Sentence per picture April edition

 Sentence per picture because I am just not in the greatest of writing moods this week.

New cat at the hardware store that is super friendly.  Love it

So many mudpuddles that made mudpig happy.

Coachella weekend two and YUMA was live!  Andrew and I are in heaven.  

Beautiful weekend for running in Wamego.

She's super cute when she wants to be.

Finally got the cat cafe.  Rita was a lover.

Fireproof gear fits.

Looks like a ninja.

Waiting on dad to get seatbelts adjusted.  

First tie in the new car.

Post run sun with Ollie in the shade.  

Record store day and varsity donuts for dessert.

Poison ivy in my yard. Sigh.

WINGS!

Have a great week y'all!

Big changes

Lots of big decisions this week.  It's been emotional as a mom, and I like to be honest here, so here goes.  Signing day was this week for high school football.  We have had Andrew play football up until this point mainly to stay in shape since he is a bigger kiddo, but also because we felt like of all the sports, this one fit him as he is strong as an ox.  We had high hopes that high school football would be a different experience than the other years.  While club football was tough, the coaches cared about him and tried to teach him and treated him well for the most part.  When we got to middle school, the coaches didn't even know his name and barely got him in at all, even in practice.  Of course, also in middle school, Andrew found his love for music with both the trumpet and the guitar/bass plus choir, and he decided he really wanted to focus on music.  Now it's true, in our town you can do both football and marching band, but it's hard and I was dreading it honestly. I think high school is going to be a huge adjustment for him and to add in both football AND marching band with a field show and plays to memorize was going to be a lot.  We let him make the final decision and he decided to not continue with sports in high school.  This may also include wrestling but one sport at a time at this point.  To be continued.  We are sad because while it's so awesome to see him find his way and chose music (former band nerd here over the moon), we were both athletes and we know it's in there that he could turn it around and be great when he gets his body figured out.  It's tough when you have an idea of what you kid will be like and love and they go a complete opposite direction, but we are also both so excited for his musical journey that it makes the sadness a little less.  Dad of course is struggling the most BUT he's been very careful with his words and for that, I am proud.  We are NOT disappointed with him in any way, just sad he is giving up on sports.   

We had three runs and two work outs this week.  Tried to shift things around to miss the rain but Sunday morning started with rain and yuck and we had to get in our run in before the festival.  Avoided the mud and muck by running at the rec complex and then of course stepped in a huge mud puddle right in front of the house and got covered.

We had lots of rain all week which made puddle pig very happy.  

Let's end on things that brought me joy this week.  Watching this guy jam out playing not only Pink Floyd but also Metallica!  Watching him grow in his talent has been a super fun ride.

National beer day courtesy of Manhattan Brewing Company!

Salad bars are making a comeback in our little town!  The grocery store opened up a new salad bar, and I was first in line.  I LOVE a good salad bar with protein options and cottage cheese!  Bonus, Tony's company did the electrical for the salad bar.  We love serving our community and are glad that more and more local businesses are choosing to use us locally.  We believe in shopping locally and using our local partners even if it's more expensive and we hope that other local businesses feel the same.  We don't want to lose some of these establishments as we would have to drive a ways to get the same goods and services and be in a different community.  We want our money to stay here.

Speaking of local, local festivals are the BEST!  Tulip festival in Wamego means live music, lots of arts and crafts vendors, and BEER at the beer garden.  This year we got to walk around the whole grounds with our beers which I LOVED!

We bought a few things, mainly for the dogs but we had fun walking around and saying hi to all of our neighbors.  We love this little community SO much!

I think this hat is totally true for me right?

I also got this to keep stella with me at all times.  

To end I will show you the power of social media.  I met Jodie on a Facebook running group years ago.  We both had aussies so of course we immediately bonded.  Then bonus, we became friends outside of the group and we found out we share a birthday.  When she asked me for my address the other day, I wondered what she was up to.  When the box came, I just knew it was something special and I called my mom to be on the phone when I unboxed it.  

She took pictures of Stella and I and somehow put them on this aussie cut out.  It's perfect and I bawled and my mom bawled and I immediately got it hung up in my bedroom next to my bed.  I've been wanting to make a wall of Stella, and this is the perfect first addition.

It's crazy how social media can be such a good thing and then such a bad thing all at the same time.  I've made some pretty special friends through dog running groups and Facebook in general, many of whom I may never met in person.  This is the good part of social media for sure.  They cheer me on from afar, let me cry in their DMs, and like and love my pictures not only of my dogs but also my kiddo.  

Have a great week y'all!

Questions?

