GYM CHRISTMAS Day 10: Game of Chores, and Day 11: The First Rule of Athletic Club

For the 10th day of GYM CHRISTMAS John and I teamed up to Make a Game of Household Chores. We wrote down about 6 chores that needed doing and each drew one out of my IU can coolie, shown here.

I drew "pick stuff up," so I walked around putting things away and tidying up the house. We don't have a huge apartment so that took me probably 30 minutes. Meanwhile, John drew "process nuclear waste," which was our phrase for "clean out the fridge." I only meant for him to throw out the old food and organize it a bit. But by the time I was done picking stuff up he had removed all the shelves and all the food and was in the process of scrubbing the whole thing down. Naturally this is a job for more than one person so I joined in. 

It turns out the real game was "clean with your spouse without having a giant fight." So that was awesome. The fridge won the game since it came away cleaner than before and without any battle scars. The coolie still has some chores inside it so we may return to that game another day. I didn't get a good before shot of the fridge, but here's the after: 

Today John and I both completed Investigate and Share, for me Day 11 of GYM CHRISTMAS. We investigated the Athletic Club, part of a chain of gyms around town. I happened to get a couple of free 7-day passes when I had fro-yo with the Triathlon Club a while back. We decided to try it out today, though somehow we didn't realize that the first visit would require a pitch from one of their costumer service staff plus a tour. The woman we spoke to was very nice and answered our questions, though that made the whole visit longer than we planned. I'd say the place was fine, no better, no worse. The locker room wasn't packed at 4pm like Western's would be and it was a lot newer inside. But the rest of the gym was very comparable. They do have a women-only section that was spacious and a separate entrance. I'm sad that those things are necessary but I guess I'm glad they have them. Everything else I felt was more or less the same as at school, but the membership is more expensive. If I weren't a student at Western and I were still living here, I would still get a UWO membership because of the convenience and price. And if not Western then the YMCA (members can go to any YMCA in North America!) because the pool is kind of a deal breaker for me. Athletic Club does have a pool, but it's smaller and had no lane lines and just wasn't my thing. But the place seemed ok. If I lived closer to that gym than to the school gym, I would consider it. 

My bigger problem was the vibe rubbed me the wrong way somehow. They have posters everywhere that I felt were trying to up-sell you on your membership or get you to promote the Athletic Club to your friends. As John will tell you, I'm no fun for sales people. That kind of constant promotion makes me uncomfortable. Somehow the emphasis to me seemed to be about becoming skinny, though there was no particular thing about the place telling me that. It's just different from a university setting. The biggest thing I learned was that I like the gym at Western, so go figure.

Of course, now I like the idea of getting trial memberships at other gyms for comparison. Maybe I'll take a tour of the YMCA next time I'm in the neighborhood.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

One more day to go! I anticipate finishing my 12th day (muscle building and strength training) on Wednesday or just after we get to Bloomington.

This weekend I made a couple of cocktails out of things I happened to have at hand. I give you: a modified tequila sunrise that I dubbed the Christmas Morning: 

1 oz tequila (or more if you want it stronger)

ice cubes

orange juice (probably 1/2 cup)

1-2 tbs cranberry mixture*

Combine and serve.

*For the mix, I put 1 cup of semi-thawed (previously frozen) cranberries + 1 tbs sugar +1/4 water in the food processor until it was finely chopped. 

I could never get that mixture as fine as I wanted, but it did the job. And it looked lovely! The combination of flavors was perfect. I only used 1 oz per drink of tequila because that's how much we had left. So long, tequila.

Next, I made a Cranberry-Ginger Vodka Spritzer with the following:

1.5 oz vodka

ice cubes

sparkling water or club soda

lime wedges for garnish

*1-2 tbs cranberry mix

*This was the same cranberry mix as above + 1 tbs fresh ginger, minced. 

