Pause

Woohoo! I’m alive!! I have finally come through the other side of an incredibly stressful and completely jam-packed week and a half. I am now a certified Wilderness First Responder (WFR), after spending 5 full, consecutive days from Friday-Tuesday practicing how to deal with emergencies or any kind of injury/illness in the outdoors. The course was extremely intensive and required a lot of critical thinking, so I was exhausted by the end of each 10-12 hour day, but then still had to stay up late to do homework for my other normal classes in order to not fall behind. As of today I have now made up the TWO exams that I missed on Monday, and all my work is back up to date. Finally, I have a chance to pause and breathe. And sleep.

A few vegan things that the WFR taught me included how to pack a full day’s worth of healthy snacks and lunch without relying on Shaw, which should be quite useful next year when I won’t have a meal plan. I went with the ol’ PB&J or AB&J (almond butter) for my lunches, and then brought an assortment of veggies like baby carrots or bell pepper (that I cut up that morning), cashews, apple + PB or AB, and a Bobo’s Oat Bar just in case. I try not to eat a lot of bars since they all have a disheartening amount of sugar, so I didn’t end up resorting to the Bobo’s bar after all. They key to vegan snacking, I discovered, is to have a protein/fat source along with it, such as the cashews or PB/AB, or else you can snack all day long on your low carb carrots and never feel satisfied. Also, for the sandwiches, PB&J gets old pretty quickly for me (especially since jam has LOTS of sugar), so I like to do hummus/salad greens/cucumber/whatever veggies you want sandwiches, which turn out really well and stick to you for a good while due to the hummus. And all of my sandwiches go on Dave’s Killer Bread! Recently I found a type of Dave’s bread called Powerseed (comes in a red bag) that is only sweetened with fruit juices, has low sugar, and has lots of protein from all the yummy seeds and nuts inside! Highly recommend it.

Back on the adventure front, I am excited to be shadowing our Ladies Rock Climbing Trip to Moab this weekend! Shadowing is the first step to becoming a Trip Leader in our Outdoor Rec program, so I’m on my way. Also, I plan to stay in SLC this summer, rather than go home to Nevada, and work with the Outdoor Program for their really cool Summer Program where we work with younger kids from the South Salt Lake area and take them on fun day trips and camping trips. This is the best way to really get my foot in the door with the program, so I’m hoping by this coming fall I will be a member of the main lead team on a trip or two!

The only thing still bringing me down (now that the WFR wall of doom has been broken through) is my very possibly broken middle right finger. I smashed the tip of it between two kettlebells at crossfit on St. Paddy’s day (how completely unlucky!). It began bleeding profusely from my nail bed upon impact and I started running around the gym shouting and grasping my bloody hand like a small child. It was quite the scene I must say. Anyway, it swelled up to be pretty large, and while the swelling is pretty much completely gone, my finger is still rather tender and weirdly kind of numbish/tingly when I put pressure on the tip. I would post a picture, but it almost made my roommate throw up when she saw it, so maybe it isn’t appropriate for all viewers. Unfortunately, this injury has set me back a little bit in crossfit, since I can’t really grip super heavy bars, and I’m a little worried about the upcoming climbing trip where all fingers are rather essential. Nonetheless, yesterday I made it down to crossfit after not going for a solid 6 days (darn you WFR!) and got a PR clean and jerk at 105lbs! What a great way to fully de-stress and get all the yuckies out of my system, even with a lame finger; it was the icing on the cake and totally rejuvenated me to return to the real world in my “life after WFR.” Just goes to show how amazing exercise and working out are for your body, mind, and soul.

I hope all of you who may be pushing through some tough parts in your life get a little hope from this post. Just know that whatever it is, it is impermanent. After some nitty gritty perseverance and hard work, you too will have a moment to pause.