Adventure is out there.

Well once again I have abandoned you for well over a year. I am truly sorry, but I won’t promise regular updates this time – see then you won’t feel letdown when I forget to post again.

So here’s my past year in a nutshell.
In March I started interning on my days off from Nemacolin at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquraium with Mark and Kathy in the cats and rhinos section of the mammal department. Since my goal has been to become a zookeeper at a “real” zoo and one day get into conservation from the zoo aspect and the only way into AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquairums) is to have AZA experience, I figured interning might be a good way to get my foot in the door. And well…. it paid off! After three months of working every single day between the two zoos, Pittsburgh offered me a temporary keeper position in cats and rhinos! Since Shirley, the primary tiger keeper was out on medical leave I assumed the role as primary keeper for three Amur tigers, a snow leopard, ten Caribbean flamingos, and on  very grouchy old sacred white ibis named Donnie Ibis (it’s a Pittsburgh joke). Oh and I absolutely fell in love with this guy here

His name is Pavel and he’s a two year old male Amur tiger. He’s the biggest goofball I have ever met. Well being temporary and having no idea how long “temporary” is (literally they can come up to me tomorrow and say thank you for your work, you’re done now) I am kinda always in a guessing game situation as to how long I will be employed. Shirley came back and I was no longer needed at cats, but ended up getting super lucky because the elephant department needed someone in ungulates. So for the past two months I have been the primary keeper for two Massai giraffes, two Grant’s zebra, three dama gazelle, six springbok, and three ostriches. This has brought up a whole new aspect of zookeeping for me since I have not worked with most of these species before. Our male giraffe (who is an intact bottle raised male I might add) is extremely loveable and people oriented until you try to get him to do something he doesn’t feel like doing such as walking up and down the “runway” (fenced in isle way from the giraffe barn to their exhibit) past all of the yummy browse to either his barn or his exhibit. Let me just say I have experienced a whole new level of frustration with this gent on some days, but that has lead me to learn a lot about myself as a keeper and I have come up with some interesting tricks to try and keep his attention on me. But the best and fastest method is to call on of my elephant department coworkers to come give me a hand because Lewis loves men and while he flat out ignores me he will very willingly follow one of them down the runway no problem. Maybe I just need to grow a beard and talk in a deep voice…

Okay so it’s getting late and I have become quite accustomed to going to bed around 9:30 in my old age so I’m gonna skip some of the fun details and get right down to my big news – I finally got a full time permanent keeper position at an AZA accredited zoo!!!!!!! It only took about 4 years, but I did it! After the upcoming holidays I will be joining the team at Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville, Indiana and am super excited for it. Although I will definitely miss my Pittsburgh animals and friends, this is my next step in achieving my dreams and helping to make an impact on this world by being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. So (mid) westward ho I go!

Until next time, toodles!

❤

I am really, really not good at this! Bu I know some of my family (Hi Uncle Mark and Aunt Sandy!) follow this so I am going to try to make it a goal to at least update once a week to keep everyone in the loop. Now as you might (I know it’s only been forever) remember from previous posts, I am kind of a gym rat… well over this past year that has completely taken off after I decided back in March that I want to start competing in bodybuilding. Don’t worry, I am not looking to go to level you’re thinking right now. In women’s bodybuilding there and many different divisions and I have elected to compete in the bikini division. According to the Organization of Competitive Bodybuilding (OCB):

“A specific level of muscularity or leanness is not sought after for OCB Bikini competition. Judging is based on having an overall healthy-looking toned body with good symmetry, shape, fullness, balance and proportion with good poise, posture, confidence, stage presence and comfortable presentation.”

So no Arnold Schwarzenegger here. But anywho, I proceeded to spend the next 5 months working my butt off in the gym and maintaining extreme self-control on following my diet plan created by my dear friend, Kevin Klein.  I competed this past Saturday at the OCB City of Champions show and placed 2^nd in Novice bikini and 4^th overall bikini – not bad for my first show!

Suns out… buns out (??)

I couldn’t have done it without the love and support of my boyfriend and my mom – my two biggest fans!

Now I am completely hooked! I am already searching for my next show and am eager to compete again. One of my college buddies that I haven’t seen since college messaged me that he has recently gotten involved in competing too and is doing his second show on October 4^th and this show is called the Big Cat Classic (I mean how perfect is that for me?). We are currently 6 weeks out from October 4^th which gives me time to get my body even closer to my goals and some time to experiment some and learn how my body reacts to different diets. Since I am not a nutritionist or a trainer, Google has been my best friend in this and I found a diet from Beautiful to the Core which has basically been my diet for the past few months, but she incorporates carb cycling once every 2-3 days. I haven’t tried carb cycling so why not give it a shot and see how my body reacts. This is my currently diet plan (from Beautiful to the Core):

(Minus the Stevia, I prefer Truvia and only on occasions)

I am going to keep my gym routine pretty much the same which follows: Back, Shoulders, Rest, Legs, Arms, Rest. Repeat. Keep my weights high, my sets around 3-4 and reps around 10-12. That seems to have worked for me so I will keep it up. However, I definitely need to add in more core and plan to incorporate ab days 3 times a week for now. Since I am 6 weeks out, I will do cardio daily. My personal favorite forms of cardio are the Stair Master (it works your ass off, literally), and running outdoors (if the weather is behaving).

So that’s the plan and probably what I will end of talking about the most on here.

Other than the gym and meal prep, work consumes the rest of my life. Seriously, my typical day starts at 5am, with me leaving my house at 5:45am, going to work, going the gym, and getting home around 8pm, meal prepping for the next day, some around the house type chores, then going to bed only to do it all the next day. I have no life. I realize how long this entry is already getting so I won’t continue with my novel today, but I do have Tuesday off so if you can wait that long (shoot, you’ve already been waiting over a year), I will update you on the rest of the happenings in my life. Until Tuesday… tootles!