st teresa of avila | Daily Moves and Grooves

Moves. 45 minutes on the assault bike (a fitting name for it). I basically did my own spin-class-style workout to my “werk” playlist on Spotify, doing a variety of sprint intervals, recovery songs, and endurance/tempo songs.

I ended with songs from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack, and I felt like I was INVINCIBLE. My favorite songs are “Memories” (a slower, moody, lyrical hip-hop type of vibe) and “What’s Up Danger,” which I have expressed to my friends is a song that makes me “wanna break things and throw boulders while wearing a Mulan-in-armor-esque type of costume.”

…Which explains the title of this post. Side note: Highly recommend the movie if you have not watched it yet — a very well-done cartoon!

Femur felt fine after the workout, but I still need to make a doc appointment to get it checked out for real.

Spontaneous conversation. My friend asked me if I wanted to hang out / study with her on campus yesterday. When I got there, we initially had our laptops open to do some work, but she asked me how I was doing and asked specific questions about my life, opening up a lovely, spontaneous conversation about deeper things than I was expecting for a rather normal Tuesday afternoon. She showed genuine interest in me, which was so touching. I forgot how much even a brief heart-to-heart can refresh my being. Thanks, Lauren ♥︎

Punctuality. I was late to ^^^said meet-up with Lauren, about which I NEED TO BE BETTER. I am punctual for class, work, and meetings with professors/bosses, but when it comes to casual meet-ups with friends, it’s like my brain cannot get my body to move and think fast enough to be on time. I always leave too late and overestimate my ability to get done what I want to get done. But I do not want to keep taking advantage of my friends’ / family’s time, because that ain’t right.

Stuffed cabbage rolls. I made these babies for the first time ever, which was super random; I’ve literally never eaten a cabbage roll in my life, but I had beef… I had cabbage (#cheapestveggieindaclub)… Cabbage rolls! My Ukranian roommate saw me cooking them and said, “I have never seen anyone in America make these.” I enjoyed them! Baby meatloaves in a blanket!

Quote. I pray every day, but it has been a long time, it seems, since I smiled during prayer from the depths of my soul. But yesterday, I could not help but (soft) smile, and this quote was part of the reason:

Prayer is nothing more than a friendly conversation with the One whom I know Loves me. — St. Teresa of Avila

Hump day already, baby! Let’s get it.

So tell me:

Do you ever feel like you could crush things with your bare hands because of a super intense workout song?

When was the last time you had a refreshing spontaneous conversation?

Punctuality — great at it or struggle with it?

Have you ever eaten stuffed cabbage rolls?

I mean…this blog is called DAILY Moves and Grooves, is it not?

Here’s the thing: I have not blogged consistently for the past two years thanks to grad school. I am deterred from blogging because I feel like I need to have perfectly-themed and cohesive content in every post, and that takes TIME. But maybe that’s not entirely necessary…

I believe in the power of creativity, whatever that may be, as an outlet; it can be a tool for both personal growth and for fostering social connection. I also don’t want to let this hobby of mine die, not now at least. I’ve got less than a year until full-time, real-world work, baby, so I’m gonna soak up this time.

So how about some shorter posts? Posts with snippets of potentially relatable content that help you and I start a conversation, casual or deep. Or for you to just feel like you’re not alone. Or for me to process my life. All of the above?

I’ll try it out.

(Unfortunately, there will likely be limited to no photos in posts to come because ya girl has very little media storage space left. But perhaps take this as a break from image overload that you get on Instagram and Facebook anyway.)

Moves: If you watched my day in the life vlog from yesterday, you might have picked up on the fact that I was supposed to run a half marathon this past Sunday but decided it was in my best interest to NOT run it due to a (self-diagnosed) stress fracture in my femur. I’m walking, but running is not a happy time. I’ve been focusing on low impact workouts lately, and that’s just what I did yesterday.

20 minutes (5 rounds, 30 sec on, 10 sec off):

KB sumo deadlifts (50#)
modified v-ups
push-up to renegade row (15# DBs)
plank ➔ step to stand ➔ deadlift (15# DBs)
tabletop sit throughs
mountain climbers

I do not actually know if I have a stress fracture, but I will get it checked out ASAP because it’s been over 2 weeks now, and it hasn’t really made much progress. No worse, but no better either. (So…do not take this workout as something I would necessarily recommend based on the diagnosis of a stress fracture; this just felt good yesterday.)

Crying out of nowhere. I’ve been going through waves of feeling like I’m great and then feeling totally ashamed of all the crappy things I do in my life. Very clearly in my heart when I was feeling the latter yesterday (I was packing my backpack or something mundane like that), I felt like God was saying, “Hey, stop that. Stop. I love you.” And I started crying out of nowhere. I didn’t want to cry because I had just put on makeup, so tears were extremely inconvenient, but when the Spirit moves, He moves.

Hibachi. I had a date at a hibachi restaurant last night, and I think my sodium levels skyrocketed so much that I must have been borderline hypertensive. They squirt soy sauce on everything as if it’s the water that will put out the little onion volcano fire. I also couldn’t catch whatever the chef threw at my mouth. But it was fun and the company was lovely!

Family. I realize that I should call my family more often (hiiii, mom and pop and Ben).

Day off. Due to schedule shuffling thanks to the Monday holiday, I actually do not have classes today either! That just means catching up on all the things I should have done earlier this weekend.

Have a great Tuesday! Happy feast day of St. Teresa of Avila ♥︎