsey.

So I could have been hardcore studying last night, but PJ and Kelsey invited me to join in on some pb banana bread baking… A good study break, right?

It was worth it. And I did get some studying done still because they took on the brunt of cleanup (thanks, friends!). I also winged a random cookie recipe because we had a butter/sugar/egg white mixture that was a mistake for the banana bread recipe, and this is what turned out.

Kinda bready oatmeal cookies that tasted decent with peanut butter sauce on top.

Bread has been fueling studying and lots of moves and grooves.

I worked out with Ben again on Saturday morning and took us through this circuit workout:

2 rounds of each set, 30 sec on, 10 sec off

jumping jacks / air squats / mountain climbers / high knees
pushup to T / skaters / squat jumps / plank
side jump lunges / spiderman kick through right / spiderman kick through left / tuck jumps
one legged burpee right / one legged burpee left / ski jumps / tricep dips
broad jumps / plank jacks / side plank / burpees

On Sunday, Rachel, Sarah and I went on an easy run…

…and stretched our calves at the foot of the stairs in the Catholic Center.

Regina Caeli 🙂

Plus some other good workouts throughout the week at the gym.

And now it is time to eat lunch, fold laundry, and STUDY. I consider blogging a non-priority, but I still think it’s good to do during hectic weeks like this. There are many good things to stop and appreciate amidst the blur of life.

So tell me:

How are finals going for you, college friends!?

How do you eat your French toast?

What is the best bread-y thing you’ve eaten recently?

Two fun things about this past week!

Last Undergraduate Days

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Classes are OVER.

The title is correct— I’m done with undergraduate classes! But I’m not graduating yet. I’m in the 6-year physical therapy program, so now that we’re done with three years of our undergraduate classes, it’s time to move on to the graduate portion of the program for another three years (but we still walk with the Class of 2018).

Halfway done!!

Here are some scenes from my last undergraduate days, which look quite similar to some of my freshman days…

As I did freshman year, I am once again hoarding bananas from both the grocery store and the dining hall, so there are many frozen bananas and banana-pb breakfasts (surprise!). You’d think I lived through a banana famine in the past.

plain Greek yogurt mixed with apple sauce (I have a big jar that needs to be used, so it’s going into everything), cinnamon, nutmeg, chia seeds, strawberries, banana, granola, pb

strawberry banana overnight oats with granola and sunflower seed butter

This is me doing laundry when things are getting desperate (read: I have no more pants to wear and almost no underwear left). I don’t know if this is reminiscent of freshman year, but it seems like something a freshman would do. And apparently a junior.

This is me taking my vitamins (basically candy, which is the only way I will take vitamins daily), opening up my laptop to do work, and then taking a nap instead.

In this post from freshman year, I stated, “I still need naptime and snacktime, so I’m basically in preschool.” ← still true.

Snacktime in class, exhibit A:

I’ve had many dining hall meals to use up these past couple of weeks, so it’s been fun feeling like freshman/sophomore me, going to the ol’ d-hall every day.

The server gave me, like, three servings of barley on that plate, but I ate it all because I was so hungry. It was one of times when I could feeeeel the glucose nourishing my brain.

Zoe put her cookies in there on purpose

pepperjack mac and cheese!!!

look at all our salads + mac and cheeses

snickerdoodle cookie x2 because they were that good

I would say that the dining hall draws me to eat more desserts, but we all know that’s not true.

a cup of two different kinds of gelato that I bought on sale before Easter 🙂

It’s been nice not having to buy as many groceries as the semester closes out and I have dining hall meals to use, but that means that when I do eat at the apartment, it’s usually eggs or canned fish of some sort.

egg sandwich with sun-dried tomato butter

The weather has been very mild and quite nice recently. The trees are bloomin’ and beautiful!

But just like freshman year around finals week, my allergies are up the wazoo! I can’t stop sneezing and crying.

Some days I go to the gym or work out outdoors, and other days, I take it back to dorm workouts on the mat. Like this 30 minute yoga from Fightmaster Yoga!

Ya know how I don’t love running? Or at least how I always say I don’t love running? Well I’ve been running with my friends once or twice a week for these past few weeks, and I can dig it.

