BadAss Thursday July 30th Recap:

Studied for my Microeconomics final.

Read your hater mail (comments) about my 3am Beer Thoughts blog… Did more research… you guys are all right! More on beer later.

Ate at Flaming Amy’s Burrito Barn for lunch (badass)

Studied for final some more.

Took final at 6pm. Pretty much failed. I think this because I was done before everyone else and it felt easy. I bet I forgot to turn it over and there were questions on the back or something. FML.

Went to CrossFit Coastal for “Ladies Night” – which was a huge group of people doing some of the lady benchmark workouts like Fran and Christine. (If this confuses you – check out “Girl WOD Demos” HERE.

Afterwards a big group went to On The Border for dinner. Dude – Mexican food twice in one day = BADASS.

Zeke bought tequila shots for everyone — Thursday July 30th is apparently national tequila day. (well, that’s what the sign said)

Tequila for badasses!

I went to my dentist today to have my root canal fixed.

If you’ve ever seen me in a club, or maybe at a theme park attraction, or the Halloween store — any place with a Black Light — you’ll notice that one of my front teeth does not shine. Several years ago I had a tooth that died (from the Bionator headgear experience) and I had to have it replaced with a fake tooth. This tooth, as of the past 2 years or so, has started to reposition crookedly in my grill. My dentist suggested that I really didn’t need braces – but instead have that tooth reset so that my teeth would appear straight again.

While waiting for the doc, I fell asleep in the dental chair. I wake up to hearing Dr. Farrell say, “You don’t look very badass right now.”

To reclaim my coolness, I responded sleepily with, “Only badasses can fall asleep in public places of torture. AND speaking of badass, I’ve put a lot of thought into this: I’d like you to replace my root canal tooth with a gold one. Preferably one with a $ sign etched on the front.”

Dr. Farrell says: “You totally could NOT pull that off. You’re wearing a polo and Sperry’s.”

Me: “Badasses can do whatever the f*** they want. I can definitely pull it off.”

Dentist: “Suuuure.”

Then Dr. Farrell turns to the assistant and says, “No Novocaine for this badass.”

And then he proceeded to take a sledge hammer and knock my old fake tooth out.

Okayyyy…. it was a drill type thingy…. but I definitely felt and SMELLED porcelain flying everywhere… and he didn’t numb it at all.

So – after they did all of the putty molds, etc. etc. — they sit me up and say, “your real tooth will be here in about 2 weeks.” THEN the doctor says, “I really don’t want to give you the hand mirror. We use the same color temporary tooth for everyone… so this one does not match the whiteness of your other teeth…”

He slowly passes me the mirror. I look. It basically IS A GOLD TOOTH… but more yellow than hip, rap star gold.

So, for the next two weeks I have a temporary yellow tooth.

Badass.

Photoblog of BadAss move for today: TStorm changes the house’s Air Filter.

Step 1: Get a step ladder for my short ass and open the air filter thingy.
Easier when you have 1) a friend (Kristen the photographer) 2) a sidekick (Phizz Bitch) 3) a step ladder to help.

2 Crucial helpers: Step Ladder and Phizz Bitch the dog

Step 2: Assess the damage of waiting too long to change the Air Filter.

No wonder my house is dusty and I have "allergies"

Step 3: See the difference between a clean Air Filter and a dirty Air Filter. Try to look sexy.

Out with the old, in with the new!

Step 4: Pop the new filter in place and secure the vent.

Pop and lock baby

Step 5: Go to Mayfaire and buy a new pair of sunglasses and try to look badass.

This badass just changed an air filter, bitches!

DONE!

I was in the middle of typing my Day 15 Daily BadAss Recap when an email from Nate popped into my inbox.

It was a simple one-paragraph email that I’ll copy/paste below:

I've got some ammo for ya!

“We’re done flying.  I pooped in an ammo can while the aircraft was flying.  I got out of the seat and into the cabin, took my
flight suit down, pulled my undies down and pooped in an ammo can.  I wasn’t gonna make it back to the ship.”

Now I’m thrown off track.

Suddenly I’m pondering whether pooping in an ammo can is badass?

I’m pretty sure it’s a fine line between badass… and really f-ing disgusting.

Haha – poor guy.

The other day I got one of my bi-monthly crazy cravings for pickles. Not just the pickles – but the entire contents of the jar. It’s weird. I just get this craving. I buy a medium-sized jar of pickles. Eat every single one of them. Then drink the entire jar of juice. I wait for about an hour. Put on shorts with an elastic waistband…  And then have what I call “Assplosions” for the rest of the day.

It’s not a pleasant experience – but I’ve got to feed this badass machine what it wants, right?