First let's start with the week.  Three runs, one interrupted by a pop-up T storm but thankfully I was near the shop and ducked in right in time,

 one that was meh due to the wind,

 and one that was really good out on my gravel route where Mudpig was very, very happy.

Two lifts this week, one upper body plus an ab set and one lower body that I had to rush like no other but also still focus on form.  

Some more random things about this week:

A good friend saw this book and had to buy it for me.  She isn't a hugger, but I sure wanted to hug her.  My reoccurring dream is that I have enrolled in a college class and forgot until the final and have to take the final or fail.  Do you have a reoccurring dream?

My kid is back to loving Mexican food.  I'm here FOR IT!  You don't have to ask me twice to go to taco Tuesday even if I will get the steak fajitas anyway.  

Saturday plan change but was able to get Boom to the vet for shots and for heartworm testing.  He's a big old baby, but some squeeze cheese and some cookies convinced him he wasn't dying.  His favorite vet tech is now in her second year of vet school and not working at the clinic and he sure does miss her.  

Andrew decided he wanted to do an easter egg hunt.  We are in the in between age of still hanging on to things that kids should do while still wanting to grow up and be older.  The local farm place was doing hunts for older kids, but I just didn't see the point in paying that much money for a rice Krispie treat and a bunny sticker.  I convinced him to do a deconstructed Easter basket and skip the hunt.  We had pizza at Ajs since he claimed that the farm had the best pizza (proven false).  We stopped by Therapie and got bunny cookies that were some of the best sugar cookies I have ever eaten.

We went shopping for Atari games at the local retro shop, had beers at MBC, and stopped at the game shop to check out Lego sets and found they had a new game room for board and dice games.  When you find Tensie dice, you must play tensie!

I feel like it was a much better day and money much more well spent.  Not that I don't love supporting local businesses, especially ag tourism, but it's more geared towards younger kiddos at this point not his age.  He's getting too big for kid's things, yet his heart is still a kid.  Being 13-14 is so freaking tough!

For Easter, we celebrated with an Easter Brunch at High Wind Brewery in Junction City.  We had breakfast pizza, breakfast burgers, waffles, and a seltzer flight.  I really liked the Strawberry and Watermelon the best.  We had hoped that the wildlife center in Milford was open for a visit, but it was closed due to Easter, so we just took a nice drive around Milford and Junction and then headed back home.  All in all, a great week, the quiet before the storm of racing season with lots of good family time.  

I did want to talk about a few thing before I close out.  I sometimes get questions from readers or on my FB page where I do live videos and I wanted to address one of those right now.  The question was why I am running Ollie so much on pavement.  She's a young dog and it's hard on her joints and bones.  The simple answer is that where I run on pavement is mostly traffic/car free.  I can park at our shop and run straight from there and go either way and get four to five miles with minimal cars and distractions that send ollie over the edge.  While we've done a lot of work to get her mindset different when it comes to cars, she still loses her ever loving mind over anything that moves really.  If I leave from my house to get to gravel, I have to run about 0.75 miles through neighborhoods with lots of traffic and lose dogs and down a road that is a designated truck route that has zero shoulder or sidewalks and giant semis and grain trucks.  By the time we get to gravel, she is so over the top and usually very hot and tired from losing her shit every five seconds.  Yes, the gravel itself has very little traffic and yes, I could get Tony to drop me off and pick me up, but he is usually busy when I am running, unless it is the weekends.  I do feel like I am not doing high mileage right now and I am only running 3 days a week so this shouldn't do damage.  Ollie is also on some good joint supplements and has been since joining our family.  I will always evaluate her gait and keep into consideration her physical state.  I keep her light and fit and I think she will be okay.  I hope someday to increase our mileage and possibly run ultras with her but that will be a few years down the road.  

And last, I get a ton of questions about her drinking out of puddles.  Yes, I know the risks and yes, she is annually vaccinated for Lepto.  No, I have never had another dog so in love with water, so this is new to me.  None of my other dogs would even drink from puddles even if they were super-hot and thirsty, and I love that she knows to cool herself off by using them.  I also do flea and tick meds when the season is upon us.   She truly has a working dog's coat because as it dries, any mud just falls off and she is good to go.

Hope this clears the air and if you have any questions, please ask me!  I am an open book and LOVE to talk about running with dogs.  

Have a great week y'all!  Sounds like we are in for some April showers. Stay dry!

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow

Another crazy week in the books.  Another person quitting or I should say moving on at my work that completely changes everything.  Sigh.  Glad I am on medication right now!!!!  I am handling constant change so much better than I use to.  Growth and better living through chemistry.  I'll take it.  

