Recovering....slowly

This week has been super tough due to the sudden loss of my bestest girl and the fact that I am still battling this illness.  I had been getting better and then suddenly I took a turn for the worse.  I figured it was from constant crying and all of the snot that comes with that, but I was also worried about secondary infections as well.    My lungs sounded good according to my doctor, but she did want me on 24/7 meds so we could try and get this over with.  I had started coughing at night constantly so badly that I had injured my ribs. I had either pulled a muscle in my chest wall or I had separated the cartilage, they weren't sure.  I changed up my routine and started on the Mucinex DM every 12 hours no matter what and got back on the Tessalon pearls.  I have to get better before we head back to Wisconsin.  I can't keep the entire house up all night with my barking.

I am happy to say in writing this second half today on Sunday that a whole week of 24/7 Mucinex DM and Tessalon pearls has allowed me to get some good sleep and feel so much better.  Saturday I finally felt like a human and Sunday I finally got out of the house for a bit because I actually wanted to.  I've honestly only gone to work because I had 0 PTO, and I didn't want to use my only float day for being sick.  I am still coughing, but not as much, and my rib while still incredible sore, are feeling like they are finally healing.  

We ended up with 17.5 inches of snow in Wamego.  It was a record, and I believe it.  Since living here, I have never seen more than 12 inches of snow in my life and that is living in KS and CO combined.  The drifts were amazing!  Andrew was out of school till Friday and then we got yet another snowstorm that dumped a little snow and some ice and school got canceled again.  He is full on feral now and hasn't had clothes on in weeks.  I am sure this will be the Christmas break to remember.  I will admit the bustle of homework, meds, and trying to get him anywhere on time has been nice to be delayed another week.  With me being sick and just trying to exist, it was nice to not to have to worry about another human being other than feeding him.  Ollie and Boom have loved playing in the snow constantly and would like it very much if I got a stay-at-home job and Andrew was homeschooled.    

Ollie has been sweeter than normal, actually cuddling with me on several occasions. I am clearly not her human, so it's fun when she decides to be sweet.  She usually starts out with me in the bed, goes downstairs for the majority of the night and then comes back up right before my alarm goes off.  Boom, who has slept under my bed or in my bed for years suddenly also sleeps downstairs or on the stairs.  I am not sure if me being gone a whole week has upset the apple cart or Stella's death.  I have to remind myself that Stella and Deuce got a ton of training and one on one time with me due to them showing and going everywhere with me.  Starting with Boom, that has changed since he came on after I had Andrew and Andrew was already a busy kid.  We have big plans for Ollie, but time is killing our goals right now as Tony manages his business and I travel so much for work.  To be continued.  Sigh.

I finally had a therapy session after over a month, and we mostly caught up on what all had gone on in that time.  We decided my word of the year is simplify.  I started in 2024 to simplify my life, and I want to continue that trend in 2025.  I've been setting up great boundaries and working on myself not feeling guilty about said boundaries, and I want to just keep that up.  I honestly don't know what the year holds, and I am excited for possibilities but also, I just want to keep it simple.  I've honestly enjoyed life a lot lately with my kiddo, with my hubby, with my close friends, and with my dogs, and I just want to continue that trend.  Simplify.  

Have a great week y'all! I am headed for the great north again!  Here is to hoping we have a great time doing research and that the road are nice and clear for us to get back to KS in.  Pray for the boys as they go at this fun thing again without me!

Loss

A little update if you will.  If you remember from my last blog post, a coworker gifted me the flu for Christmas.  While I wish she had stayed home since she knew she was sick, another coworker had worked an entire week sick while we were in Wisconsin and probably got her sick to start this all off.  I'm a little frustrated but also, I understand.  Let me explain.   It's weird, I've never worked a job that didn't have sick leave and very little PTO.  Most of us have kids and lives and we live on the edge of our PTO.  It's the system and it makes me mad that we are forced to work sick which then infects everyone around us.  I try and always be considerate and mask up if I think I am sick, but others aren't as considerate. Sigh.  It's a broke system and I have no clue how to fix it.  Our boss has a laptop we can take home so we can work from home if needed, but sometimes you are so sick that work isn't going to happen or sometimes your job doesn't allow for work from home kind of work.