We really liked this drink, too! The lime is the right final touch. Both of these drinks would be good non-alcoholic drinks for the holidays if you omit the liquor. I think the Christmas Morning was my favorite.

And finally, here are some gratuitous pictures of BoBo getting into the Christmas spirit.

"What's up in that tree? Is it SANTA?!"

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 9: BoBo Time

Yesterday for the 9th day of GYM CHRISTMAS I celebrated "Animal Time." Spending time with my parents' dogs has always been one of the highlights of the holidays for me, and this year my excitement is 100% bigger because of BoBo's arrival (though it is more than a little diminished by Molly's departure). 

BoBo is fortunate in that we spend a ton of time with her. Unlike a lot of greyhounds, she gets to go to work with us most days of the week and we often take her with us when we go places. So for Animal Time, I made an extra effort to take her on a real walk during the noon hour, instead of just taking her out for a bathroom break. Of course it was extra cold on the the day I chose to give her a longer walk.

She also hung out with me all morning while I worked and then all evening at school while John gave his students' their final. Having her has made this semester so much better. At the end of the day, her lack of sympathy is kind of nice. BoBo doesn't really care how much writing I got done or how bad I think it is. She still needs to go to the dog park and let loose, or she still demands affection at certain times. It's a good reminder that my problems aren't that huge.

Here are some recent BoBo pics. Not that this blog is lacking a lot of photos of her.

Staring at food she can't have.

Looking quizzically at my computer. I was watching a video of puppies learning to howl and the noises fascinated her.

Even though BoBo time is pretty much all the time at our house, it felt good to single her out for a special day during GYM CHRISTMAS.

Today is December 13th! If you still want to participate in Gym Christmas, you can start today and you'll still be able to complete it - and receive a sweet prize from my friend the DJ.


Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 8: Nutcracker Yoga

Today I finished GYM CHRISTMAS Day 8: Crank up the music and boogie down. I wanted to get in a moderate work out before dinner but since I have plans to swim early in the morning, I didn't want to do anything too severe. So I did one of my usual December work outs: the same series of yoga poses I like to do, accompanied by selections from the Nutcracker. It's nice to do balancing poses to lyrical, graceful lines in the Snow pas de deux. This way I managed not to make myself too sore but I somewhat made up for the fact that I ate junk food for dinner last night.

Here's one of the beers we tasted with our friends, Grace and Douglas: The Ommegang Take the Black, one of their Game of Thrones beers. Game of Thrones Beer!! 

For lack of a more appropriate, ballet-themed picture (and there are some Nutcracker photos of me in my parents' house somewhere), here is a picture of our horn Christmas ornament. The Nutcracker has a lot of prominent horn parts, right?

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

Only four days left of GYM CHRISTMAS 2013! But in case you haven't started, it is still physically possible for you to complete GYM CHRISTMAS if you start in the next two days. So go for it!

GYM CHRISTMAS Days 6 and 7: No pain, no gain, and Taking Out the (Mental) Trash

I neglected to post a second time yesterday so today I'm covering two days worth of Gym Christmas activities.

Day 6: Turn Commercial Breaks into Fitness Breaks. Since we don't have cable, I just made a point of stretching and foam rolling during our ongoing marathon of Game of Thrones.

This Christmas, give yourself the gift of injury prevention. I highly recommend the foam rollers by Trigger Point. It hurts like you wouldn't believe, but it pays off. Day 6: check.

This morning, John and I went to the Christmas Pageant at my church because it is easily one of the most entertaining things I see all year. Little kids reading lines, pretending to be Mary and Joseph, carrying around a big stick with a donkey's head on it (to represent the donkey, duh), a kid dressed as one of the three kings holding a bar that said "GOLD" on it, just to make sure you know he's rich. It's non-stop laughs. Then the new rector invited the costumed children to stand all around him while he did communion and explained each part as he went. Note the kid running past the alter. He was dressed up like a horse and wandered around aimlessly during the entire pageant.

