2012...a year like no other will be.

And if it's true about the impending Zombie Apocalypse, make that less than a year!

I just realized that today is January 3rd. Do you know the significance of this date? It's my half-anniversary of crashing into a car at Ironman Korea! And no...I'm still not healed up. I did get a second ultrasound like a week or two ago. Things are at least more healed than last time. Patience.

So am I gonna be one of those self-righteous people who is like "I don't make resolutions because that implies I'm not gonna keep them" ??? Nah. Resolutions are like making a 30 before 30 list (which reminds me, I need to make a 35 before 35). You set out goals with the intent to get 'em done, but if life happens, there's not really a set deadline.

anywhere, here are some 2012 goals...or "resolutions" if you must:

1. Be less selfish.
2. Keep in touch more.
3. Pay off another credit card.
4. Do my first race walking event.
5. Resolve some health issues.
6. Be a good mom to the Christmas puppy.

What I didn't like about triathlon, and being a pro triathlete, was how selfish and megalomaniac it felt. Sure, I tried offsetting that feeling with various O&P missions, but it was always "I can't do this, can't do that" because I had to train all day, every day, and go to so many racing events. I missed multiple weddings and other big occasions, I hardly saw my family and lost contact with friends. (True and meaningful contact...Facebook doesn't count.) My original Wonderpup, Guinness, was adopted by my own parents when I started traveling overseas. He liked it there, and my very transient lifestyle wasn't compatible with having G-dog as my sidekick.

Anyway, the biggest news this year will see me bringing home a NEW PUPPY--me and the Sherpa are about to become parents to this cutie patootie!

Her name is Socks the Christmas Puppy. I love her already, but we won't get her for a few more weeks. I'm kinda scared how big she will be by then! Talk about Operation T-NET. She is about as new and exciting as it gets!

My sister has also signed up for a marathon in Alaska, and I am to coach her...the last time I coached her was for her first half marathon in 2007. She didn't listen, but hey, we finished!

She is the smaller one, by like 4 inches. I ate all her food when we were kids. She had a 20-month head start, but I caught up to her by the time I was 5 and she was 7. This photo is from when we were like 1 and 3...

Speaking of food, I'm also planning to go to IRONMAN LOUISVILLE!!! Not to compete, but to sherpa one of my best friends, Food Coach Amy, who will be racing. She has supported me at multiple IM events and I am excited to have the chance to watch and cheer at the top of my Chinese lungs for her this time!

She was actually here last week for her first time in the first state. I made sure to take her to all the exciting places Delaware had to offer...like the Giant grocery store, where you can scan your own groceries. Most exciting thing ever:

She also insisted on having to go to Wawa (I once wrote a pretty exciting blog about it). Then we made pepperoni and bacon "meatza" and a crapton of roasted veggies, because what's a visit from the Food Coach without making some delicious good-for-you food? And yes, I'm still eating mostly Paleo-ish.

Well, any and all of these topics can be further expounded upon, but that's a good dose o' 2012 Wongstar for y'alls, for now. Happy new year!

a Toy Story Halloween

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!!!

And what is Buzz Lightyear if he didn't have Sheriff Woody to throw him out a window?

I made sure there was a snake in his boot.

I made all the parts of my costume except the jetpack (wings) for $12 and the gloves for $6, both at Amazon. I painted my shoes, which were leftovers from my cheerleader outfit last year. We went out to the Halloween Loop...even thought it was actually SNOWING (!!!) and I met two other Buzz Lightyears, but no one else had a space helmet but me!

The space helmet was made out of clear vinyl from the fabric store (half yard for $2), beading wire ($4), and a $3 plastic embroidery loop. It was essential that it was super lightweight and that I could breathe (and drink) with it on. The space helmet totally protected me from the elements (rain, snow, and drunk boys that stepped a little too close). Oh, and I was the only girl who was dressed as Buzz Lightyear. Come to think of it, I was the most covered up girl (and definitely the warmest!) all night!

I'd have to say, this definitely shows why I ended up as a prosthetist-orthotist. I like making stuff.

You've got a friend in me! Happy Halloween everyone!