As I sit here on day 13 of this mess, I do feel like I am turning a corner.  My cough is very productive and not as deep.  I am finally getting quality sleep at night.  I feel my energy coming back.  Of course, we are in a blizzard right now so even if I wanted to get out and run, there is no way I could.  I was hoping to get a week of working out and running in before we head back to Wisconsin for another week of being homebound thanks to the experiment we are doing.  That may or may not happen thanks to this big snowstorm.  So much for ending December strong and starting out January equally as strong.  This is week four of no working out, no running for me and I am mentally going insane.  Part of me feels like a huge failure but then the other part of me realizes that my job and my job getting me sick is the reason for all of this and that I just need to chill.  I've never taken this much time off and maybe it isn't the end of the world for my body.  Again, while it will suck to start back, running is always there for me and will be waiting for me when I return.

To close, we lost stella today.  It was very, very sudden.  I knew that she was starting to have issues, but I had no clue that this would be the end for her.  She had been having little seizures here and there, nothing major, but still enough to worry about.  They were always triggered by either excitement or medication.  I had made the decision we were done with heart worm meds as those seemed to trigger her more than anything.  Today while I was typing on my computer, I heard her cough, and she went down hard.  I screamed for the boys since I had to grab ollie and keep her off of stella while she was seizing.  The rest of the day she was either out of it or having more seizures.  Of course, we were snowed in with over a foot of snow outside and huge drifts.  I am lucky that I have amazing vets, and we talked back and forth as to possibly what was going on.  In the end, we made the very hard decision to let her go peacefully as she was sleeping.  I honestly thought she had passed several times during the day so to have most of the day holding her and loving on her was a blessing.  

Tony and I are gutted.  She lived life HUGE from the minute she was born.  She came into this world being a force to be reckoned with and that never stopped. We actually watched her be born on camera and missed our agility class that night. She was my shadow till the very end.  The hole in my heart is almost my entire heart and I don't know how I am going to get through this.  Please pray for peace for Tony and I.  We have now lost Miller, Harley, Deuce and Stella and all of their deaths have really been hard for us. It's part of owning a pet, a part that I really, really hate.    You always wrestle with did I make the decision too soon or not soon enough.  Could we have done tests to figure out what the cause was or did we even want to know the answer.  She had lots of old lady lumps, and some were not in great spots and or were inoperable due to blood flow.  She in recent years had issues with growing tumors on her eye lids and since that time her eyes had always had issues and weeped.  Her allergies had come to the point where the meds were at their highest level and she still wasn't seeing any comfort and was having medicated baths, which she hated, to try and help with the itch.  There were lots of little things adding up, but she had such a great quality of life otherwise.  Hell, I bet she still could have run at least a mile a few times a week.  I will probably write a separate blog post just about her life and how she lived it.  I am crying and am so glad I had the day off of work today to process all of this.  She was a great dog and will be missed by Tony and I greatly.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  

Have a great week and think of me.  I am not okay, but I hopefully will be someday.  

Good bye 2024!

As I read back over my goodbye to 2023 posts, I was met with a wave of gratitude.  2023 was a really not so great year for us and to look back on 2024 and see all of the progress, all of the happiness we had, all the fun trips and the racing successes, well heck, I just couldn't stop smiling.  I had a few goals for myself that I met and then some.  While my running isn't where it needs to be according to my brain, it's been mostly steady.  I was able to work out twice a week and mostly once a week for a good chunk of the year doing classes for strength, something that I have struggled with for years.  While wrestling and football derailed that, I am looking forward to chugging back into the new year and getting back to my strength training.  I love the way my body looks when I am doing strength and while I am not prepared to really start on a weight loss journey, I am prepared to get back to working out and running on a regular basis.  I also took control of my anxiety and did some hard but necessary work with my therapist.  I am happy to say that I am down to once a month and while I do miss our weekly meetings, I am enjoying having the tools I need to get through some tough stuff.   I've had several people notice that I have changed and for the better.

Just to recap the fun we had this year; Andrew and I took a trip to Chicago just him and I and had a yes trip.  Thanks to my ample bonus (that I may or may not get this year) we were able to do whatever we wanted whenever.  We started out each day researching what we might want to do, purchasing tickets, figuring out how to get there, and then going.  It was the best trip of my life, and I loved sharing Chicago with Andrew.  Most days we walked over 10 miles, and we made so many great memories.  We also attended two Royals games and had a blast.