Today for Gym Christmas Day 7 I did Hazardous Waste Removal. For me that meant emptying all the trash in the house and cleaning up a bit because we're having people over for beer and board games tonight. I also decided to bake some Christmas cookies and chose a recipe for sandwich cookies. There's ganache in those cookies! Delicious. Also on the menu: French Onion Toasts from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (not shown).

For the more holistic aspect of hazardous waste, I focused on my dissertation. I have a great advisor and I was recently paired with a great mentor through the SMT abstract mentoring program. She and I will work together for a month or two while I prepare my SMT abstract that's due in January. She pointed out a few things that will dramatically change my project for the better. When something like that happens, it's easy to feel like the whole thing is going to unravel. But with a good advisor, it changes into something much more awesome. It also means I have more work to do. I spent some time today honing my outlines and creating a to-do list for the next two weeks that includes everything I have to do to write the fourth chapter, with new info in hand. Very exciting. It's nice to have an empowering day with my dissertation. Day 7: check.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Barack Obombus

Yesterday was GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Spreading Yuletide Cheer. I brought two bags of Christmas candy for my students as a surprise treat on our last day of classes. I only have 10 students right now and on any given day only 4-5 show up. So at the end of class, I still had two fairly full bags of candy. Despite my efforts to disperse them at school (and the small handful of chocolate kisses I had for a pre-lunch snack), I still had two bags of candy when I went home.

John and I knew that we wanted to spend the evening eating the leftover candy and watching Game of Thrones (in season 2 and we're hooked!) but I wanted to do a fairly challenging work out. Otherwise I would have sat around all evening eating candy and feeling kind of belch. 

So I did as much as I could of the Iron Strength work out I've written about before. And bonus, I got to do it in my new Triathlon Club T-shirt that came in yesterday! As one of my teammates said, now everyone will know how legit I am.

I haven't attempted Iron Strength for several months because of my stress fracture. But since it is (hopefully!) on the wane, I wanted to give it a try. And, to my complete surprise, I did the best I ever have with this work out. I did ALL SIX SETS of 15 jump squats - what?! And my legs aren't even sore today. My upper body, of course, is pretty tired and sore now because I also did two sets of 15 pushups and 15 rows from plank (without the weights). I still can't do some of the tasks, like sit ups, etc, because of my motion sickness. But I'm really happy with what I could do. I guess swimming has made me stronger. It's the kind of thing I find surprising because, if the way my pants fit is any indication, I'm not exactly as thin as I was a year or two ago. But if I'm stronger, then I'll take it. My pants still fit well enough, after all. 

In addition to Christmas candy, John and I decided to make a drink that Mark and his former roommate, Jeff, christened the Barack Obombus. The story goes that Mark and Jeff, both theory grad students, briefly concocted a plan to open a bar named for the genus of the bumblebee, the Bombus. They began thinking up signature drinks for the bar, like the Bombus Rombus, the Irish Car Bombus, etc, and of course, the Barack Obombus. It's basically a White Russian but with chocolate milk instead of half and half.

If you were going to buy vodka, and there was a 750 ml bottle with a tiny bottle of Crown Royal, and one without, and they cost the same, wouldn't you buy the one with the Crown Royal? I mean, come on. It's American Girl sized! 

So if after a week of participating in Gym Christmas (or not) you would like a chocolately drink, I would like to further my gift of yuletide cheer by giving you the recipe for the Barack Obombus: 

1.5 oz Vodka

3/4 oz Kahlua

3/4 oz Chocolate Milk (or more to taste) (non-dairy chocolate milk would work just as well)

Ice

Combine and serve. Repeat as needed. Goes particularly well with Game of Thrones.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

If I have time, I'll be back later today to report on whatever task I complete for Day 6. 

Happy Finals Week, everyone! 