Three runs and two work outs.  I thought about adding a fourth run, but Tony said focus on muscles for now and so I did.  One of my phone cameras is cracked it and takes the trippiest pictures now.  Thanks to Brickhouse Nutrition for fueling my work outs.  

More health stuff for now this week, a mammogram and Andrew had med check for his ADHD meds.  Still haven't heard back about my mammogram but no news is good news, right? Also, the referral has been sent to the high-risk cancer doc, but I haven't heard anything back from that either.  I need to get the dogs in for heartworm checks and Boom is due for shots but just haven't had the time.  I need to get a therapy visit in there too.  There just aren't enough hours in the day.   I've been working 10 hour days, and I just am keeping my head down, getting done what I can in a week, and not worrying about what I can't get done.  I know that Boom is covered more than likely due to him being older and probably have high enough titers to cover him.  

In other news this week, we spent the weekend just being together as a family and doing fun things.  Not that racing isn't fun, it is a ton of fun but it's also stressful and busy and crazy.  I wanted us to just have fun, go visit some music stores, start looking at jazz basses and have a nice meal using our gift card that Jessica from the track got me for my birthday.  I found two music stores in Topeka, and we headed out just to look.  Funny enough, the second store we went to had an amazing deal on a fender jass bass and we couldn't leave without it.  I know, I spoil my kid rotten but to see him smile SO big when he started playing and to see him so excited about a musical instrument just made me SO very happy.  Now to pray that my washing machine, which was going to be my big purchase with my overtime and bonus money stays running.  

It's so beautiful and it has the most beautiful sound.  He loves it so much and I am so happy to see him so happy.  Now to find a smaller amp!

Also, he got his first vinyl.  Red Hot Chili Peppers for the win!  We will be going back as they had a really awesome used vinyl selection.  We have a local record store as well that needs our love, just will have to wait till the students are all gone so it's townie time and less to deal with since it's down in the bar district, also known as Aggieville.

Have a great week y'all!!!  I'll be jamming out to RHCP and the sounds of a smooth bass guitar constantly being plucked in my house!

H.O.T

Not much to write about this week which is good.  Here are a bunch of pictures and some words so I get off of my butt and go run :)

The theme this week with regards to running was H.O.T.  No heat acclimation for us, I guess.  Ollie isn't handling it well, so we did 1-mile loops to keep her near the water bucket.  Basically, an out and back to the end of the industrial park. Pretty boring for most, but for me, nothing a good podcast can't take care of.  At least one of the runs had a puddle she could get in about halfway.  The rest of the week, no puddle, so we did our normal walk breaks every four minutes and got it done.  The wind Sunday was really bad as well making our mileage a little shorter than we had hoped for.  Welcome to weird spring and the crazy wind in Kansas.  Two lifts this week and this happened:

This isn't the first time I hit myself with the bar, but this is the first time I've done it with that much force.  I bit my tongue on both sides and had a little swelling for a couple of days.  Just about knocked myself clean out.  Now I know how boxers feel when they get a good uppercut to the jaw.  This was on a shoulder press no less with the bar in front rack.  I've hit my nose before and grazed my chin but never right on the kisser like that.  Luckily Tony was at the shop at the time, but he was outside and I couldn't find him when it happened, so I continued my work out.  I felt this for several days in my tongue and face.  As of typing this on Sunday, I am still sore.  Just mad I didn't get any type of bruise to show for it!  

Saturday did not go to plan, but we made the best of it.  It was the first time in 7 years I wasn't working the arrive and drive at the TKQMA track and it felt so weird.  I have heard that they had record numbers and I am so excited for them to get new members, new blood, and money into the coffers.  The boys did let me go to MBC for a beer or two as we made several trips to get parts for race cars.  It helps now that right across the street there is a shop that sells vintage video games to entice Andrew to want to be down on Pontyz.  The last few years I have really been into summer beers with lime and once again, I am here for it.  Limebash at MBC is the PERFECT summer beer.  Go have one if you are in town!

And let's end on a health update?  I am a week into the estrogen patches and so far, I've had horrible cramps, horrible fatigue, and a pop-up period.  Not loving this but willing to go through it to see if this helps with my anxiety.  I have a week of doctor's appointments this coming week with another round with my PCP to check in on how all the meds are affecting me and my yearly mammogram.  Still haven't heard back from the high-risk cancer doctor that i am supposed to visit due to my score being so high on my high-risk cancer quiz.  Thanks to mom for helping me fill that out because it mainly focused on my biodad's family and their health.  I only have one living aunt on my dad's side of the family left to help us fill in the blanks.  

Have a great week y'all!