Mind Dump

I keep meaning to blog but then when I have to make a choice between sleep and blogging sleep wins. So you get a random dump of all the things I've been meaning to talk about.

• Our house in Arizona doesn't retain heat well, so even with the heater blasting all day I've spent most of the past couple weeks feeling cold.  It took me nearly all 2 weeks to realize that being cold all day explains why I've been feeling sleepy all the time.  I need better insulation.
• I've very much enjoyed our corporate holiday shutdown and haven't missed work a bit.  Maybe I'll get lucky and my boss will extend her stay in Puerto Rico a few extra days?
• Big Swim Month is over.  My skin and hair are grateful, but I might kinda miss the abuse a little.  Anyway, mission accomplished...I dropped another 8 seconds from my 100-yard swim test average time.  Just another 30 seconds or so and I might fall into the "average" swimmer's pace LOL
• Our dogs got a lot of dogpark time in Arizona.  Puck met a bulldog who enjoyed standing on his head.  You're welcome.

• Christmas certainly brought unexpected surprises, both good and bad.  
• On the upside, Jeff got me an iPad, which I may have surgically grafted to my body, I love it so much.
• In more exciting but less fun moments...just as we were about to sit down to Christmas dinner, Jeff's mom's attic went up in flames.  Seems the fireplace lit the insulation on fire and the next thing we knew there was water pouring from the ceiling (it melted a pipe) followed by a ton of smoke.  So we spent Christmas afternoon standing in our driveway next door and dealing with fireman.  And then we took his family out to dinner.  And drank.  A lot.

• I felt like an alcoholic in my time in AZ.  One or two drinks a night is nothing to most people, but compared to my norm...it was.
• Eventually all fun must end though and since his mom needed a place to stay and the hotel is not the best place for her to care for the elderly family members, we drove back to California all day yesterday so she could move into our house.
• This is what my MIL's living room looks like now.

• Those who know me know I read constantly.  When I have the time, a book a day, when I'm busier, a book a week.  It's going to be even faster with my new iPad!!!  Page flipping is so much quicker than with my old first-gen Kindle, and you can fit more on the screen (without squinting).  *happy dance*
• Poor Stanley was regularly starved this week.  And quite pouty about it.

• Max thought it would be a brilliant idea to roll in poop at the park the morning after Christmas.  Just to liven things up and all.  Or maybe as payback for spending the afternoon locked in a bedroom while people came and went from our house during the fire.  Thanks, asshole.

• I'll be back tomorrow with a wrapup on 2012.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years Eve!

Merry Christmas

from our house to yours...

Congratulations. You have qualified for...

"Congratulations Molly. You have qualified for the Olympic-Distance race at the 2013 USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships on August 10 in Milwaukee, Wis., after finishing in the top 10 percent in your age group at the See Jane Run Women's Triathlon and Duathlon."

Yes, this is the week everyone is getting emails from USAT.  Based on the Facebook posts, some people seem very surprised!  Some of us were tracking our progress closely and already knew we were qualified and then wondered why the hell we weren't getting OUR email :)

Well at least mine finally showed up.  I plan to race the sprint distance at Nationals though, I really want to focus on the super short speed this year.  At least I know there will be many friends potentially there!!!

Have a good weekend!

One Last Batch of Nationals Photos

It took a while to get photos from the beardie national and I just finally got around to scanning them today.  Here's Stan, being Stan!

And with two of his kids!

On another topic...

Training is still ticking away.  Swim swim swim.  I'm a little itchy but holding up OK.  I think my lats have doubled in size in the past 2 weeks.

My two favorite coaches (the ELF and JPH) have put out the second edition of their new podcast.  And it's all about coaching, finding a coach, what you can get out of coaching, etc!  Listen here.  

As Promised...Happy Stanley

We had a good time this weekend at the USDAA trial!  We ended up with a 1st in snooker, 2nd in pairs, 3rd but NQs in gamblers, jumpers and standard.  It's getting there!

A Case of the Fridays

With the countdown to our corporate holiday shutdown (still 2 weeks to go), every day feels a bit like Friday, with that anticipation of when-can-the-fun-begin?  So, 10 random things to kick off the weekend...

1. I'm *this* close to having all my major work done for the year.  I'm really looking forward to some slackage time.
2. Big Swim Month is going well. Copious amounts of skin moisturizer and pre-swim gel are keeping my hair and face from shriveling up, for which I am grateful.
3. Today is a double swim day, masters this morning and then a short one at lunch. 
4. Every time I bitch about having to go to the pool for a 30 minute swim, I remind myself that it's longer than most of my swim races will be this year.  That always puts a smile on my face.
5. I'm almost done with the classes I was taking this fall.  One final next Wedneday is all that's left!
6. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't really enjoy waking up before 5am.  But I've done it four times this week already. 
7. And on Tuesday, I had to get up at 4:30 in order to do my 90 minute run-bike before an all day work meeting.  There are not enough endorphins in the world once 2pm rolls around...
8. Last weekend we basically had a party to go to every night, 3 nights in a row.  I was so bloated from all that eating by the end of the weekend, I was grateful that most of our friends don't throw parties.
9. Did I mention only 2 more weeks of work for the year?  Hallelujah! 
10. Stanley is exceptionally bored with me lately.  Thankfully he's got a big USDAA trial this weekend so he'll have his happy face on tomorrow morning.

And suddenly it's December!

Which means Christmas is coming!  Last weekend I took my parents to the Dickens Christmas Fair up near San Francisco.  None of us had been in about 25 years.  Basically it's a whole Victorian Christmas village with people in costume, A Christmas Carol being acted out, other famous characters wandering about, traditional food and drink, shopping and arts and crafts, performances, etc.

Thanks to my mom for the photos!  My favorites were the chimney sweeps everywhere, they were fun.  In all it was a great outing with the folks and nice to get a little holiday cheer :)

Growing Gills

With the Run Turkey Run behind me, the day after Thanksgiving was more like Swim Fishie Swim.  Thanks to the nice swim team at my old high school, I was able to join my sister and brothers for their "monster swim."  The fastest kids did 100 x 100, the next group did 90 x 100.  I went in with the goal of doing 100 x 50, figuring I could swim 50s while everyone else did 100s.  It turned out I could keep up on certain things (the kick sets) so I picked up extra yardage.  When all was said and done, I managed 7000 yards - 4 MILES.  More than I've ever done before!

48 degrees out at the start = so much steam off the pool you can barely see!

This swim was just the kickoff of a big swim month for me.  Coach has upped the frequency of my swims to the point that I'd better grow some gills fast.  I'm going to be HEAVILY chlorinated by the end of December.  I should start buying some shirts in larger sizes, I expect to be busting out of my sleeves a la The Hulk shortly :)