Chugging along

Another week down and another week in quarantine.  I am still blessed that I get to get out of the house and go to the shop every day, but that might change soon if we have to keep all of the guys at the shop.  So far the commercial projects are full speed ahead, but unfortunately, it only takes one person being irresponsible to stop the whole job site.  Two of our big industrial clients are still shuttered to us which means one of our guys is drawing unemployment nevertheless, we applied for and got the PPP loan this week, so he should be off of unemployment this week YIPEEEE!!!!

corona bunny

Andrew seems fine with the continual education plans, which are pretty easy thus far for me to implement. He has a choice board with multiple options and he gets to chose 2-3 activities a day.  We try and always do 3 activities with math always being one of the options.   He is getting MUCH better at doing work on his own, including math his nemesis, but there are very few distractions at the shop currently.  The above picture is Andrew's Easter bunny suit for this year for one of his art projects.  I love that he labeled the gloves, but not the googles, suit, or gas mask!  The egg of course is a giant corona virus.  I am glad he is finding a lot of humor in everything and not having any issues with depression or anxiety as many of his classmates are struggling.  Andrew is more like his daddy who is a big homebody, meaning I really don't think he minds at all being restricted in where he goes or what he does.  This trait usually bothers me because I am doer, but right now, I am thankful.

hopscotch for all

We had a couple of good days where we could all be outside, which was really good for all of our souls.  Even daddy got in on the PE bingo action one of the days.  Of course Kansas always likes to say "Hold my beer", so we had some freezing cold weather mixed in this week as well.  I had most of my hostas coming up and my one lone tulip had a bloom, so hoping the cold snap won't kill all of my plants that make me so happy spring and summer.  

helping her boy draw his favorite character

I did get three runs in again this week.  I did two runs where we walked half a mile, ran/walked 4 miles and then cooled down with a half a mile walk for a total of 5 miles.  My final run of the week was a "long run" of 6 total miles with the aforementioned strategy used.  We went out super early to avoid most people and avoid the "heat" that really isn't that hot yet, but still hot to us as we build our tolerance.  We tried the trail that gets us from what part of Tuttle creek to the other thinking we were out earlier enough to avoid people, but we were wrong.  We used our buffs as masks just in case.  It's just so funny that this is my new long run now when last year I was easily doing 20 and 22 miles on my weekend long run.  I am very grateful though that I am getting to run again no matter what.  

6 foot distancing

We have decided to stick to our 3 runs a week for a few weeks and increase our mileage on long run day.  Then if we are both tolerating that, we want to get back to 4 runs a week.  I think for this upcoming training cycle, I will have to stick to a 4 day a week running schedule.  I know it isn't ideal for ultra training, but I am hoping to be back to lifting soon to help me be strong enough to be a little behind on mileage.  

Stella and I laying out

Everyone, have a safe and wonderful week!  Hopefully we are all flattening the curve so we can get back out to some sort of normal soon whatever that is.

What day is it again?

Andrew's emoji check in.  I feel ya son!

I am so confused at this point.  I love that meme going around about needing underwear with the day on again because I really do need it!  I've been doing lots of random FB live videos.  Y'all, it was hard enough to go from my lab in a large building of other labs and lots of people to an office in an industrial complex where I see 1-3 people maybe a day. I  am a HUGE extrovert making the move itself painful.  This is as well, but I am doing my part and staying away from the people.  In fact my hubby wants me to start working out of the house and not even coming into the office, but I am afraid that not getting that little bit of outside-ness a day may really drive me over the edge.

graduation to a big boy bike!  Hand brakes, have mercy on us :)

