GO CATS and GO VOLS!

What to say about this week.  Less drama but heck, still in disbelief on how people acted the weekend before.  This is my new motto, hold me to it.

It's hard.  I've always wanted to make sure that everyone knew I was doing the right thing.  Now I don't think I even care anymore becuase their version in their mind is the only true version to them.  I had therapy this week and we really worked on knowing your worth.  We both talked about this:

I'm not a napkin and I have to quit acting like one.  There were lots of tears, lots of discussion, and lots of promises of working on self worth.  I never thought I had self worth issues till all of this, but I guess part of self value is either the ability to stick up for your self or walk away with your head held high?  I have neither skills right now, go figure.  

I did get 4 runs in this week, 1 three miler, 1 four miler, a 10 miler, and another 3 miler with my Stella ella.  All of my runs felt like a struggle fest this week and I am not sure why.  I had trouble breathing all week and I am sure I am living in a state of dehydration as I haven't been drinking any water lately.  I also got one run with Miss Stella after a long lay off this summer. She does not handle the heat at all anymore (I feel ya) and i haven't had the right setting to run with her lately, so when Sunday rolled around and it was the perfect temperature, I took him with me.  We had a nice girls run together just taking it super easy for 3 miles in the industrial park where she could be behind me without the threat of cars.  With her not being able to hear at all now, I can only take her places where she can be loose and we don't have to worry about traffic coming up on us fast.  

I did have some rather interesting situations with customers this week which tested my customer service skills.  The customer is always right is a hard pill to swallow when you know they aren't.  We also have an electrician injured and out for an undetermined time and an CW that quit.  It's been a doozie to say the least.  

AND I am so proud of my GOTR girls.  They knocked their interval and HEART lesson out of the park. I am not lying when I say I am a little concerned about our practice 5K, not that they can't do the distance, but that they are getting in their own heads and there is a lot of walking going on.  I hope that the interval lesson and the successes they had will motivate them to try their hardest at the practice 5K.

And two things to wrap up.  Our hometown high school football team is in the playoffs and they had another convincing win.  They honored the Jr Red Raiders before the game for their amazing seasons.  

And we went to Manhattan to watch both KSU and UT win big time!  GO Cats and GO Vols!  And GO Manhattan brewing company for such great beers!

Have a great week y'all!

Last home game/race/bit of my sanity

Maybe?

Every time I think things can't get worse than previous events, life goes, hold my beer.  I honestly can't believe people are acting the way they are over a 12 dollar piece of plastic and a youth sport.  We have two more races, one of which we aren't attending due to football and my 40 over 40 gala, one of which we are (100 lap race) and the banquet.  Then we start planning for the 2023 season with the new board of officers. I am still not sure I can continue this constant attack for the next 2 years as secretary, so I have to really think if this is what I want to do to myself mentally.  What makes me sad is that people are acting in a way in front of others that causes them to look so amazingly bad and they are blinded by this.  They are good people deep down, but because of their insane actions, others are completely turned off to their agenda.  All I can do is feel good that I have done my job, I have made something that was good even better, and I can walk away knowing whomever takes over will have a much better starting point than when we did 2 years ago.  We have made some amazing additions to our race track and to our club and I can't wait to see what new blood does to make that even bigger and better than it is now.  

I ran twice this week and that was all I got in.  I ran a 4 and a 3 with Mr. serious and the weather was glorious. I am so pumped for real fall and winter running.  I feel almost weightless running when it's colder outside.  I also am looking forward to having my long run weekends back when football and racing are done.  

We played our biggest rivals of the year, the Rock Creek Mustangs.  They are a school right down the road and many of the kids that play for their teams play with our kids on various sports teams like wrestling and baseball.  The game was very tense at first as neither offense could get going, but some mistakes by them and some special teams scores helped wake our team up.  Andrew got some playing time on offense and defense and we won the league championship!!!!!  Now on the tournament in Lawrence in November.....which is the same weekend as my 25k.  I am not making any decisions yet on whether I will race it or not until I see a schedule for the tourny.  

I also had my gala Saturday night for the 40 over 40 project.  It was also the weekend of the opening of Nakita's (photographer) new place in her new space and she was doing an open house/gala.  I had originally thought that Andrew and Tony were going to be at the track for the end of the pumpkin race, so I asked my BRF Robin to go with me and be my family for the night.  She looked amazing and we loved getting dressed up even if our feet hurt like hell by the end of the night.  I had my hair done at a local salon, tried to do my own make up (fail), borrowed the perfect dress from my mom, and bought shoes and jewelry at the last minute at Target.  I think we both looked so cute and while I am not fond of the heels I purchased, we had a good time looking at all of the pictures and reading everyone's stories.  If you haven't had a professional photographer take your pictures, you NEED to!  Splurge on yourself because it was an amazing experience and I loved the pampering.

