IRON-will

Hey ya'll,

I just wanted to check in before my next competition, the Ironman, on Saturday. I don't know why but my confidence is low, my stress is high, and I feel like I am not ready at all! Please pray for confidence, joy and most of all- sanity haha.

I chalk half of it up to a less than perfect week of my diet, coupled with lots of tests in school, bad-skin (break-outs ugh), no sleep, and waaayyyy too much on my plate with school and work; plus way to little in my bank account haha. All those factors and missing church and my Friday night college church group have contributed to lowered self confidence and fear of failure!

I got such great feedback on my preformance in the competition at the Olympia this weekend, and from interacting with industry professionals such as photographers and fitness celebrities that I am now afraid to fail! I know this is what I want to be doing, but I also know I am terrified to death of trying too hard and stealing my joy and making it no longer fun.



I just need to remember that the goal is to just share my love for this sport and inspire others to get out there and overcome their fears to do something they love too. Something that they can share with others and practice determination, self control, and using God's power to accomplish their goals.

I love seeing others suceed and it's so gratifying to have even a small part in it. It makes me feel so much more at ease and full of joy that God IS using me the way I was hoping he was! 

Anywho, if ya wanna stop by and see all the action there's directions and show info for the Ironman if you click here.

Goodnight friends and thanks for listening :)

" So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
~  Isaiah 41:10

Blessings,
Ruthie

Sunday Share (a day late) ... Stress

OMG.
Longest day ever of cooking, laundry, email, homework and (soon to be) working out.
I am stressed out!!

I would like to know, what do you do when you're stressed out?
Here's some photos, videos and quotes from the weekend that were the opposite of stressful and are de-stressing me right now to recall :)

~ Friends ~

My twinsie Mel and I at the Tech football game on Saturday

Silly faces! This is what you'd call my "rocker" face lol

~ Nature ~

The last glimmer of sunshine peaking thru a lily
in my mom's flower garden

~ DeStorm ~

I discovered DeStorm yesterday with my brother and LOL this dude is hilarious!!
he had a gazzllion re-mixes and challenge videos on YouTube, go check him out :)



 Songs in Video:
1. Toy Story-You Got a Friend in Me
2. Mulan- I'll Make a Man out of You
3. Lion King- Hakuna Mattata
4. Aladdin- Prince Ali
5. Beauty and the Beast- Beauty and the Beast
6. The Jungle Book- The Bear Necessities
7. The Little Mermaid- Under the Sea
8. Hercules- Hercules

9. Lion King- Theme

4) Jesus
I read a chapter of my book, "Power Thoughts" this morning and MAN did I need to read this verse:

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing fear), but He had given us a spirit of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control." ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

"Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loves us." ~ Romans 8:37

Thank you Jesus!

------------------------------

That's it for Sunday share, sorry to post a day late... the long weekend had me thinkin' yesterday was Friday not Sunday. I'll try to do better next time :/ Now to finish my Machine design homework and hit the weights!

Goodnight :)
~ Ruthie

A Little of Everything

This week had a lot of different things going on!
One thing I still need to work on is going to bed earlier, by the end of the week I am definitely feeling the effects of only 5-6hrs of sleep instead of 7-8hrs.. Hopefully this weekend I will catch up a bit. Nonetheless, it was a good week, here's a few highlights:

~ On the home-front, I am loving my house in Port Orchard. It's nice to not have carpet in the bathroom, a microwave that takes less than 10 min to make hot water, cable TV, a walk-in closet, and a washer/dryer in my house :) All things I didn't have in Butte! I am having a bit of an issue with my mail still, and the tanning (albeit free) is only open till 6pm and I usually don't get home until after 7pm because of lifting after work. But I did get to go 2 times this week so I am a happy camper!

Another cool thing about my apartment is random, adorable pets just appear from nowhere. On moving-in day a calico kitty visited my brother and I, and I found this poor parakeet in the parking lot one day after work.

Pretty little birdie

It flew away after I took the picture, and I haven't seen it since.
(which may be related to the kitty)

~ At work, I have been learning as much as possible about Noise and Vibration Diagnosis for submarine's rotary machinery. The group I work with at PSNS, the "Noise Boys" makes sure the sub stays quiet, and that the machinery is operating as efficiently and smoothly as possible (all of which are accomplished by minimizing excessive vibration). 

I got to drive our little "scooter" the other day and that was pretty cool. It's a stick shift and I haven't driven one for a while, but I still got it!

I also got to go into the sub's ballast tanks to check for any "noise deficiencies" aka: things that will rattle/clank/vibrate/make excessive noise. They're HUGE! My work-mate calls tanking "spelunking" because it's kinda like a cave in there.

We were up inside the "ballast tanks"as shown in this picture

The submarine is in dry dock (not sitting in water)
so luckily we didn't do this: Submerge!!

I really like working for the shipyard, we get to do stuff hardly anyone ever does on a daily basis! Keeps it interesting.

~ With my Team Bombshell training, I'm still grindin'! I had a good week last week but then sabotaged it at the end by WAY over eating at my cheat meal :/ I was stressed, bored, lonely, and tired which is terrible mix to add food to. Promise me you'll go for a run if you feel this way, not head for the fridge! Only bad things ensue...

