my poor cow

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.....Robert Frost

this weekend was my annual trip to sunny florida for worlds.....and boy was it a SHOW!  we decided very early on in the trip (like on the plane) that we were going to have a flat-stanley-like "cow adventure".....  for those of you that don't know, that cute little sucker is my cow.  i'm obsessed with him.  i bought him a few years ago for yet another softball tournament where it was going to be super cold - because you can microwave his tummy...which is AWESOME!!  and ever since, he has been a pretty constant companion.  he has been on every southern softball trip.....among others - he is a VERY well travelled cow.  so as i started taking ridiculous pictures of the cow, and of course sending them out - i realized a) we are completely stupid and b) we drink ALOT.  my favorite response was from kris who just sent me a text that said "that cow did not have a drinking problem when he left" :)  it's in his honor that the you get all the drinking cow pics !!

my point here is not to rub in how much fun we had in florida (altho it WAS a hoot)....but to explore how i know i'm not as young as i used to be....because let me tell you - i can no longer RECOVER like i used to.  which led me down the path of  HOW DO PEOPLE FUNCTION?  i mean i dont want to sound like an alcoholic or anything, but we partied pretty hard for 4 days....interspersed with some pretty stellar softball (we came in 9th out of 80)....so to say that we rallied is an understatement.....HOWEVER, let's also say i was not the chipper ray of sunshine at 4am monday when we were flying home!!

and the funniest part is while i had an amazing time, i also feel incredibly guilty.  go figure. it's like somehow i feel at "my age" i no longer should have a crazy weekend.  i'm a mom for pete's sake.  fishbowls and drag shows, pig pong & bloody marys seem slightly inappropriate in hindsight.  but it was so much damn fun!!  so i rationalize the fun with (what else) PENANCE!!  that's an ingrained catholic for you.

The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness.
Saint Ignatius

now you all know by now that i am not going to run to church because i drank alot on my vacation.  but what i AM going to do is torture myself in some way - just so i feel like i'm paying for it.  which is ridiculous - but there you go.  this year has been fairly interesting for me in a lot of ways.....i've pushed myself on several different levels, and i BELIEVED i was pushing myself physically.  i trained for the half marathon - and i lifted seriously for the first time in a long time this summer to get ready for the tough mudder.  so while i'm not in fantastic shape, i would consider myself FIT.  why does this matter?  well because kris called me while i was in florida to tell me that our brand spanky new INSANITY workout had arrived. and he wasnt sure he could wait for me to start.  here is where i WISH i had said "i'm not doing that" or "you are CRAZY".  when what i reallly said was "ok".  and after my off the hook 4 day drinking fest, and my 4 am flight on monday - i came home to do the stupid insanity fit test (because after all, i was already 2 days behind).

and i'm pretty positive the ONLY reason i did that was because the mom/catholic/uptight person inside of me felt like i had to PAY for having some damn fun.  and then the competitive/guilty person inside of me doesnt want kris to do it without me....because then he will not only look better than me, he will be able to call me a lazy fat ass. not that he would actually do that....but it would be implied - you know you've all see the "you are a lazy fat ass" look, right?  its the one where one of you is a sweaty mess and the other of you is sitting on the couch with chips. or maybe that's just in my house :)

so for the next little bit here, in addition to all the other ridiculous stuff i'm doing, i'm going to be spending at least a small part of every day bouncing up and down. which is super annoying for several different reasons.  but i AM going to do it.  i've got a lot of things i could use to justify NOT jumping on this bandwagon.  but i dont want to.  i want to feel better.  and i know that the first step in me feeling better about pretty much EVERYTHING is feeling like i am strong.  physical strength to me definitely equates to mental strength.  and since i am already somewhat insane, it only makes sense for my body to reflect that as well!!

wish me luck!!  and feel free to kick kris for me next time you see him!