Sunday was the final race day for the 2022 season.  We have a weekend where we do a pumpkin race where the kiddos race regular classes and get pumpkins as their prizes and then we do a 100 lap shoot out for just the Honda classes where the kids get trophies.  It's a big weekend and a big money maker for our club.  We missed Saturday thanks to football and the gala and we had big plans for racing on Sunday. Except mother nature had other plans for us that included 40 mph cross winds on the interstate.  My hubby didn't think it was much fun pulling the trailer in those cross winds, so we turned around and dropped the trailer and headed to the track to work and have fun.  I won't say it was fun at all because see very first paragraph. I am thoroughly embarrassed at how adults are acting lately and honestly I think we need to start videoing them so they can watch the play back to truly understand how bad they look to others.  Even if they have good ideas or good points, they are being buried in the delivery/actions and turning off the majority to their agenda.  It's pretty bad that our own club doesn't want a visiting club to have a good time and actually get their monies worth and be flexible to allow all to race.  What does that say about us?  Change isn't always fun, but being able to pivot to benefit all shows that we care.  I guess if we had a chance to race somewhere else or race nationally, we would and just not even come to our club or club races anymore.  It's gotten that bad.  BUT my kid isn't on that level yet so we will keep showing up, keep putting up with the bullshit, and hopefully get him to a point were we can travel and do our own thing.  

Have a great week y'all!  I am certainly going to try my hardest!

Stressed, blessed, and obsessed

Stress is the name of the game this week.  All I can say or want to say right now was this week was full of emergency meetings, stress, and lack of sleep.  I am one of those people who takes words, even if they aren't meant for me very seriously.  Kind of funny that with all that is going on, this was our Girls on the Run lesson this week.  

Even if I know what the right thing is to do, sometimes it's still super hard for me to follow through when it affects people negatively, EVEN if they are the source of all of the problems.  I know that if punishments are not handed out that change won't happen, but I am still very upset on what needs to happen.  Enough sadness and self reflection, let's get to happiness because honestly discussing this sounds so dumb in light of what actually happened!  I even told my therapist the words coming out of my mouth sound foreign and silly and while she agreed the situation is incredibly stupid, she did agree that my ability to process is not there yet and won't be till I heal from past trauma.     

I got three runs in, one with my girls, one by myself post football, and one long run.  I've been pretty sleep deprived all week due to stress and late nights, so running just wasn't a priority.  My runs lately feel sooooo good thanks to cooler weather.  I just need to convince my mentally tired body that I will feel so much better if I just go.  My long run, while I overdressed, felt great and I should be good to go to run my 25K if we aren't in tournament.  

Football was very exciting!  We had heard that the back up team was going to get their first start and they did!  Two whole plays before they were taken out due to the other team scoring.  Oh well, they tried.  They work so hard and they just aren't ready I guess.  At least we got the W and several B team boys got to sub in and out.  Andrew got to play the entire 3rd quarter and while the other team's offense had the ball the entire 8 minutes, the defense held them to no scores during their possession.  Andrew didn't get to play anymore than that, but he seemed okay with it and I have to be okay with it too.  He is a late bloomer and while I know this and I know his competitiveness is coming, it's still hard to watch at times and to be a part of it sometime.  I do still feel like his strength is offense, not defense but this year he has played defense mostly, go figure.  

I am leaving this right here. I  need to make some tough decisions on several areas of my life.  Some that may affect lots of people around me.  Going back to therapy has opened my eyes to many things in my life that I have to get right and fast.  None of the decisions are easy or will be taken lightly. Y'all just drop a prayer or some positive energy my way as I navigate all of this.

And then this.  My last time I ran Chicago came up on my memories.  I love this race so much and can't wait to run it again when I turn 50!  I also want to take Andrew this time so he can see the city I so love.  

Okay ending here.  Y'all have a great week, whatever it brings ya!

Here we go again

Another week of football practices and another weekend of football and racing.  Last race of the season and we needed two good races, one to just stay where we were and one to pass a driver a head of us.  But let's not get too far ahead shall we?

I had another week of 3 runs.  I got 2.4 and then three post GOTR, a 3 post football practice, and a 7 mile longish run.  This week was one of my most favorite lessons, the I FEEL lesson.  I love that we teach our kids that you can have comfortable or uncomfortable emotions and that is OKAY and it is SUPER OKAY to express them and not bottle them up inside.  I also had to be the head coach for this one since two of our coaches had a training in a different part of the state, which was super fun with 30 girls all needing to tell me things every run.  We made it work, they got their lap goals plus some, and we had fun cheering GIRLS ON THE RUN IS SO MUCH FUN!

Football was rough this week.  I think the boys are getting tired of 2 hour practices and are getting a bit punchy.  We have two of our biggest opponents coming up, the ONLY team to beat us last year and the team that is tied with us for league champ this year (whom we beat last year).  Andrew got hurt not once but twice, and we had to have a long talk about trying your best even when you are a little banged up.  Thankfully he is just bruised and nothing more.  A cleat to the hand and two tacklers to the outstretched leg aren't fun, but they are part of football.   