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 4: Water, Water, Everywhere

Today was GYM CHRISTMAS Day 4: Regular Water Consumption. I decided to track my water consumption for the day and see how it went. Before tracking, I emailed a friend of mine who is a doctor and asked if the whole 64 oz a day thing is a good baseline, or how much it might vary person to person. He said to drink to thirst and, if I'm really curious, to use the color of my urine as a guide. SPOILER ALERT - I'd rather spare you from reading my own analysis of my own urine. Everyone's got to have a line, and mine is discussing my own urine on the internet. I've already said too much.

So here's what I drank today: 

1 cup of water from 5:20-5:40AM

1 cup of water during and immediately after swim practice, 6:05-7:40AM

1 large glass of water, probably about 10 oz

1 cup of chocolate milk after swim practice, because, don't worry about it, that's why. 

About 1 travel mug's worth of tea, half before lunch and half after (mug shown below)

Another large glass of water with dinner, probably about 10 oz

1 cup of water between dinner and bed

I took a picture of my view from the desk where I tend to work in John's office. You can see my Fort Wayne Magazine travel mug on the right of my lap top. I still have one of the Calming Manatee pictures as my desktop background. Other accoutrements include kleenex, lotion, a little dish of hard candies that belongs to John's real office mate, and my electric kettle. Exciting stuff. Bobo is laying down to the left of the desk, out of the picture.

What did I learn today? Well, I think I did a decent job of not getting completely dehydrated after swimming, something I often have trouble with. But then I didn't drink as much water as I meant to or needed to during the school day. It sounds so lazy, but once I've started working, I don't usually take the time to get up and refill the kettle. #whitegirlproblem. Or maybe, #gradstudentproblem.

I'd like to improve the amount of water that I drink. But I did ok. I think if I paid better attention to my thirst during the school day, I'd probably do fine. So here's to drinking adequate fluids!

DAY 4: CHECK.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 3: I encounter Escher

Today I completed GYM CHRISTMAS Day 3: Sneak a Workout into another Activity. For me this meant taking the stairs at Talbot College. After a day of climbing up and down the four stories between John's office, my office, my classroom, a department luncheon, and the copy room, I felt like I'd spent the day in an Escher drawing. Day 3: CHECK!

Nevertheless, I came home and did a bonus workout, apart from Gym Christmas. I've been working on a variation of a yoga pose called "half moon." It's great for stretching out my back and hamstrings.  I can do it somewhat without falling over now, but the leg I'm holding is supposed to be more parallel with the floor, so there's still a long way to go. John was kind enough to take a picture. And in the process you can see how messy our bedroom is!

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

I have more plans for how to complete the list during the rest of this week and next. The holistic theme has made this year harder to complete in 12 straight days, as I have in years past. But I also like the variety. It's nice to have something else to think about besides chapters and grading and French history.

Are any of you participating in Gym Christmas this year? It's still not too late to sign up!

GYM CHRISTMAS 2013, Day 2: 7 minutes in heaven

It's the second day of GYM CHRISTMAS! 

Today I decided to do the task at the bottom of the list: the Seven Minute Work Out. I added a warm up and cool down set and treated the 7 minutes as a sort of AMRAP ("as many reps as possible") work out. Here's the break down. 

Warm Up: 

- 2 x alternating 30 jumping jacks and 5 burpees

- 3 x 5 pushups with 30 seconds rest in between

AMRAP Set:

- 2:00 each squats, overhead press with 5 lb. weights, and lunges with 20 seconds rest in between to transition between activities. 

Cool down: 

- different stretches for hip flexors, quads, calves, hamstrings. 

This is the first time I've done lunges since I got my stress fracture (which is hopefully on its way out!), and now my legs feel like jello. It's amazing how not doing some of the running-specific exercises will change your body. 

I didn't take a picture of anything work out related, so here's a gratuitous picture of Bobo with her Christmas ribbon on after yesterday's family photo shoot. She did make a cameo during my work out so that she could sniff my butt during my jumping jacks. I don't know who was more surprised - me, by her nose, or her, by my shriek when I felt her nose. 

