Surviving the Holidays - Karlage Style

I'm back in Memphis, but its not like Christmas didn't try to kill me. Seriously.

I drove home early Christmas Eve morning, though not as early as my dad would have liked it to be. Thanks for that text message at 4am, Dad. It was raining...HARD. I would rather drive in snow than rain. You see, 3 years ago in Kansas I was driving on K-10 towards Kansas City in a horrendous rain storm. Apparently my tires sucked because I hydroplaned and pulled a winning Nascar move; I spun across the approximate 50 foot grass median and by the grace of God landed going in the correct direction on the other side of K-10. I never found out how many times I did a complete 180, but I'm thinking somewhere around.....18. Anyway...ever since that awesome maneuver, I drive white knuckled with raised blood pressure in rain storms.

I got home about 3:30 and had to face the biggest wrestling match of all: Junior vs. the Great Dane. Junior loves other dogs, so he hopped right out of the car and sprinted towards Heilyn, my sister's new dog. So Junior is, what, a foot off the ground? Cute, cuddly, fluffy, etc. Heilyn is a HORSE. He's 120 pounds of big pansy dog. But when he plays, he likes to swat with his paws. Junior being 20 pounds didn't stand a chance. So Junior runs away growling. Neat. It took an hour and a half to finally get them comfortable around each other...then we progressed inside. We had bets on if the Christmas tree or new 48 in flat screen was going to tumble first.

That night was Christmas with my Mom's side. And that's where it started. BUCKEYES. COOKIES. DELICIOUSNESS. And I even found room for dinner that night. After being miserable, opening presents, and hanging with the fam, we went home for our Christmas. New tradition for the Karlage's...having Christmas on Christmas Eve! Usually we do Christmas morning, but all Dad had to say was "you'd get to sleep in an extra hour"....SOLD! Sign me up!

It was an AMAZING Christmas....I got way spoiled (I said it Mom). I was set up with new bike pedals and lots of winter cycling gear! Got a few other things...and lastly I opened THIS:

Yep...that's Junior. Not just a picture framed, no. That would be easy. This was months of slaving each night under fluorescent light and magnifying glasses (my poor blind mother). It's a cross-stitched pictured of JUNIOR! What better than my own pup-a-lup sewn into history. Or something like that. He's so darn cute. Then I got the whole story about how my Mother took this project with her everywhere and now everyone wanted to see the finished product. Pssh. You just want to see my awesome dog. Someone nominate me as President of the "Creepy Dog Mom" club...cause I just passed all y'all. Liz, this includes your shopping at Whole Foods for dog food.

Christmas Day arrives complete with an extra hour of sleep, and an aching back due to the futon I slept on. We headed to my Gram's house for the Karlage craziness that is Christmas. After gorging ourselves on unhealthy amounts of food (including goetta!), we opened more presents. CROCK POT! Yay for awesome gifts. Happy birthday 8 pound, 6 ounce sweet baby Jesus. I really did intend on running this day, but then Gram pulled out the buckeyes. And the slippery slope just turned me upside down. If you do not know what buckeyes are, then a.) I feel sorry for you, and 2.) google the damn things and BE JEALOUS. After consuming approximately.......too many buckeyes, I felt ill and decided running would not be a good idea. Christmas night was filled with yet another delicious meal and finally it was home to sleep all of the food off.

The next day was awesome, cause I didn't get out of my pajamas the whole day. Food hangover might just be worse than alcohol hangover. And that night, my body either revolted or I licked the wrong floor because I got the WORST 24 hour flu bug EVER. I will not go into details, but I lost 10 pounds in 18 hours.

So after no training because my body was shot after the food I consumed, and then un-consumed, I felt like total hell. What else would make a woman feel better? SHOPPING! Mama and I went to the mall and I spent some Christmas money.

That night, my sister, brother, mother and me stayed up until 1:30am playing rockband. I was the drummer and I got mad skillzzzzzz.

All the sudden, it was time to return to Memphis. I swear my drive was twice as long on the way back. Maybe it was because Junior hated me even more for making him do that drive twice in one week...I don't know. I finally made it home last night at 6:30pm. I may have lost a few battles, but dammit I won the war on Christmas.

Oh, I also found out that I'm infected. With the epstein barr virus...aka mono. COOL. I wanted to blame it on being a stressed, obese, broke, caffeine addicted dog owner suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but its just mono. Although, if it last for another few months, then it really will be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome! I don't know why that excites me, because it just means there really isn't anything they can do for me. Awesome. I'm taking stock in Rockstar Energy drink. Or coffee. Or both.

Return of the Swim Test

This week is test week #1 of the 2009 season.

I know what you're thinking...How does this work when it's still 2009? The answer to that? My coach has magic powers...or something like that.

Anyway, today was swim test day. You remember me writing about this before...10x100's with 10 seconds rest in between. At first glance, 10 seconds seems like a decent amount of time to rest, right? Well you do this damn test and tell me how 10 seconds feels. Yeah, that's what I thought.

I warmed up and already had a bad feeling about the test. Call me Miss Optimism. You see, until 2 weeks ago, the last time I had swam was the last stroke I took in the might Ohio during a little event I like to call IRONMAN LOUISVILLE. But I digress.

So here's a short recap of the test:

#1 - Ok, let's get back into this...I feel ok.

#2 - A little bit harder, and seriously? I have 8 more of these??!

#3 - Ok this SUCKS. Lactic acid is building and I hate triathlon...I quit. That's it.

#4 - GET WITH IT ROBYN. Nearly half way. Suck it up, you did a damn Ironman for Pete's sake.

#5 - Once I finish this one, I'll be halfway! YAY! Wait...ONLY HALFWAY?!?!

#6 - Ok over halfway, here we go. I wonder who came up with this damn test anyway? I'm going to ask Coach because - CRAP I was thinking so much to myself that I nearly swam right into the wall...must...remember...to...flip....SOONER.

#7 - What's this, like 75% done? Wow am I ever optimistic. I'm dreaming of my Brownie Batter Protein powder...yes that DOES exist.

#8 - Ok this one actually feels good! Hey, one out of ten isn't bad, right? Ok, it is.

#9 - Oh man, I'm about to DIE. My heart is beating out of my chest, I sound like a 2-pack a day smoker when I touch the wall, and it's kind of embarrassing for people to see the personal trainer nearly drowning. Am I there yet?

#10 - LAST ONE! Only 4 laps. Anyone can do 4 laps. Hell Junior could do 4 laps if there was a Tiny Squeaky Tennis Ball at the end of it (see previous post). Ok, now 3 laps left. HOLY HELL my lungs are about to burst. I hope that dude I'm supposed to take the body fat on isn't here yet...ok 2 more laps...a 50! I can do a 50! Keep pulling...dammit woman get your stroke together; this is highly inefficient. Last lap. Kick kick kick. I think I just dislocated something that shouldn't have been dislocated...and DONE!

As I leaned against the cool pool gutter (spitting into the drain nearby with people looking at me like I was disgusting even though there were not one, but TWO band aids right next to the drain) I was so thankful to have a large lung capacity. It took me so long to catch my breath and I felt so out of shape, but also good that I was finally done with that. More importantly, I was very very happy that my watch didn't magically stop like it had done last week during a swim.

So, thank you Coach for finding this ridiculous swim test that makes my head want to explode. Next up...bike test. Another super fun "try to kill yourself in 20 minutes and tell me how close your heart came to exploding" test.

P.S. This is what happens when you give your dog a bath when its like -385 degrees outside...you must swaddle him....in a pink blanket.

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?