So – the day I had this craving I changed my Facebook status to “craving pickles”

Within minutes I had about 15 comments all basically saying “must be preggars!”

Couple of things wrong with this:

Pickles - popular for many reasons!

1. I’ve been drinking pickle juice since I was a child. When the other kids used to make popsicles with Kool-Aid and Coke — I was using pickle juice.

2. Nate is deployed… not an optimal time to procreate

3. The entire pickle industry is not solely supported by pregnant women

4. If I were knocked up- my status would be more like, “Can someone push me down a flight of stairs?” JUST KIDDING – everyone knows I would totally pretend like I did it on purpose!

I decided to do some research! Turns out:

“If you find yourself craving pickles your body may actually be craving the salt not the actual food.  Salt cravings are sometimes caused by serious underlying problems like diabetes or anemia, if you discover that you have salt cravings it’s a good idea to schedule an appointment with your doctor to rule these out. Another less serious factor that can cause you to have salt cravings is adrenal stress. Many things can contribute to adrenal stress. One factor that is very common is consuming too much caffeine. Caffeine is found in many things like coffee, soda, and even chocolate which you may want to cut back on to see if this helps to eliminate you cravings.”

So – Hmm. Maybe I’ve got some potassium deficiencies. Either way – this now brings me to something that happened this weekend.

No joke – this text message conversation really took place within the time frame of this pickle-debacle.

From a # I don’t know: “Congrats!”
Me: “For what?”
From # I don’t know: “For the baby!!”
Me: “OMG – is this about the freaking pickles?!?! Jeeze!”
From # I don’t know: “Oh, I”m sorry, wrong number.”
Me: “I’m sensitive because I’ve been craving pickles lately.”
From # I don’t know: “Oh, well then congrats to you, too!”
Me: “Thanks! I’m not pregnant – so it’s definitely worth celebrating!”
From # I don’t know: “LOL – Amen to that, sistah”

Anyway — that’s my pickle story.

The rest of my badass weekend involved Quantitative Methods homework… my brain doesn’t work the way it needs to for this class. I’m going to fail. The weekend also involved three 225# deadlifts. Going to church — ooh, got some really cool insights that will be on future blog post.

NEXT UP: I have a few badass tasks in the hopper. They involve changing our house’s air filter and rescuing our riding lawnmower from the weed garden under the back deck.

Inside the CrossFit Coastal gym there are things that we take for granted. For example, the communal sweating. We don’t sweat a little - it drips off of our bodies in buckets and coats everything that we touch. Complementary to the sweat is the dirt you’ll find smeared on our faces and legs from doing push-ups, vault rolls and walking lunges. And we can’t forget to mention the chalk that we grind into our blistered hands – which eventually just clings to our sweaty Nike shorts.

We’re a rough bunch. We train too hard to really think about our image in the gym.

I’ll tell you when it hits me – AFTER I LEAVE – like when I run to Costco to buy almonds and fish oil pills by the pound – and this wave of funky stank butt wafts up into the air and slaps me in the nose… and I realize that nastiness is coming from ME. Others probably notice – and it makes me want to retreat back to my safe world of sweaty, chalky Crossfitters who would accept me just the way I am.

I darted through the mega store to grab my nuts and dog food – when something grabbed my eye! Looks like I have become so famous that products are being named after me and my lifestyle! I had to take a picture.

Thera Pure's namesake... me?!

The picture is fuzzy – because being badass and all, I was probably doing other important things at the same time I was snapping this photo. (Like looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching the sweaty girl take picture of an air cleaning system.)

OH! Turns out,  I lost my Costco membership card, so I had to get a new one on this trip- with a NEW PICTURE – again, looking dirty, chalky and with that sweat that beads up on your upper lip and chin… does anyone else get that?

Survived that trip. Came home to finish up our group’s 2nd MicroEconomics assignment – to discover that my internet was not working. Not even on my iPhone! I panicked for a bit – but in the end – the paper got turned in right on time (inside an orange folder with a matching orange paperclip thank you very much!)

Tomorrow should be interesting…

Found the Roomba!

Roomba hiding out in Phizz's cave of random shit

Underneath the master bed a few rooms away… (thanks to a gmail chat with Kayla who suggested I look under there).

The iRobot was under my bed along with things that I should be embarrassed to share: a torn up roll of toilet paper, tampon applicators, underwear, plastic grocery bags, my favorite necklace and a shoe.

THANKS, PHIZZ!!

So, I got some badass work done today. Not really top secret – but the projects are incomplete so I’ll share later.

Quick recap: On day 9 I was able to walk on my hands for about 1.5 feet for one of the CrossFit exercises. This is monumental.

