One Month Later: A lot to catch up on...

First of all, my deepest apologies for being completely MIA on the Patch Blog for over a month now. Life just got a little crazy in the meantime! We sold our house, moved, work got crazy busy, and a nasty little bug visited two-thirds of our happy household. What can I say, you make plans and then life happens?

Last time I wrote, I did so from a hotel room overlooking the breathtaking Pacific Ocean in Monterey, California. The trip was AMAZING, and the food was just as fabulous. A few culinary/nutritional highlights of our trip:

•  Nick's Bar & Grill in Rockaway Beach (Pacifica), just outside San Francisco. When we pulled into Nick's, we were cramped up and cranky from 8 hours of flying and no decent food (airplanes...you know the deal). Maybe it was the amazing views of the ocean, maybe it was the fact that I could've pretty much gnawed my own arm off at that point. Whatever it was, the crab-avocado-tomato sandwich and eggplant fries (yes, eggplant fries, don't hate) I had there was mind-blowingly amazing and worth every penny of the $19 I spent on it. It's Cali. Stuff's expensive. I accepted that fact two bites in...happily!
• My first trip to actual, real, bonafide Pinkberry. YES! There are no shortage of Pinkberry-esque fro-yo stops on this side of the country, but I really wanted to try the original, authentic stuff that started the whole frozen yogurt craze. Thanks to a coupon card which I may not use until my next trip to Charlotte (cause that's their closest location) and a mysterious counter clerk named Bachelor (happily married...three times, he said), I found that I actually don't need the fancy flavors of chocolatey toppings. The plain, original fro-yo with mango, kiwi, and raspberries was my nightly standard. 
• The Mucky Duck Restaurant, where I had a really fantastic braised short rib with these weird colored beets (orange beets - craziness).
• The Old Monterey Cafe, where we eventually just started rolling in at 7:30 am for breakfast and grabbing our "usual" table. They had pretty much the most amazing Belgian waffles ever, and kept housemade salsa on the table during the entire breakfast shift (again...I guess that's a California thing, but I loved it).
• The most beautiful downtown Farmer's Market / street vendor tent set-up ever. Seriously, I love Farmer's Markets, and this one didn't disappoint. I've included some pictures of all the amazing, fresh, yummy-looking, organic, and CHEAP produce that vendors/farmers were selling out there. I seriously wished I could've traveled with a gigantic cooler so I could bring home some of the stuff. 
• AIRPORT FOOD! Oh, geez, I'm just kidding...turns out it really doesn't matter where you are, it's mostly terrible!

Once we got back into town, we just had a week or two of getting ready to move and sell our house before we had family come in for the Good Will Mud Run. I do this run twice a year (Spring and Fall) with my team of family members, "The Cuddo Crazies" (named for the location of the family lakehouse / Zombie Apocalypse rally point). And we do it big - team shirts and the whole deal. I'm sure some people think that's nerdy, and I would say those people are absolutely right and we're darn proud of it. 

For the last event in the Fall, it was a team consisting of me, my husband, my niece, and my former Army Ranger dad. Even though our age range spanned from 18 to 55, we ran a good race and my escaped with only 30 bruises/scrapes each (seriously, we looked like we were involved in a family bar fight). For the April 13th event at Donaldson Center, the line-up changed only slightly, with my niece's boyfriend filling in for my dad (who was way more interested in helping my toddler son play in the mud than he was in actually playing in the mud again himself). We ran yet another decent race, around the same time as last year (the hold up at the last two climbing walls always costs us a few minutes waiting in line). Included are some pics from that.

One thing I took away from the last few weeks is this: The body needs what the body needs. When we were traveling, jet lag really got to me for the first day or two and I needed fresh air, some exercise, and an extra cup of coffee. When we returned home, all I seemed to want was veggies - I'm talking giant mixing bowls full of raw kale (kid you not...). After the mud run, all I could really think of was protein, and our stop at Mimi's Cafe in Greenville for egg white omelettes with avocado didn't disappoint (though I have to say...fresh picked avocadoes in Cali were better! *sigh* Can you tell I loved it there?). And then last week when I had a stomach flu that kept me from even consuming Gatorade? Believe it or not, I found out that a Krispy Kreme donut is sometimes the best thing for a messed up tummy. Crazy as it sounds, it worked and kept me from passing out from low blood sugar (or getting really sick again).

So while diets and nutrition plans are all great and have their purpose, I think ultimately it all goes back to listening to your body. Whether you're traveling cross country, crawling under humvees and flipping tires, or just laying on the couch hoping to feel better - you gotta do what you gotta do. 

Until next time, y'all take care! :)