I wonder how many other GYM CHRISTMAS activities Bobo will get to participate in.

So here's where I am with GYM CHRISTMAS so far. Red means completed, green means incomplete.

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

It's not too late to start participating! All you have to do is leave a comment on the DJ's blog each time you complete a task!

Did any of you cross one of the tasks off your list today?

The 4th Annual Shu'Pippen Family Christmas Photo (2013)

Yesterday we put up our Christmas tree and today we celebrated one of my favorite holiday traditions: the 4th Annual Shu'Pippen Family Christmas Photo! This is Bobo's first Christmas, and since she was pretty confused about the whole thing, I elected to make her a simple (and largely invisible) green and red ribbon to wear, rather than buying her silly hat. There's time for that down the road.

It was sort of a challenge to incorporate Bobo into our usual silly Christmas photo theme, but we made do. 

Sincere Christmas photos aren't a bad thing.

 She blends in with the blanket a little too well.

Things improved when we let her decide where to focus each photo.

This year's official (silly) selection:

This year's official (sincere) selection:

And for your reference, here are the previous years: 

2012

2011

2010

I plan on getting a couple of shots of Bobo and Toby wearing antlers or something similarly festive when we're in Bloomy.

GYM CHRISTMAS 2013 is here! Day 1: Pre-Dinner Walk

Today marks the first day of Gym Christmas 2013! I've already written a bit about the details for this year as it is somewhat different from previous years. And today, the DJ posted a more thorough explanation of each task on her blog. You can read it here.

I've started a list of how I'm going to accomplish each task and I'll blog about each of them as I go. Today's is #1 on the list (chosen arbitrarily - you need not complete them in the order above): Go for a pre-dinner walk. DONE! 

Bobo and I took a 30 minute stroll around the neighborhood this afternoon. I could have also counted it as Animal Time, but I know that one will be easy to accomplish because I spend most of the day with Bobo. 

Yuletide Cheer: This is meant to be a random-acts-of-kindness kind of thing. Since none of my students read this (to my knowledge), I'm going to surprise them with a baked good on our last day of class.

Make a game of household chores: I'm not sure how much of a game it will be, but I'm going to sweep the whole house and mop the kitchen floor (date TBD). I always work up a sweat doing those things anyways.

Crank up the music and boogie down: Self-explanatory. But I do have a similar activity I like to do this time of year called Nutcracker Yoga. Also self-explanatory.

For Hazardous Waste Removal, I had planned on emptying all the trashcans in the house plus cleaning out the fridge, but then the DJ explained that it's more mental - eliminating something bad from your inner self. I still I'll still do the cleaning task and by extension consider what kinds of mental clutter I could rid from my mind. Our house feels more comfortable and relaxed when it's clean. 

Regular Water Consumption: I'm going to keep track of how much water I drink on a particular day, evaluate it, and then try to improve it on another day (if necessary). 

Investigate and share: I thought about writing a bit about my dissertation research, but I may look up something interesting about Christmas to share instead. So something either Voltaire or Christmas related.

Sneak a workout into another activity: I've already sort of begun this one, but i'll probably officially count it one day this week. I've stopped using the elevator in Talbot College. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but I spend a lot of time in John's office (with the dog) and then occasionally make trips up to my office - that means walking from the basement to the 3rd floor. If I have to make more than one trip, I can really feel it in my quads! 

Turn TV commercials into fitness breaks: We don't have cable, so as the DJ suggests, I'm going to get creative with this one. My plan is to commit to foam rolling while we watch TV at night and I have to do it 3 times before completing this task.

Muscle-Building/Strength Training: I do this regularly anyways, so I'll either do a normal workout at home or at the gym.

Animal Time: Easily done. I walk Bobo at least once a day. 

Seven-Minute Work Out: I may turn this one into a 7-minute AMRAP (or three components, 2:20 AMRAP for each), sandwiched between a warm up and cool down.