The football game was a nail biter.  We had lost to this team at their stadium previously.  We were hungry for a win at home, yet we have so many new people including our quarterback who haven't dealt with these kids previously.  I knew going in that the starters would probably be in the entire game. I was okay with it because I want to win and Andrew still has a long way to go skill wise to lock horns with a team like this.  After a back and forth battle and then a tied score, we finally scored and held them.  Talk about wanting to puke several times!  At one point the team was down by 2 scores but rallied back and WON!  26-20 was the final score and I am SO proud of them for keeping their heads up.  

Post football we did a quick change and headed to the race track for the last race of the season.  We had high hopes going in for Andrew as here of late we have seen a completely different driver. We needed a good solid finish in his Honda class to solidify his 7th place finish in points and we needed a better than average finish in the Animal class to move up above his buddy for 4th place.   Long story short, he raced his butt off in Honda and got a solid 2nd place and got his first podium in 4 years.  Animal was a last place finish, but lots of good things and still a very fast time, just not fast enough.  We ended the season on a big high and honestly I could skip the last two fun races and end now on this cloud he is currently on.  

 

There were several things that happened during the race and post race that I am not proud of.  I really wish that people would watch their videos, listen to their language, and read their comments again and realize how they come off to their kids.  We are starting to see kids model their parent's bad behaviors pretty regularly now and it's very sad.  They are good kids.  There is a chance they can change and be better.  We all can change and be better.  There is NO money being handed out.  There are no contacts in the balance.  I am not sure why anyone acts the way they do at this track.  I have seen some of the worst behaviors in our four years here.  Honestly, if my kid didn't love it so much, we would have left a year ago.  While therapy is helping me deal with other's actions and my reactions to them, I can't change them or their actions and it makes me sad.  Just be good people please?  It's just youth sports in general I think.  Everyone is going to be the next big super star at 10 years old.  Sigh.

Sunday Funday was all about the Renaissance Festival.  We had never been but I have seen pictures and had an idea of what we might encounter.  It was dusty, crowded, expensive and FUN!  The boys got in costume, I bought some garland for my hair, we had amazing food and drink and we will be back next year.  

Have a great week y'all!

Football has taken over my life!

 

A little bit of running, a little bit of fall weather, and some football plus Oztoberfest.  Let's get to it shall we?

Three runs this week.  Two, two milers with the girls and then 2 three milers with boom boom after football practice, plus a longish run.  I count this as success with our crazy busy life lately.  Not sure if I will be running my 25K in November or not thanks to a football tournament but I am going to attempt to get some sort of training in just in case, just won't be on technical trails like where I will be running.  

Lots of football both Friday night and Saturday morning.  Wins for both the Raider High School team and all Junior Raider football teams.  

Love this photo that one of the football moms got even if Andrew is off in LaLa land.  

Post football we needed to head to the track to help with our bi annual fundraiser.  We had had very low sign up rate and very low volunteerism, but the board decided to proceed anyway and hope for the best.  Most of our club families like us had football or soccer in the morning preventing them with helping.  By the time we got done with playing and then helping with the 6th grade game, they were wrapping up, so we were able to head down to downtown and enjoy Oztoberfest!

I didn't get many pictures this year because the boys were too cool for school and did their own thing, but Tony and I had fun sitting in the beer garden watching the different acts take the stage.  It's hard to explain to those who aren't from here, but here goes nothing.  Oztoberfest is a celebration of all things Oz.  We have the Oz museum downtown, which is the largest collection of Oz memorabilia in the world and in previous years we had munchkins and other assorted people from the movie come and celebrate with us.  The city shuts down the main street and they have vendors and car shows and all kinds of fun things.  

Above is a pic from many years ago when there were still people living from the movie.  While most actors and actresses have passed, our town still does a great job of celebrating all things Oz.  

#68 on the line

We started the week with me being sick and throwing up all night/morning and ended the week with Tony being sick with the same thing.  Andrew and I ended up heading to the pumpkin patch to give Tony time to be sick without us in his hair.  Can you believe how much he has grown?

I wanted to end on a somber note.  We found out this week that we lost a mom in our mom group.  We are still not sure of the details other than she had some sort of health crisis while driving and her daughter was in the car.  Luckily, she was not driving fast and they both were wearing their seatbelts.  Many had seen her pre wreck at volley ball practice with her amazing daughter and she was totally fine.  She was 42, 2 years younger than I am.  My heart is devastated with the loss.  She was part of our wrestling family and probably Andrew's number one fan.  Her kiddos are amazing and some of the best, well raised kiddos I know.   I have spent many hours in the wrestling room talking or chatting on Facebook about raising a late blooming boy.  Her daughter is one of my most favorite kids in the whole wide world and I have coached her for three years in Girls on the Run.  This loss hit me and others very hard as we are at a loss as to what to do for the family.  They have headed back to where she is from originally, and all funeral/visitation is three hours away.  We are planning on doing as much as we can here but we are all so upset and broken hearted for the family.  Please keep the Turner family in your thoughts and prayers.