Part One: I am way too busy

 I know, I know, I'm two weeks behind!!!  SO much has happened so let's dive in!

Both weeks had three workouts, an upper body workout, a lower body workout, and a push workout.  In addition to lots of working out, I am also working in a lot (see what I did there).  We are working out butts off but getting good data and that makes me very proud.  Plus, several of overtimes hours per check never hurts.  

We had our marching under first Friday night lights.  Andrew was so very nervous with all the unknowns, but he powered through and got through a few sets in his first field show.  Here are some pictures that various people got.  The band doesn't travel so we will only have home games, but I will cherish each one.   Beatles songs are the best!

Yes, he has to hold his music because his new trumpet doesn't have anywhere to stick a lyre.  I did find a different way to attach his music so for the next game, he will be set.  I still think it's weird that he doesn't have to have his music memorized by now but I guess they do things differently in this day and age.  His marching was a little sketch, but he always figured out he was out of step quickly and corrected it quickly.  Marching takes time and they practice so little compared to what we did in high school.  In some ways it frustrates me but also, it allows not only football players but cheerleaders and dancers to be part of the band.  I have to be at peace with the fact that their method is so widely different than the way we did field shows and competition.  

Then we raced.  

This is one of Andrew's old quarter midget buddies.  We call them the Red Headed Racing club.  One has grown significantly and one hasn't.  

We had our first two-day show.  We are still very much in the learning phase and figuring out how to do this as a team.  He gets better every time he goes on the track, but he is also getting frustrated with lots of last place finishes.  We are missing our marks and he's getting beat every weekend by kids much younger than him.  We've talked about the fact that these kids have been on dirt for a few years, so they are light years ahead of him even though they are younger.  The top three race every weekend, sometimes twice a weekend at different tracks.  We have a long way to go before we get there BUT we will get there.  

Night two was again a lot of learning.  We had so many people helping us.  That is what racing families do.  They have kids who compete against us, yet they jump in, work on our cars, and help us learn. It's no fun to race against kiddos that have messed up cars so might as well have them all ready to go and let the race be against the best drivers.  

Every night is more learning even if it's slow.  There is improvement.  His times get better, his starts get better, his confidence grows.  This was the year for us to dip our toes in and we sure did.  I am super proud of his 4th place finish in his heat of 6 on Saturday, but all of his runs were good.  I am sure going to miss racing when this season is over.  I know, I know, much different tune than the beginning of the year.  

We did try renting an AIRBNB again and this time we have 10 of us all in one house.   Never knew the town Scandia existed and it sure is super cute!  It's kind of fun being a part of a HUGE family.  We cooked, we drank, we laughed, and we stayed up way too late.  This must have been a retirement home or something because each room had its own half bath and number.  I am now very curious as to what it could have been at one time.  

Okay going to do a part two because this is way too long already.  See ya in another post :)
 

Seek and Destroy

Three workouts this week, an everything push, an upper body and a lower body.  Fizzled out on Sunday thanks to a late night and not wanting to push myself to be stupid in the heat.  Yes, it's feels like 107 here and there is no part of me that wants to go outside and do anything, much less work out in a super-hot shop.  There are some weeks I feel so super strong and some weeks I just feel like my 20s are 50s.  This was one of those weeks, but I got it done.  Dependent on the exercise, I sometimes sub out some 12s or 15s, especially when my app wants me to do 12 reps.  Still loving weight training but itching to get back to some running.  

Another weekend and another race.  I am so proud of the progress he has made.  He's a very cautious kid and the fact that he is pushing the car and trying his best every single race makes me so happy.  I put the Go Pro in this week so check out his racing page Andrew Coleman Racing for that footage.  

I took a million photos of him and the crew, but Ashton Tackwell got several good ones on the track.  

Of course, I bought all of them because I had to.

We may have a few potential sponsors for the rest of this year so keep your fingers crossed.  We would like to end the year and do some fun things and visit some more tracks.  

