Featuring Airplanes in the Garden

Diana Markessinis

And for the kids, Sparky the Pizza Oven!!

For more information, visit the LA Garden Show website!

Top of a pullover in my Merrell shoes! Love those things.

Today’s Destination was Muscle Beach in Santa Monica California.  A beach I had never been to and NOW have plans to visit often.  Although it is 90 minutes from our home with no traffic, it was so much fun that my kids are going to be asking to go back all the time, and we didn’t even swim.

The best part about this beach is that it’s free (after parking) and we played for hours.  There were pull-up bars, rings, balance beams, parallel bars of all sizes and varieties, ropes to climb and bars I don’t know what to call! In the background you can see Santa Monica Pier which offers carasel rides, fishing, Bubba Gump’s Fish House and lots of musicians along with some tourists (us).

Above is the rings that you can cross on one arm at a time- super fun.



The cool part of this type of destination with kids is that it offers something for both the grown-ups and the kids. I could have/would have played on the rings and bars until my hands tore and my kids would have too! Of course, we had to finish our day with a 2 mile scooter ride and me walking (oh yeah). I did learn how to do a mommy + kid scooter ride but this is very hard on the gluteus maximus muscle doing the work!

Cheers to a new year, new you!

HOT DAMN!! For an old girl, like myself, ripe old age of 40, I’m tied for 9th place out of 105 women in our local Next Level Invitational Series!! Next week, is the last one, and at least now I’m motivated to show up and compete!
Edited to add that I finished 11th for the series with a new Hang Snatch PR and a fun time riding the Watt Bikes as well as returning to my old ways of running long distances to start my day.  It’s coming full circle. So, what’s next for me?

Results listed here.

Oiselle is on sale now at The Clymb!

Image Credit: Brittany Houston, CrossFit Unforgiven.

Rewind a bit on the last NLI competition:

Good- hanging with hubby all day, hanging with my CDR friends all day, competing {although not all that fun}, finishing at 15th with little to no sleep competing against girls half my age…
bad- rain, hail, lightning causing the events to be changed
ugly- my attitude can be in the toilet sometimes when it comes to big changes, lack of sleep, lack of confidence, negative thoughts running through my head, blah blah blah.

The Next Competition comes up on November 12th and I’m on the fence as to commit or not.

Anybody, want to chime in their opinion?
What it means between now and then is an even bigger time commitment for working out- possibly 1-2 days of double workouts, extra sleep, extra stress, time away from the kids, and an overall lack of motivation to be a good mommy when I should be XYZ (insert selfish thing like Epsom salt baths, recovery stretching, cooking and eating).
If I commit to it, I could potentially train for a top ten spot, zero prize money and a nice post-event party. What could I gain? Valuable competition experience that could come in handy if I were to be on another Regional Team. Strength and experience and an opportunity to improve my skills. Improve my overall ability to adapt and excel in any situation.

Side Note: When I was twenty I worked as a waitress in a hotel in Dallas. For some unknown reason, there was a plane delay that dropped 50+ people into our restaurant at 10 o’clock at night. All of the other waiters made them self scarce and left me to wait on all these people. I could have freaked out like they did and gone home, but, I didn’t. I stayed and ended up earning $100+ in tips and had a great time!! It’s all about the attitude.

Yes, even with this post, I’m still on the fence.  If I were to be honest, maybe my lack of motivation is fear that I’ll stink it up!

Thoughts, comments or suggestions?

The day started at 4:45AM with an arrival time at the event of 7AM. Immediately following our arrival, we experienced rain, hail, thunder and lightning! This is not a normal thing for Southern California and this caused a serious mess with the event logistics. 1.5 hours after the original start of the event, we started with three completely different workouts. These new workouts were designed with the intent that they could all be done rain or shine–basically, all bodyweight/gymnastics movements. Not my strengths of course, but, not sure what is anyway!

Event 1: As many rounds as possible of Double Unders and Burpees in 10 minutes! My quads were screaming within the first 2 minutes, and I knew I was going to battle the entire time.

Event 2: As many Deadlifts as possible of 135 (Intermediate Women) in 4 minutes. Probably was my best event even though it came at 4:30PM. It was the first time during the day, that I could actually hear myself talking to myself to NOT LET GO OF THE BAR.

Event 3: 10 Pull-ups and 10 Air Squats as many rounds as possible in 7 minutes! It was a long seven minutes and even though I was getting a good number of consistent pullups in a row, I was still not inside my own head and lacked mental focus.



What was the best part of all this? It was hanging with my hubby, who was participating in his first ever Masters Crossfit competition and who did fairly well — as well as the hanging out all day with my CrossFit CDR family. My best buddy, Penny, won her Master’s Competition, as well!! In the end, my results were decent, however, I’d really like to Improve my mental focus, my ability to stay positive through all kinds of adversity and remain focused on the task at hand!



“Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.” Ralph Marston

Fit Mom’s Note: Readers, most of these products were provided to me for purposes of review. I’ve found them all to be really useful and helpful in my 99% all athletic days and nights.