Convo with Sarah:

Screen Shot 2017-05-03 at 10.02.54 PM

Just like freshman year when I started running 4-5 miles for a few weeks randomly, even though I claimed to not like running. Well it had been over two years since I had run 5 miles, and I did just that with Sarah yesterday morning. ‘Twas glorious!

perfect running weather

I do like running. I do. I think I like it more now because I don’t pressure myself to hold a certain pace, I enjoy running with friends, and I play it by ear. If I wanna run, I will. If I don’t want to, I won’t. NOVEL CONCEPTS.

We also discovered that we got matching blisters after our run.

Screen Shot 2017-05-03 at 10.02.06 PM

wimpy

I thought it was necessary to show you all that we got a blister in the exact same spot on our feet (the spot is innervated by the medial plantar nerve in case you were wondering #GrossAnatomyStudyingALLTHETIME).

And now I should continue studying. Blogging was a great break as always. My friends Domenica and Nico did Uptown Funk Zumba with me for 5 minutes just now too. Keeping life zesty.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! Good luck to my fellow college students who are facing finals. Forge on!

p.s. I think I lost my early bird streak the night after I posted my last blog post lol.

So tell me:

Have you been running outside recently?

College friends: What’s life looking like for ya?

What is the best thing you’ve eaten this week? That mac and cheese wins.

Sick Day Eats

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

In the past four days, I have only left the house to go to church, the grocery store, and the train station.

I wish I could say I’ve gone on some fun hometown excursions with friends, but alas, I have come down with something. I’ve had flu-like symptoms, but nothing too serious. Just enough to make me want nothing but sleep, soup, and bread. (I just looked back at a post at this exact time last year, and I was sick, haha.)

It’s weird that I don’t have a million things to do, people to see, and places to walk. Nevertheless, I am enjoying this change of pace. I think that’s why I’m sick. Thanks to human physiology, I now understand that my immune system is repressed in times of stress, so when I am no longer stressed, my immune system starts to fight whatever pathogen has been lurking in my body.

I proudly told that to Pop, and he was like, “I know that.”

WELL.

Cooking in the kitchen has also been making me happy. Today I’m sharing my day of eats from Monday. It’s been a mighty long time since I participated in What I Ate Wednesday (aka WIAW aka wheeee-awwww)!

630 am: Hot honey lemon water

After I dropped off Pop at the train station, I went to the grocery store to get some lemons. All my throat wanted was some hot honey lemon water, and boy was it soothing.

9 am: Green overnight oat smoothie

Festive, yeah? The night before, I put into a blender:

1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. rolled oats
1/3 c. plain Greek yogurt
1 HUGE tbsp. peanut butter (so like, 2 tbsp. probably)
2 tsp. chia seeds
cinnamon and nutmeg
pinch of salt

Stirred it together straight in the blender and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I added another splash of milk, a frozen banana, and lots of spinach. Blend, pour into a bowl, top with granola, eat with a spoon.

1 pm: Avocado, cheddar, egg, mustard sandwich

I went on a 20 minute ~~run~~ jog around the neighborhood before I decided that I was very done. I had worked out the night before, so I was sore and also achy from being sick. Thus, I came home and made this beautiful thing. I even got fancy and broiled the cheese on the toast. DREAMY.

I also ate some colorful pomegranate seeds and carrots with hummus.

A package came in the mail during lunchtime that included no-bake balls from Arman, so I obviously had to try one. I think this was a cinnamon bun no-bake bite. Basically everything good all rolled into a convenient ball. Thank you so much, Arman!

5 pm: Nuts

Balls and nuts, good. (12 year-old boy.)

630 pm: Theraflu

I appreciate that Theraflu makes tasty medicine.

730 pm: Split pea soup, leftover pesto chicken, peppers and hummus

I made a big batch of slow cooker split pea soup during the day, and it totally hit the spot for dinner. Also, the thought of raw peppers kinda makes me queasy while I’m sick, but I ate them anyway.

Split pea soup is my FAVORITE soup!

10 pm: More hot honey lemon water

(I washed my mug between uses :)) I think I might even have hot honey lemon water even when I’m not sick. It’s so comforting yet refreshing from the zing of lemon. At the same time though, I might want to keep it as a sick day “treat”. Kind of like mom’s chicken noodle soup, ya know? Maybe. I dunno.