We also got to see a few bands at one of our favorite venues, Switch Wicked.  We missed the first band but caught the second two Big Fat Cow and The Manhattan Project.  Both were amazing but Andrew finally got to go to a standing room only concert and truly feel the music.  He was so excited when they played Metallica Seek and Destroy and of course the whole place went nuts when they played the Phineas and Ferb theme song.  I smiled the rest of the night as this was such a core memory to share this with my kiddo.  We may not get to as many concerts now that football and racing are going to dominate our weekends, but I am SO glad we got to so many live acts this summer.  

Have a great week y'all!  It's football time EVERYWHERE!

Dirt slinging fun

Three work outs, all three lifts, lower body, upper body, and core.  Who am I?  Almost ran Sunday, but the 86 percent humidity stopped me.  Getting ever so close to FALL!  Here are some pictures from our week and I will end on racing.

Love the Flint Hills this time of year!  Heading out to Purebred barn to get rumen fluid and enjoying this view.

Got my teeny Tiny Stella back.  She is stunning and I love her! Agile dog art for the win.

Finally got Jon Snow back from his body work session.  I am loving my new headlights.  Almost 800 bucks for a hit and run that we never will know who did it.  

My thyroid has started swelling on the midline and the left side now.  Doctor said no concern since it isn't affecting my labs or my swallowing/breathing.  I just look like I swallowed a tire.

Had a steak dinner at Barleycorns thanks to our company saying thank you to all of our hard work.  Took Caitlyn down to the little murals to take some pictures.  I am seriously so lucky to have had some amazing coworkers lately.  Kind of trauma dumped on her the other day and her response to my tears made me laugh and stop crying.  She is one of a kind!  How I am so blessed with some super great co workers?

Why does my kid look so grown up now?  Freshman pictures for school ids.  Not sure when band pictures will be taken.  First week of school was rough and not a lot of sleep was had thanks to anxiety, but I think he is calmer now and ready to endure all the challenges.

We had another race weekend, and I honestly can't stop smiling.  He pushed the car more in the corners, got faster on his times, passed a car, and learned a ton.  We are getting this figured out, slowly but surely.  He's still struggling with the clutch and gears, but he put down some solid laps and got to race with a lot of old quarter midget kids.  

These two have grown up racing together and are HUGE.  I love this family and wish we got to spend more time together on the regular.  Andrew and Madden were such great friends when we started out racing quarter midgets, and I hope they can get back together to being good friends again.  Our families have such a great time together in the past.  

I also ended the week not feeling great.  I slept for almost 12 hours one night, got up and went to work and came back and slept some more.  Been dealing with some stuff mentally and even though I handle things way better lately, it still weighs heavy on my whole body.  Stress is stress and I think or I just hope that my body just needed a rest day to crash out.  

Have a great week y'all!

Baby no more

A week of firsts.  First time I have a kid in high school.  Why do I feel like we are beginning the end?  I'm happy and sad all at the same time.  He's been super-duper nervous to be in a bigger school with so many kids and having to walk to and from school (he refuses to get his permit go figure), but so far, he's aced both.  It's crazy to see my use to be level of anxiety in him.  I mean the kid didn't sleep for two nights because he was so freaked out. I love that our local schools do a move up day where they could just be by themselves and figure some things out before everyone was back.  I also love that they have a crew of kids that make that day a little less scary for the freshmen.  

Also, we have hit the teenage angsty years hard.  No more pictures, please don't post that, please don't say anything, you are so cringe!  I knew this time would come that he wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore, so this doesn't surprise me.  If you've never heard of the "shitting the nest" theory, look it up. I had never heard of it but when I did, it made SO much sense.  The other night he told me that I just pissed him off so bad.  Get ready kid, this probably won't be the last time.  It hurts your momma heart but you also know this is part of growing up.  I'm not ready for this milestone but we are here.

Also, he no longer fits in the back of Tony's truck BUT I don't mind being shoved in the back because I have shorter legs.  My car sickness hasn't kicked in yet.  