For racing, we traveled to race in Minnesota, Illinois, and Tulsa in a brand-new class to Andrew.  We slowly saw Andrew start believing in himself and started seeing successes along the way.    My favorite two races of the year were in Topeka where Andrew made lots of passes in a stacked heavy Honda class and ended up finishing second against some amazing and older Minnesota and Tulsa drivers AND when he came back from being wrecked to finish 3rd in Tulsa at the Helt Belt races.  While his local classes were small, it was SO much fun to see him gain confidence, learn how to pass quickly, complete two car passes, and not let kids push him around or intimidate him. I know we have a long way to go, but I am SO super excited to see how he races in 2025.  I hope we get to at least do the All-American Clash again and maybe get a NASCAR national race or two.  This year is all about Andrew and racing and I am HERE.FOR.IT!

Let's go 2025!  I love numbers divisible by 5 so this is going to be a great year!  No goals this year, just lots of family time, racing, and low drama.    My give a F broke a while ago and I hope it stays out of commission.  Looking forward to working hard for my racing club even if I am not a board member, to helping with some women's wrestling events, and to spending time with good friends.  I want to love hard, have fun, and enjoy what time I have left with my kiddo as a kiddo.  They grow up too quickly and i want to soak all of this in while I can.  

Have a great year y'all!  Make some goals, make some resolutions, just do your thang, whatever that looks like for you! 

Merry Christmas 2024 and Flu A WHY?

Holidays in the middle of the week are so weird, am I right?  I'm typing this paragraph on Christmas morning, trying to stay alive and upright thanks to this crud I caught, and I have no clue what day it even is.  I had visions of getting so much running and stuff done over the break and now I may be lucky if I can get out of bed and shower.  Oddly enough, I have been able to sleep thus far.  Let's hope that this trend keeps going.  

Little red had an amazing Christmas thanks to my hubby. The presents I ordered him got hung up and limbo and I pray we get them period at some point, please, please, please.    Every year I say that I am going to get everything up and going and ready earlier and every year I fail.  Maybe next year??  Just glad we got the tree up a few days before Christmas and while it's just lights this year, I am going to enjoy it for a few weeks before we haul it to be recycled for wood chips in the park down the street.  

As the week went on it was apparent that the crud I had was not good.  I went to my doctor Friday and got swabbed for Flu and Covid (even though my Covid home test was negative).  I was positive for Flu A and was told OTC cough meds, decongestants, and fever reducers were my best bet.  They also gave us some Tamiflu for the whole family, but I didn't take it because technically I was out of the window of it working, and the family wanted to hold it for if they got sick.  As of typing this on Sunday, so far knock on a huge piece of wood, I'm the only one still sick.  I've never had fevers this high in my life and it zapped me for everything I was worth.  Again, for several days I had no issues sleeping and then bam, no sleeping, all coughing and snot.  Plus, the congestion also set up camp in my sinuses which really didn't allow me to breath.  I can do a lot of things but live on no sleep is not one of those things, so the next night, my hubby brought my hammock chair upstairs to the bedroom to see if that would help me sleep since I was sleeping sitting up in the bed.  He also was very gracious in keeping the dogs downstairs so that maybe I could sleep better without them coming and going and being idiots.

For the first few days of me being sick, when I was so incapacitated and could only be in the bed or on the couch, they were so good.  They would lay in my lap and both girls had to be touching me.  I thought oh, how sweet.  Then they got sick of me not being active and all bets were off.  

  

I was very lucky that towards the end of the week, the weather was much better and actually pretty mild and I was able to spend a lot of time wrapped up in my hammock chair enjoying some vitamin D.  To be continued?

A work trip...that may or may not have killed me

Oh hi, good morning!  Writing to you from super cold and snowy Wisconsin.  I am on a work trip, and I can't really discuss what we are doing and why, but I feel like I'm back in grad school and I'm too old for this shit LOL!

We have an Airbnb and it's amazing to wake up every morning looking out on a frozen lake.  Yesterday there were ice fishers out on the lake, and we got to watch them through the snowflakes heading out to set up their huts and fish.  It truly is beautiful up here and while I enjoy the brief visit, not sure I would want to live in a winter wonderland.  

We've done nothing but eaten, drank, done science, and tried to exist all while staying in our PJs (unless we were on the farm).  I feel like I am back in grad school and also am supremely feeling like I am in my late 40s.  

I'm not going to lie; we have to do this trip again 3 more times and I am not looking forward to the 10-hour drive x 2 or the sleeplessness.  We have a better plan moving forward that will help a little, but it's still just hard because of the nature of it.  

Of course, no running happened thanks to time and the nature of the experiment but hoping to do some while I am off.  Maybe in January but I am not holding my breath.  