Two more days until Christmas!!! It’s 60 degrees outside right now. It’s like a Florida Christmas or something!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday! Go broil some cheese toast.

So tell me:

What do you like to eat or drink when you’re sick?

What is your favorite kind of soup?

What is the best thing you’ve eaten this week? It’s a tie between that sandwich and the split pea soup!

Overwhelmed with Goodness

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

So much to tell you. SO LITTLE TIME.

How in the world is it the last week of classes this semester? I can’t deal. I can barely deal with this weekend. I went to work on Friday, and two things stood out to me while I was working:

I set off the fire alarm making steak (this is the second time I’ve done that now, but that steak was PERFECT).
My boss told me I have “a look of wellbeing.”

I was very flattered and humbled by that comment. Part of me was thinking, “Really? This is the face of one tired lady.” But another part of me was thinking, “Well, I think I know why.”

If I do indeed have a look of wellbeing, it’s because God has ~~filled~~ overflowed my life with nothing but love. He always has filled my life with love, but I think I have learned to better appreciate and focus on His love, rather than sulk in my insecurities, trials, doubts, guilt, and fears.

Basically, I am overwhelmed by the goodness around me. Sometimes I feel unworthy. Sometimes I squander the gifts I’ve been given. Sometimes I’m afraid it will all disappear. But that’s humanity. We’re not worthy, we do fall, and the world will pass away. That’s why I need God. Like, NEEEEEEEED.

And yeah, this got religious real quick, but even if we don’t share faith, I hope that you can relate to this sense of gratitude and awesomeness (in the truest sense of the word) in your life.

So what’s all this goodness then? Time for show-and-tell!

-People who genuinely care about your life.

-People who wait 3 more seconds to hold open the door for you.

-Laughter, even when studying is stressing you out.

me trying to figure out if respiration is hindered when lying supine

-Good conversations with people who I’ve just met.

-Really good hugs and high-fives.

-Running with your best friend, even though you didn’t really want to at first.

-The wonder and beauty of the human body and being able to learn about it in depth.

-Soul talk. It’s fun talking about food, fitness, the latest party, and Justin Bieber’s comeback, but nothing is as satisfying and fulfilling as talking about, well, what truly satisfies, fulfills, and challenges our souls.

-Seeing and experiencing the beauty of God with and through other people.

-Sharing food and fellowship.

Mike & Patty’s for our food bucket list!

“Egg Fancy” = two fried eggs, avocado, bacon, cheddar, and house mayo (OMG) on multigrain

That was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten.

My lab partner/friend/fellow foodie, Christina (go follow her on Instagram @foodietunes!), have been on many food adventures this weekend…

breakfast before lab

Indian night in the d-hall

distracted by cupcakes during our walk on Saturday

split a pumpkin gingerbread spice cupcake— OH WOW.

grand opening promo event at Sweetgreen yesterday

free {healthy} food? yes, please.

One of my friends just came home after studying abroad in Australia for the past four months, and he gave me a Tim Tam to try! Very tasty.

thinking about you, Arman

-People who affirm and encourage you constantly. It’s easy to be self-conscious or upset about your body, personality, or achievements. However, having people who truly believe that you are beautiful and who push you to be the best version of yourself— that helps you live a little more fully and confidently every day.

So to YOU, I say: There will be many lies and doubts (both internal and external) holding you back from being the best version of yourself. It’s tempting to sit in grief until you feel good enough to finally do something great. This time of feeling weak and useless is the perfect time to start giving. In giving, you will receive so much. Give your smile, your thoughts, your talents, your love.

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[source]

I know I am currently living at a time of peak physical and social nourishment, so I understand that everything in my eyes seems like rainbows and unicorns. I have nothing to truly complain about. Maybe I’m naive and in a bubble. But I know for sure that “to whom much is given, much will be expected,” and I pray that I can just give from the overwhelming amount of goodness I am given.

Phew. Hope you all have a wonderful week 🙂 “Let us begin.”

So tell me:

The best thing you ate this weekend.

Three good things from last week/this weekend.

About the last time you set off the fire alarm (if ever).