Also, it is time.  I have been already drinking my pumpkin flavored coffee, but this is my first pumpkin beer of the season.  There is an ever so slight breeze that blows that makes me think that fall is knocking on the door and I will be running again.  

Three lifts this week, lower body, upper body and surprise surprise, core.  I love that the Peleton plus app give me all kinds of work outs that involve my core but aren't planks.  Sneaky ways to work my weakest part of my chain is where it is at.  #Fueledbybrickhouse.

Have a great week y'all!  Let's all manifest fall!

A brief brief

I'm trying something new.  Instead of writing when I get up, I'm trying to write before I go to bed.  Let's see how this goes.  Here are a few thoughts about last week. Spoiler alert: my battery on my laptop dies in about 0.2 seconds post taking it off of the charger, so we are calling this experiment failed.

Imposter syndrome is real.  I feel that way sometimes when we race.  We barely got the hang of quarter midgets and now we have dipped into the world of micros, and I feel it again big time.  This week it really bit us in the butt when we made a big rookie mistake of overheating our car. Our battery has been causing us issues, so it was either have a dead battery OR overheat the car.  We had hopes that it wouldn't overheat so we kept it on to save the battery, but spoiler alert, it did decide to overheat.  After having amazing hot laps, and a pretty damn good heat race where he started on the poll, he was pumped to start his 20-lap feature.  The car decided otherwise and he made a very smart decision to save the engine and pull it into the infield.  I will take a 9K save any day of the week.  He still got some money for last place, and we had a great time visiting with friends and old quarter midget racers who came out to support the ginger racer.  

Most of the week was spent alone as the boys headed to Tennessee to visit with family.  I did enjoy some alone time and some Netflix true crime time; however, I did miss both of them by the end of the week and was glad when they got home.  I kind of already do what I want, when I want to, so that wasn't a factor with them being gone.  I do miss Martin and had a little regret not going BUT we were slammed at work and being down a team member means we can't have anyone else out.  If I could move back to Tennessee, it would be to small town like Martin for sure.  To me, Jackson is way too big and there is too much crime, and I've gotten used to small town living.  Maybe a thought when Andrew goes to college.  I would LOVE it if he went to my alma mater as it's a smaller school and perfect for a kiddo like him that likes to ease into things.  He keeps saying he wants to go to KSU but that school will swallow him whole, unless he goes into music and the marching band where he will be taken care of I am sure.  

 

To end, random thoughts by Michelle.  I never knew how much anxiety I had till I didn't have any or had very little.  Why didn't I try medication sooner?  While it has dulled some of the parts of me that I miss like that super passionate person that makes me a kick ass scientist and board member, I don't miss the not sleeping, the constant worrying.  Now that I see it in my own child, I am not sure how people around me put up with me on a daily basis and how i didn't wear them the fuck out.  To sum it up, hey, I'm sorry.  If you are thinking about trying meds for anxiety, do it.  You won't regret it.  I surely don't.

Have a great week and sorry this is SO behind!

All by myself

What a long but good week, some of it without my boys.  Shall I begin?

Lots of great data at work and experiments finally working.  It's so cool to see the fruits of our labor finally paying off.  I don't ever mind long days when we can be proud and trust what we produce as a team.  

Four workouts with one being a RUN!   While it wasn't the best run ever (see my video blog on my FB page Running with Reds) it was still a RUN!  Let's just say Ollie was one happy little girl.  

Another night another band.  This time it was 90s country and honky tonk hits with my coworker.  I can't believe we had sweatshirts and jeans on in August.  

Plus, the night before, met up with a different coworker at Aggieville brewing and had dinner.  So blessed to have so many great coworkers who join me and indulge in my music and beer love.  Also, they listen to me, they love me how I am anxiety and all, and they wipe away my tears when I am stressed and upset.  How am I so freaking lucky???

Tony was at his 30th high school reunion in Tennessee this weekend. I am missing the boy something fierce.   I do always enjoy my alone time, but a few days is all I need to be good to go.  Counting down the days till they get home!

Have a great week y'all!