But - my coach, Shannon Dey, still saw progress/improvement in my weekly progress pics so I must have come out ahead overall even with one bad day. I felt so guilty, gross (bloated and fat ugh) after cheating though I am CURED from thinking food will make me feel "comforted" when I'm having a bad day. I definitely didn't feel comfortable.
My diet and workout coach, Vanessa Campbell, gave me some good advice to "start each day fresh" and focus on doing my best in the PRESENT and forget about the past though. I had a great week for diet this week :D I didn't cheat at all!! Thank you Jesus for your strength!!

So, I am sure you're wondering if all this meticulous dieting and incessant working out is doing a body good? Well I am happy to report that I have noticed some more roundness in my booty, overall increased muscle size in my legs, and a more hourglass abs/stomach area. Oooh yeah it's workin' :) I can't wait for July 23rd when I get to compete again at the 2011 NPC Washington State Open Bikini Championships in Auburn, WA. Check out the countdown to this show here.

Speaking of my next Bikini competition....
My new competition suit got here last night!! I am soooo looking forward to rocking it! The color is much more contrasting on my skin tone than my last suit (see it here), the material is better, and cut is much more flattering I think. Of course, I will be all tanned to "hash brown" tint when I compete so the color will look different, but you get the idea.


Soooo, that's my week in review! Tonight I'll be hitting the gym to work out glutes and spend some extra time stretching and using the steam room (one of the best parts of it being the weekend) and then I'm going to make my meals for the week (which is quite the production). I think I'll watch one of the movies Kinjal assigned me to see from her "must see" list :p and drink my delicious chai tea with almond milk. So few calories, but sooo dang yummy!

Hopefully Kinjal gets home from Everett tonight and I'll have company! She works nights at the shipyard on the other side of the Puget Sound, so she stays over there all week and comes home on weekends. Last weekend we had fun shopping for our friend's birthday/bridal show gifts and painting our toes all summer-y.

You like? I did mine are coral (L),
and Kinjal's sea foam (R) 

Love and hugs to all my far off friends in MT, I miss you guys!
Anyone wanna come visit :) ?

xoxo Ruthie

Overwhelmed

Time flies whether or not you're having fun... so have fun! I came to this realization lately as I was muttering my way through another long week of projects, deadlines, homework, tests and work. Where's the end!? I had just gotten back from an amazing trip in the Bahamas, on which I actually managed to make progress on some homework (airport and driving time management :D) yet I still felt sooo behind and not at all ready to be tested on all the information I'd been "taught." Wowzers.


So the remedy? Well, life isn't slowing down, and teachers may postpone tests (thank you Raj and Wahl) but next week yeah you still gotta take it. So BE HAPPY! Have fun in any circumstance. I know it sounds easier said than done, so here's some words of the wise to help inspire you to enjoy the gift of life. Feeling persecuted? In other words, is life just working against you? Have faith in the following words of Paul the apostle, from his letter in the Bible to the Romans.

"We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit."

 {Rom 5:3-5 NIV}

When he wrote to the church in Phillipi he told them the following, which reminds me of the benefits of sticking to the straight and narrow path when the world is trying to influence you to make poor choices:

"For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control." 

{Philippians 3:18-21}

Stay tuned, I have some exciting news to share with you guys

in the next post that relates to the quote on this mug... :)

Take A Hike

Hi Guys,

I hope everyone's week was stellar, and you maybe even got out of a class or two for homecoming. I had two classes canceled on Friday for the bed races so I am a happy camper. My week started out a bit rough... chalk that one up to Circuits lab, lots of work, a bunch of little things that just seem to add insult to injury! But, I'm grateful to end on a happy note, nice weather, a football game AND... my boyfriend Joey will be in town from Washington :D. I haven't seen him since a couple weeks before school started so I am very happy to spend some time with him.

As I type I am so sore from this week's new addition of the BodyRock interval style workouts. Short but sweet, I haven't ever been this sore after only working out for half an hour. I have yet to master one leg squats (shown below)... but I shall!
If you're not familiar with them, here's what you do:
Squat all the way down on one leg. Then without touching anything with your hands or placing your lifted leg down, push back up to a standing position. If you can master this I see a bubble butt booty in your future ha-ha. And you've definitely earned my respect!

I hope the nice weather keeps up, and I really just wanted to write today to share with you some pictures I took this weekend while I was hiking to the Lookout Tower just below Red Mountain. Nature has definitely been displaying it's full glory :)

Up on campus @ Tech about to head out for the hike!

I love taking pictures of flowers, they're so gorgeous up close

I don't know what lake this is, but it's up in the mountains off
the old highway to Whitehall, I challenge you to go try to find it :)




A scenic shot on the way up to the trailhead

 

My gosh this soo reminded me of the Lord of the Rings!

I had no idea it looked like this at the top of the mountain.

The wind was so intense I could have taken off!

It was all worth it though, because there was a
magical pony at the end of the journey!
... just kidding (did make you think tho, no?)

The way back down was so much faster I had time for a
photo op with this beautiful specimen of a tree. Ok so it's not
pretty at all... Pretty knarly huh?



Headed home to a cup of coffee and a hot tub. The perfect end to a perfect day :)



I hope you guys enjoyed seeing my adventure! I hope I could put a smile on your face today :) I have just a few closing thoughts, in case your week was a little tough like mine~

I recommend training to be a secret agent. Yes really! Happiness is an inside job.

When you have been wronged, a poor memory is your best response!