Um. I’m tired. I can’t think of anything else. Sorry. This badass hit a wall. I’ll be up-and-at-em manana!

love,

TStorm

I’ve had this on-going headache for about a week or so now. I’ve been eating Imitrex like it’s candy – but it’s the only medicine that makes the pain go away for half a day.

I was in  a long meeting this afternoon (MBA Learning Alliance Company in Leland) and I hit a wall with this headache again – (I can always tell when it’s about to get to the point of no return) – so I subtly picked up my purse and started rifling through it – looking for my magical pills. I could not find them. The search became manic (in my mind) as I was close to absolutely losing it in front of all these nice business folk… the term I like to use when I get this way is, “going ape shit.”

I knew I had to do something – I was hungry, I could feel it turning into a full-blown migraine – and my next stop was Quantitative Methods class for three and a half hours right after this first meeting.

My solution: Politely and diplomatically bring the meeting to a close, speed walk to the parking lot, jump in the car and then drive straight to McAllister’s to order a big ass potato.

"I'll take the 'straight to my hips' spud, please"

No logic – except pure craving for a loaded potato with all the fixin’s a girl could dream of.

Substitute for Imitrex = 2 foot long Baked-Potato

Now – I’m not allowed to complain when my pants are tight.

BadAss diet (Paleo/no grains/no sugar/no cheating) starts tomorrow! I need accountability. Who’s with me?

P.S. and not to justify it — but my headache did subside – and I didn’t die of hunger during class…

I’ve determined this fact:  badasses go to church.

Think about it, Jesus was the ultimate badass. He died for us and did like a gazillion other cool things. Yeah, I said it.

Today the message was about sowing your seed in the right soil. I think I sow my seed among tumble weeds… I get it (the Word), it grows, but then sometimes I let life’s worries and worldly concerns take over and it suffocates the growth process. But just like this quest to become a badass – it’s all a journey. I’m learning as I go.

If you look closely - you can see blood!

After church I went to CrossFit Coastal. Sunday WODs are always fun. Today was 25 OHS, 25 Pull-ups – 3 rounds. I took the longest of everyone to finish. I only did 15# Overhead Squats, too.

I got a badass injury from the pull-ups, though.

The day is still young – I have plenty of badass hours left today.

I must choose how to spend them wisely.

In UNCW’s Professional MBA program you have class for 3 hours twice a week (Monday and Thursdays) and for the first year you have class from 9am to 4pm TWO SATURDAYS a month.

So on a beautiful Saturday morning when people were on their boats, doing workouts in the park, arranging family picnics, sleeping in, having a nooner with their significant other… I was in a cold computer lab with fellow nerdy over-achievers.

This Saturday’s class was Quantitative Methods. I still don’t even know what this means. I try to pay attention, I really do, but I start day dreaming about all the other things I’d rather be doing. This daydreaming passes the time – but I’m gonna be screwed when it comes time for the final exam.

Then I got home and got ready for a friend’s house party. Turns out – it was a sausage party – which I don’t mind – (meeting new chicks is always kinda tricky) – but they weren’t really excited to see me (a sausage party wants single girls – I just increased the ratio of lameness by being married and all).

Interesting enough though, a guy from the MBA program happened to be there. We didn’t realize we had mutual friends. We got to catch up – and he let me in on a secret – there was a rumor among some of the guys in the MBA program that I was a lesbian who pretended to be married.

Awesome! Not only was I in class all day, then at a sausage party, but now I’m a lesbian who pretends I have a husband who is deployed.

Day 6 = BIG FAIL FOR BEING BADASS

Today began with a Migraine at 7:30am.

Called Doctor. Pharmacy had drugs at 2pm.

Slept.

Woke up around 8pm.

Felt better. Went to Target to buy a baby shower gift.

Freaked out at 9pm – realized I had the LAMEST day ever.

Checked my phone – no one was calling or replying to my text messages.

Felt alone – but didn’t want that to get me down.

Went to a restaurant (where my friend works) and sat at the bar and ate dinner by myself.

Not sure if this redeemed my lame day — or if it was the icing on the cake.

???

Had the bartender take a picture to prove it. The guys on either side of me felt the radiation of un-coolness coming off of me – just look at their body language!

Day 5 - eating alone experiment

(In actuality – to my left is Kevin – he works there and sat down to say hi. The guys to my right found out that I was by myself and came by to say hi because I think they felt sorry for me)

Now that folks are finding out that I am on a mission to be a badass – they may be taking advantage of me.

If you say, “Badasses do ______” — whatever goes in the blank will be something that I’ll be pressured into doing.

