Tiny Tennis Balls

Apparently an Elf game of tiny tennis broke out in my living room.

Now, I know my dog is spoiled, but really? 8 tiny tennis balls between two rooms?

He keeps walking past them, sniffing them, and going about his merry way. I say "Junior, get your ball!" and he looks at me like "which one woman...damn there are EIGHT OF THEM!!"

You see, buying tiny tennis balls are like buying shoes, or travel coffee mugs, or socks...you can never have enough. The real reason is that Junior likes things that squeak. I buy the tiny squeaky tennis balls. I suppose I could buy the bigger ones, but really, the tiny ones are just too cute! Especially when he tries to fit two in his mouth at once because he REALLY doesn't want me to have one. But I digress.

The tiny squeaky tennis balls (which I will now refer to as TSTB) come in packs of three. We all know good things come in threes: three wisemen, three bean salad, three stooges, etc. Anyway, Junior has it down to a solid 4.5 minutes of desqueaking all three TSTB's. Once they're desqueaked, he looks at them like a car that has just been driven off the lot: they just lost half their value. Sure, he'll play with them. But I think he does it just because I had just bought them. Soon enough, they'll be laying around with the rest of the TSTB's, looking like a TSTB machine had been serving tennis balls to Barbie Doll's.

I actually bought a set of TSTB's a few days ago for Junior for Christmas. When we got home, he looked at me and gave me the look of "I know what's in that bag and you better give them to me so I can break my desqueaking record, or I will pee on your pillow while you're gone". Ok, so maybe he just looked at me like "are you going to play with me or what?" but I took it the first way. So, like any good I-stand-my-ground-no-matter-what doggy mom, I gave him the TSTB's. I'm not sure if it was a record, as I was not timing, but they were desqueaked in no time. Now, they are laying in the living room along with the 5 or 6 others.

I'm either going to take stock in TSTB's, squeakers, or enter Junior for the Guinness Book of World records for number of TSTB's desqueaked in under 5 minutes. The dog has a talent, and I'm going to profit from it.

Did you know...?

That Baby Jesus had a mohawk...

...And Joseph had a handlebar mustache?

Just ask the first graders in my Sunday School class, cause that's how they drew Jesus and Joseph at the First Christmas.

I mean, I guess we can't really prove them wrong, right?

zzzZZZzzzzzzzZZzzzzz

For some reason for the past two weeks, I have been tired. Let me rephrase that, for the past two weeks I have been MORE tired than usual. I get it. I'm a triathlete in training, who works odd hours and has a physically demanding job. I'm allowed to be a little rundown. But the past two weeks have been nothing short of ridiculous. Example a. Today, I came home from one early appointment and took a nap, for two hours. I went back to work from 10-12pm, came home, and fell asleep AGAIN for an hour and a half. Even then I had to drag myself out of bed, mostly because I was hungry.

Today, I took things into my own hands and googled "reasons for fatigue". Google has all the answers, right? I'm sure to find a reason for my extreme fatigue. So here is a list I compiled from a website as to why I may be tired:

Anemia. -I've been tested and retested since high school. Unless this is something you develop overnight, I'm not sure this is it.

Stress. -I can blame some fatigue on this, but really? My job is NOT stressful. It pretty much goes like this: Hi I'm Robyn, your personal trainer. Lift this. Lift it again. Repeat. Keep going. You get the idea.

Depression. -Don't we all suffer from a little depression? Ok, yeah the holidays are upon us and with the onset of winter, it tends to get a little worse, but again, this was an overnight change in fatigue levels.

An eating disorder. -Only if you count "I eat what I see so don't get in my way" as an eating disorder....

Obesity. -Well, according to the BMI, I am considered obese. Maybe I should check into this...

Malnourishment. -See two answers above...definitely not malnourished.

Poor eating habits. -I have my "cheat" days, and yes they may be more frequent than they should be, but I still get my 3-5 servings of fruits and veggies, which is more than apparently 90% of Americans can say. I read in Time this week that's the percentage of Americans that can't remember the last time they had a salad. SERIOUSLY?

Underactive thyroid. -I feel as though the thyroid is a scapegoat these days. When I have 3/5 clients tell me they have a thyroid problem, I begin to wonder. No, you cannot blame your holiday weight gain on your thyroid. Nice try.

Certain medications. -I know this becomes an issue sometimes, especially with allergy medications. This could be part of the cause, but I have had no changes in medications lately.

Infection. -Of what? Well, I do work at a gym with an average of 7,000 members. I'm probably infected with way more than I'd like to admit. BLARG.

Low blood pressure. -I actually am probably the only person in my family that can even admit to this. I do tend to have lower blood pressure than normal, but not low enough to make me incredibly sleepy.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. -I've been saying for years I have this. I'm still blaming it on CFS.

Financial worries. -HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Enough said.

Environmental pollution. -I do live in Memphis. Memphians are not necessarily #1 in caring about the health of the environment.

Hormonal changes. -Well, I'm not going through puberty, pregnancy, or menopause, so I certainly hope this isn't it.

Caffeine abuse. -Fatigue + caffeine = only slight fatigue. Fatigue + coffee + energy drink = energy, for at least a little while! Ok, I admit this one....

Lack of exercise. -Not even touching this one.

Divorce. -Not as of this time. I hope not in the future either (Boys, take note).

Small children. -Small dog, yes. Small children, no.

Certain illnesses. -That's a little too general for me. I'm going to go with no.

So basically, what I've come up with from Dr. Google is I am a stressed, obese, broke, caffeine addicted dog owner suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Damn. It's worse than I thought.

I give myself less than a week to live.

So true, it's not even funny

Best thing I've heard in a while.

My facebook status right now is "Robyn is drinking out of my Ironman coffee mug and it makes me very happy".

A friend messaged me and said:

"I purposely tried to kill myself and all I got was this lousy mug"

Like I said, so true it's not even funny.