The Shocker & Cheetara: Halloween 2011, Part 1

Since Halloween is on a Monday this year, technically we have the opportunity to celebrate it 4 nights in a row, starting Friday! (Or heck, if you partake in Thirsty Thursdays, make it five.) Ok, notice I said "technically," which really means after going out the past two nights til wee crazy hours and NOT feeling guilty about it (perks of the "being injured off season," hey-o!), I am pretty tired tonight and will be hitting the sack early!

I did however, manage to double book me and the Sherpa on Friday night. I know you are excited to see how awesome my Buzz Lightyear outfit turned out, but remember that the first of my 5 off-season goals was to make TWO Halloween costumes. I've always loved Halloween because my mom would make us our costumes from scratch. Dressing up is fun but making your own costume is half of it!

Let the shenanigans begin!

First up was the Bone Bash, a fancy charity gala at a local country club benefiting the Arthritis Foundation. My boss at Independence P&O had bought a table as a corporate sponsor, so it was important we at least swing by before we went to the Delaware Ultimate house party. We weren't about to do wardrobe changes...so yes, for the fancy fundraiser party at the fancy country club, the Sherpa went as this:

I'd say only maybe 10% of the guests were in costume. There were a lot of orthopaedic surgeons that we work with, since they were the primary sponsor of the event. They had this cool photo booth, with extra props in case you didn't have a costume, so we put some hats on the Sherpa's "big hand" and so they were finger puppets!

A lot of people asked what he was supposed to be. The ones that knew....you could tell they knew. I was not quite as inappropriate, but I was running around in tights and a leotard, and a big stick. I was the original Cheetara from Thundercats...the original series, circa the 1980's! I've seen the new reboot of it on the Cartoon Network and it's radically just not the same. It's a "reimagining" of the 80's version, and is just too weird and different. This picture is from the next party, where more people were dressed up:

Obviously we didn't stick around all the fancy people at the country club long enough to cause too much trouble, despite the Sherpa being approached by one of the costume contest judges and trying to explain what "The Shocker" is. At the ultimate frisbee party, there were other inappropriately dressed guests. Such as a pussy kitty magnet and cock chicken magnet. heh heh

The Sherpa was more comfortable playing beer pong:

There were also adorable twins. If I had an identical twin, we'd get in all sorts of trouble!

Some Terminator action...I'm still not done with Sarah Connor Chronicles but am sad I only have 2 more discs left!

and the inevitable, costume prop switcharoo. My favorite Ninja Turtle was actually Michelangelo, not Leonardo:

I mugged the chef and Cheetara became a deadly kitchen assassin. Wait, is that a bottle of Haamonii Shochu by the sink? I just noticed that. It totally wasn't staged!

But I totally deny spanking innocent bystanders with the spatula, or being the source of the occasional outburst of "I'M NOT WEARING ANY PANTS!"

Next up, Buzz and Woody hit up a strange new planet, covered in snow. Stay tuned!!!

officially out of the Paleo closet

So before I left for El Salvador, I mentioned taking on the 30-day Primal Blueprint Challenge, which just ended yesterday and went pretty well. To confirm that I shouldn't be a hypocrite and keep eating well, the latest issue of our local Wilmington magazine, Out & About, came out last week. And hot off the press, there I am in a feature article about what I eat!

You can access the digital version at this link to read the full text: http://issuu.com/outandabout/docs/oa_oct201/17

I am pretty excited because it's the first time there's a ginormous photo of me filling up an ENTIRE PAGE in a magazine! Also because the interview is on a topic that I've become pretty passionate about, but have been a bit apprehensive about shouting it off the rooftops.

So yeah, it's official. I'm out of the closet now. The Paleo closet. I've been gravitating towards the Paleo Diet for the last few years after first dabbling in it during college back in 2001-ish. (Oh god. That was A DECADE ago. !!!) I haven't really blogged too much about it because talking about food and diet can be as controversial as religion and politics. I've met plenty of [insert religious group here] and um *cough*vegetarians*cough*, who either try to convert you and/or act like they are so much better than you. And I never want to come off that way.

