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!

Happy Thanksgiving 2024

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!  We had a wonderful day filled with amazing food and good relaxing family time.  We watched the Macy's thanksgiving parade and ate cinnamon rolls and ran our little turkey trot.  Tony cooked all day, and I cleaned behind him and we had an amazing meal as always.  Quite a difference from a year ago when he was just getting off of having brain surgery.  So much to be thankful for!  Our town went ahead and lit up our park for Christmas early and I am HERE.FOR.IT.

Four-day weekends are the best!  We lived it up with the season of lights in Wamego on Saturday night with some yummy boozy coffee at our favorite local coffee shop the Brew.  I got lots of sleep and had several days of letting the dogs out to potty, feeding them, and then going right back to bed.  I earned another sleep badge on Garmin for my efforts :) I needed some rest before the sprint begins to finish up the school year/work year/big research projects in Wisconsin start.  

I got three runs in with mud pig but no long runs as I seriously just enjoyed my family and our time together this holiday break.  She was not happy that her puddles had been replaced with ice.  She got to see her first snow as we got hit with a little snowstorm on Saturday and she LOVED it.  Grammy got her some sweaters for running as well so she can stay warm on our runs.  She doesn't seem to be bothered by the cold and will stay out till her little feet hurt and she has to come back in and warm them up.  

We also got to see Wicked on the big screen in 3-D.  If you are on the fence about going RUN!  It's amazing and I only cried twice.  I love the actors that are playing the two main leads as they are perfect for the parts.  

There are some things brewing that are bothering me, but I am trying to stay in a season of thankfulness and not delve into those things yet.  I am thankful that Andrew had an amazing year of racing and we saw lots of firsts for him. I am thankful that he made it through football and is having an amazing time at wrestling. I am thankful that even though 7th grade is hard and he had a rough start at it, he is now sitting at As in every class but math, and that is a super high B.  I am thankful for my husband's health and that even though he is swimming in debt with his business, he's keeping his head above water, completing big jobs, and getting through some super tough work stuff.  I am thankful that both of us got our anxiety under control for now and are living life with it side by side.  SO much to be thankful for and that's a fact.  

Have a great week y'all!