In order to participate, you simply complete these tasks per DJ's instructions and tell her about it, either on facebook, or on her blog. At the end, she mails you a button! 

November, 2013

I thought I'd take a break from telling you about my terrifying dreams to write a little recap of the past few weeks.

1. I've participated in a few Triathlon Club events, including this one where we walked around campus with bags of Hershey's HUGS and randomly handed them to people. We also took pictures along the way. 

I love the TriClub, even though I feel old enough to be everyone's mom. It's nice to get together with them outside of swim practice, since I never have my glasses on and everyone is wearing swim caps.

2. A couple of weeks ago we got a decent amount of snow and Bobo went NUTS over it. 

For some reason she really wanted to get it all over her face.

And she loved laying down in it, but she was always poised to strike.

3. I saw this random box of sweet potatoes in Talbot College. Its smiley face makes me so happy!

4. On Friday night we went to Gen Pop. Here's a picture of some music theory classmates of mine, breaking it down.

5. And then it snowed some more! We got almost 2 feet last night. 

Bobo is a tall dog and even she was in it up to her chest. We had to double up her sweater and her coat because it was only 18 F. when we got up this morning. She seems equally excited and perplexed by the snow. She doesn't know where to go to the bathroom, but she likes jumping in the snow like a porpoise. 

One more week until our Christmas decor goes up! I've resisted putting it up, even though our yard looks like Christmas Town from Nightmare Before Christmas. Instead, we're just listening to a bunch of Christmas music to get into the holiday spirit.

6. It's almost time for Gym Christmas! I'll post a lot more during it, and I have some specific goals in mind, but you can read the DJ's preliminary post here (<-- 12="" a="" baby="" bit="" but="" christmas:="" christmas="" complete="" cute="" different="" dj="" explanation="" for="" forthcoming="" gym="" here="" info="" is="" mommy-hood.="" more="" need="" of="" p="" photos="" reflecting="" s="" short="" tasks="" the="" there="" this="" to="" transition="" we="" year="">

You need not be a personal friend of the DJ to participate! Gym Christmas always adds greatly to my December. 

Abby's Dream Recap 2: "Epic Dream"

I had this dream back in 2009 or so and typed out the whole thing in an AIM conversation with John. He kept it so that he could put it on facebook and then I found it this week on my computer. So in this you can see John's reactions, too. We've always referred to it as my "crazy epic dream."

Abby: I had the most cracked out dream. Ok. I dreamt that there was a movie of the war requiem

John:  What?

Abby:  And that it took place in your house in Knoxville with your roommates, plus some more people. At one point this 3 year old (or younger?) kid, that was hanging around the house for some reason, turned out to be a demon and one of your roommates had to fight it, apocalypse style.

The baby sprouted these red and orange gigantic feathers, and the two of them started fighting to the death. But then they decided after a while that they shouldn't be enemies. Meanwhile, one of the bedrooms became consumed with fire.

John:  WHAT THE HELL, this is so epic!

 Abby:  Mysteriously, [actor] Carl Weathers had been beaten to death (not sure by who) and rolled up in a carpet and put in the room so people went in to get his body out. And you were all in the kitchen, gathering things to take with us when we fled and trying to decide what to do. Suddenly the house began to flood quickly. We were submerged in water. Then everyone was taken to safety in one of those motorized rafts, except for the demon baby and your pseudo roommate who had fought him.

They were unconscious in the house, underwater, but not yet dead. One of you knew that there were these giant slugs, more like fish, that could help rescue them because they would try to eat them but they wouldn't actually kill them.

Someone from the raft went down into the chimney, into the house (underwater). The slug fish had half-eaten the demon baby and your friend so he picked the fish up by their tails and dragged all of it to the surface in the end. My final image was of everyone having survived, and the demon baby and your roommate had the fish still attached to them at the waist, so they looked like mermaids.

And then I woke up and I was like, damn, I'm glad I slept for that entire dream.