I'm not going to pretend like I have it all figured out yet, but I do feel like I've been moving in the right direction. Some people call it eating like a caveman, or eating primal...I sometimes just call it my "cavegirl" diet. :) There are all sorts of variations on the Paleo Diet, like how the top of the pyramid above has the "optional" categories. Dairy or no dairy (I'm currently in the "no dairy" camp), nuts or no nuts (experimenting with no nuts right now since I can eat a whole bag like it's nothing), and macronutrient %'s for carbs vs fat vs protein. Food Coach Amy has really helped me dial it all in and move towards optimum race weight & body composition. When I'm training more (which is not right now), there are more carbos (from sweet potatoes and bananas).

It's been kind of an on-and-off relationship I've had with Paleo over the last few years, as I felt kind of like a foster kid moving from home to home: living out of a suitcase at training camps, jumping from homestay to homestay when I did that USA Ironman tour last summer. The food available in different countries and cooking facilities always varied, and at homestays I wasn't always comfortable voicing my dietary needs and preferences--when someone welcomes you into their home as a guest, you already feel like they are offering you so much...and that you shouldn't be so "picky." But I've finally started to see that it's completely reasonable for me to have a "special diet." After all, I'm a professional triathlete. Duh. It's part of the job description to eat what's best for me.

Dating a Sherpa who eats the polar opposite of me can also be a challenge, but we make it work. (I am in charge of groceries, which means I make him eat more veggies.) What's helped the most is finally being able to stay somewhere long enough that I can get into a routine instead of having to change Wongstar HQ every 2-3 months. Oh yeah, it definitely also helps to have a regular paycheck so I can afford to buy organic and higher quality REAL FOOD!

Anyway, people are always interested in what I eat and I know there are others in the Paleo community who are endurance athletes trying to find their way. Like I mentioned in the interview, "I love food and I love to eat" (hahaha) so I'll be posting more about all this. In the end I think it'll also help me not feel like such a weirdo when I eat burgers with bacon but not the buns. ;)

I'll get into more details later, but one of the primary reasons I eat this way is because it's an anti-inflammatory diet. Of course after getting beat up by that minivan in Korea, I have more reason than ever to stick to this. Magical healing properties? Sign me up, please!

Relationship Building at Ikea

Some of my more popular blogs in the past have been the dating blogs as it was always fun to write about really awful or strange first date encounters. It's been a while since I've gone on first dates, as I managed to snag my sherpa and trick him into putting up with me.

It is not really a good idea to blog about boys you are dating until you know they want to keep you, so I had instituted a provisional anti-blogging period. It is like when teeny boppers get a driver's license: they first get a provisional one until they are deemed fit to drive with all the other crazies (like Asian women, ahaha). You don't want to scare off a potential sherpa by blogging about him, it is not Kosher.

Well, I figured the provisional period is over now since we are in the process of moving in together. WHOAAAAA, yes!

some of my favorite things: the sherpa, chocolate cake, and meatballs

So this weekend we underwent the Ikea Relationship Test. The Sherpa thinks the Ikea Test is the ability to build something together without yelling at each other. He didn't realize I was also testing our ability to pick furniture together, and of course there is also the Meatball Test.

He passed the Meatball Test with flying colors, which is that you can't take a girl to Ikea and not eat Swedish meatballs with her, unless you don't really like her. On that same note, he also passed the Chocolate Cake Test.

Then he also passed my Furniture Picking Test. We both needed new dressers, and I picked one I really liked pretty quickly. He liked a few other ones but in the end decided on the one that matched mine. Because when building a future together, the boy should always go with what the girl wants.

ta-da! One finished!

When we got home, I passed his Furniture Building Test. This one was easy for me because I have mad MacGyver skills and build things for a living. We both like Legos so that helps because Ikea is like Legos for grown-ups. And I know better than to show off my building skills too much because you don't want your sherpa to feel less manly or anything.

He also passed the Wongstar Pun Test. If you noticed, our dressers are named "Hopen." Here is our little exchange we had before we started building...

Wongstar: "I'm HOPEN that we can build this together properly!"
Sherpa: "I'm HOPEN that you don't make any more jokes like that!"

Yes, we get along quite well.