Have a great week y'all!  Ready to be back with my family :)

Eating my way through

 

Me right now.  Sigh.  I have gained so much weight and it's all my fault.  My eating habits are off the rail, and I just don't care to rein them in.  Add in that I have had very little time to work out and very little motivation to get up early and get runs done and that equals disaster.  I weighed this much when I was 9 months pregnant with Andrew. I'm sad, I'm mad at myself for letting my body get to this point, but also, I am very lowly motivated to do anything about it.  It's a weird feeling to look at your body with pure disgust yet shove something in your mouth anyway.  I have been a small/medium for most of my life and now I am at best a large/XL.  

I am super behind on getting this post out so here goes nothing.  Andrew wrested JV for the league championship and came away with 2 wins, one by pin, and a second place.  That's the best he's ever done and I am so freaking proud of him.  The varsity team won the tournament and the championship.  I have to say that wrestling is probably my most favorite sport of the sports he plays.

He has a lot of potential and I can only see improvement from here on out.  He is finally gaining confidence (much like racing) and it's super cool to watch.  I think this year has been so much better because a) practice is right after school and he still has meds in his system to be able to focus and b) he's hitting puberty, so we've got some hormones hitting our system finally.  We still have a long way to go and will be doing some kid's club practices and maybe 2 or 3 tournaments to end our season.  This team, if we can keep it together, has a bright future ahead of them.  

I did get three runs in this week but no real long run to speak of. I am traveling all next week with a very limited amount of space to put things, so probably won't run at all.  

Mudpig is still enjoying the puddles.  

We ended the week at 785 Brewing Company at the gingerbread house.  We thoroughly enjoyed the different menu, the decorations, and the company.  I had the Christmas ESB, a coconut ale, and the newest IPA.  The boys made smores and played pickleball.  We still don't have a tree up so it was fun to see all of the decorations.  My goal this year was to get the tree up early and we've just not had the time to get it up period.  Oh well, there is always next year, right?

Have a wonderful week!  I'm traveling to Wisconsin from work!

More wrestling and more wrestling

It was a week of wrestling and beer.  Not going to lie, only one day of running and we have one more week of chaos before maybe I can get back to some sort of rhythm of working out.

We had a dual and a tournament this week.  Andrew lost every single match BUT I saw good things in all of his matches.  We have one more tournament for the league championship and Andrew will get to wrestle junior varsity again.  I'm excited because these boys have worked their butts off this season, and I am ready to see them celebrate their hard work.  

All I ever ask is that he tries, and he is trying his little butt off.  Even though he's been wrestling since he was 4, he still lacks a lot of technique and knowledge and that is what is getting him right now.  Years of not being medicated as well as coaches basically giving up on him is really hurting him right now.  To the coaches that never gave up, I thank you.  To the coaches that did, I get it, he was and probably still is hard to coach due to his lack of confidence.  I still see lots of potential in there and this year we got the aggression so we will continue wrestling into the future.

  

It was also a weekend of trying some great beers.  High Wind Brewing Company is in Junction city where our tournament was located on Saturday, and it was right down the road from the high school. I had a very nice porter and tried three sours, a watermelon, a strawberry/pineapple, and a blueberry/lemon.  All were very good.  While we aren't in JC very much, if we are, we will always stop!  They had really good food too with two restaurants inside the brewery both making different faire.  I had a beef stroganoff bowl while the boys had some pizza and all was very good.  Later we stopped by our local homebrewer for some peanut butter stout and a Wildberry sour.  All very good!

 

We ended the weekend of wrestling with our home club wrestling tournament in which our boys couldn't wrestle because they were in season.  Sigh.  That's okay because they all pitched in and helped, and it was amazing. I vote for early season again next year :) Andrew has some amazing teammates that love to help, and my awards table was fully stocked with kiddos.  

Then this happened.  If you haven't watched Somebody Somewhere, please do so now.  I love this show with all of my heart and can't believe it's being cancelled.  The main character Sam is from Manhattan originally, so it is based on Manhattan KS.  I always like to watch to see if my car made it into any of the shots!  We laughed, we cried, we met Joel her gay bestie, and we cried some more.  As a middle-aged woman going through some of the things she deals with in the show, it hits home hard.  Friendships are hard, family is hard, worrying about aging parents is hard.  Surrounding yourself with the best people and holding on to them is what gets you through and that is what Sam does in the show and what I do in real life.   It truly is an amazing watch and it's only 3 seasons, thanks to HBO :( 

Another busy week before I head to Wisconsin for a long research trip right before Christmas! Pray we don't get stuck!