If you look close you can see weeds and shit in Sami's hair = badass

My friend Sami is moving (sadly) and she mentioned that badasses help friends do yardwork. Within minutes I was at her house, making a trip to Home Depot with her, hauling big bags of mulch, picking weeds, and strapping a large blower over my shoulder — which I actually used for sucking instead of blowing… sound familiar?

Loud machines = badass

Anyway!

All in all – we felt tough – and we got the work done in a fraction of the time it would have taken one person to do it.

Volunteer work is a kind of a pay-it-forward thing – makes the world a better place, don’t ya think? Plus she rewarded me with beer – Michelob Ultra’s Pomegranate Raspberry! Wait, is that a badass beer? Uh oh…

Pros and Cons of BadAss Day #3:

Pro: Woke up at 6:30AM (I’m pretty sure badasses wake up early)
Con: It was because my phone rang – so I forced myself to use that “No, I’m really awake voice” when in fact, I am pretty sure I was still dreaming during the first part of the conversation.

Pro: Did WOD at CrossFit Coastal today – 5 Rounds of 6 45# Hang Power Snatch Cleans and 6 Box Jump Burpees
Con: WTF – Box Jump Burpees can kiss my ass (which is hanging out of my shorts – pictured below)

Pro: Went to the Fresh Market to get a BadAss healthy meal with a friend for a fun picnic
Con: Ended up getting some fruit and a big BadAss can of beer instead. (vote: drinking during lunch – is it lame or BadAss?)

Lunch of Champions - Fresh MEAT!

More for shock value...I couldn't finish it.

Pro: Got a cool handstand picture
Con: It took a lot of pictures, sweating, cursing and inner-dialog about how BadAsses should be able to do handstands — to get the handstand picture you see here.

Pro: Went to UNCW to meet our Team’s Learning Alliance company for the MBA program
Con: Upon introducing myself to the CEO of our company – I shook his hand and said I had the same Meyers-Briggs personality profile of Hitler. (This is true: ENFJ)

Tomorrow’s quest (per comment today): Find the MOST BADASS SONG in existence. And listen to it every morning.

What is a BadAss anyway?

I looked online to find the definition of a BadAss:

1. a tough person or rebel. 2. skilled. 3. very good, excellent; COOL, AWESOME.

Found on the Internet

It is obvious that I need to toughen up, get some sweet skills and become pretty freakin cool/awesome.

Today I tackled the toughening up part. I went to Nikki’s Sushi restaurant with my dear friend Jenn Czech’ and some girlfriends. When the waitress asked what I wanted to order, I simply stated I wanted the most badass meal on the menu.

When the meal came – I got raw fish. Apparently this is called shashimi?

I ate it with that green stuff that makes your nostrils feel like there’s fire spewing out from your throat. It was pretty badass.

Later I went to the gym and did the WOD: 5 rounds of shuttle runs, 8 kettlebell swings, 16 push-ups. It took me over 9 minutes. BadAss? Not sure. You know, I’m still on my period.

All in all – I think I toughened up today.

-TStorm

I woke up yesterday morning with 2 thoughts: 1) I really like that new Black Eyed Peas song “I Gotta Feelin” – it reminds me of an Old Navy Commercial.  This happy/energetic song led me into thought #2) Today is the day that I begin my journey to BadAss-dom.

The urge to be a badass was incredibly overwhelming. I can’t explain it. It just feels right.

But this will be a tough challenge.

Reasons this will be super difficult:

1) My stats: white girl, 5′2″, about 120-ish pounds, deathly afraid of left-hand turns, horses, grocery shopping and movies

2) I’m currently on my period

3) I’m not exactly sure what a badass is or does - I will have to define this.

4) I opened my fridge to make a stellar breakfast to fuel this badass machine — and here’s an un-photoshopped picture of my fridge:

Fridge on Day 1 - bad start to badass-dom

As you can see, I have some seltzer water, some vodka, pepto bismol, dog food and an onion. The rocotta cheese is from a meal my sister made when she visited in May. I keep it in there because it makes the fridge look fuller.

Moving on – went to the gym for a badass workout (I CrossFit, so I already have a few badass points). The WOD today was Nancy. Freakin Nancy! My least favorite exercises are running and overhead squats. Nancy: 5 rounds for time: 400 meter run, 15 overhead squats. I knew a badass wouldn’t pull the “period” card – so I kept my mouth shut and did the workout. I ended up only using 45# for the overhead squats (Rx’d is 65# for women) and it took me 25 minutes.

Needless to say – Day 1 of Becoming a BadAss did not kick off to a good start.

We’ll see how the next few days go…

-TStorm