Several people have asked me about our business.  The state deems us essential, but we are not doing service calls unless it is extreme emergency or the homeowners can somehow prove to us they are not sick or they can be out of the home while we work.  We haven't really had that many calls for service anyway, which is good, I haven't had to turn too many people down.  My service guys do NOT feel comfortable going in strange people's homes and we do not feel comfortable sending them from house to house not knowing who is sick and who isn't.  They all have families to go home to and we all have to stay safe.  I know there are other electricians still doing service work and to each his own.  We don't think it is worth the risk to our customers or to our service technicians.  We have applied for the PPP loan to try and keep all of our electricians on our payroll.  We don't want to loose anyone, we want all that want to work to get a paycheck.  Our main industrial client has shuttered it's doors to outside contractors, so we are taking a huge hit not having them to service.  We do have several commercial projects due to start next week, which will take all that want to work. Two of the projects are due to go all spring and summer.  Fingers crossed that the job sites stay free of Corona virus and that we can keep our guys safe with PPE.   The general contractors are going to have strict rules and our guys will do their part to stick to these rules.   These guys are our family and I just want them to be safe, even if we all just have to hunker down at the shop for a few months.

Running was still 3 days a week with our general plan of walk one, run 3 with our 4:1 intervals, and finish with a walk.  I still have pain every now and again but as long as i pay attention to my cadence and take short steps and do ALL of my exercises.  Robin and I are still running together but we stay 6 feet apart at all times and we are doing some video chats in between, so we don't have to be so close to talk.  The Kansas spring wind kind of takes care of talking anyway. I am also trying to do yoga a few days a week since I am only running 3 days a week.  Those classes kick my ASS in such a good way.  I am still hoping to get to a few virtual barre classes and or find a good BOSU class since I have a BOSU ball that is just being used for PT right now.  I use to take BOSU classes when I was in grad school and LOVED them.  SO HARD! 

Home schooling is going well.  We got choice boards from the school this week with the requirement being to do 2-3 tasks a day.  The state wants our 2nd graders to be "in" school for no more than 1 hour a day.  We usually do a little more than that, but I always leave it totally up to him as to what he wants to do.  We do math pages every day and then he chooses usually handwriting or sentence practices or reading.  I am also letting him add a creative side to things since he LOVES to create.  He had to write a story the other day and I let him illustrate his story.  He was also suppose to take a picture of his work space and write about it, and since he is just working next to me on the big break table, I let him draw a picture of where he would LIKE to work.

He LOVED this and of course with his sponge bob Lego creation he had to draw a picture of him studying in bikini bottoms.  Honestly I always knew he would do well in a single homeschooling situation and he really is loving it as am I to a point. I am still trying to work so when I am working I need him to be independent and we are still a work in progress. We try to play at least one board game a day that incorporates math and reading to bring it all back to fun. 

Have a happy week y'all!  We got in 15 run/walk miles this week and I am so excited to be sort of back!  I am jealous of those long running but I know soon I will be back at it!  Have a great week and stay safe.

The New Normal?

Settling in and getting use to the new normal.  We aren't at the point of shelter in place (foreshadowing because as I am proofreading this, we are getting ready to shelter in place), but there are cases of COVID-19 all around us now so it's just a matter of time.  I am very lucky in that our industry is deemed essential, but our workers have to make decisions, hard ones and two have decided to take voluntary lay offs for at least a week or two to see what is going to happen.  We have several commercial jobs coming up, a vet clinic we are helping build from the ground up, a cell phone tower, a food plant job, and a school remodel.  We hope these are all going to move forward, but at any moment that could all change.  We are trying not to worry and are trying to stay busy and safe at the shop. Here are some main points from this week.

I ran 3 days this week.  The first day I did my usual walk 1 mile, run 2, walk 1 mile with my normal intervals and felt great!  I decided to run 3 miles because why not, so I also tried a 1 mile walk, 3 mile run.  I know, I know, don't rush this, but it just felt amazing.  I had  ridden my bike on Tuesday and that kind of irritated my hammy, so I may have to lay off of my bike.  I think the universe agreed because I woke up to this the next day post riding (it's super flat meaning a need a new tube):

I also met up with Robin at a safe distance at our favorite state park for some walk/run.  If you remember, she fell and hurt her ankle in the middle of me also being injured, and we are having fun rehabbing together.  There weren't too many people out at this point so we had no trouble keeping away from others and each other.  I am not sure you can do that on a trail which means we may be staying off of trails for a while.

We also had Boom boom neutered this week.  I always leave my boys intact until they start showing me annoying behaviors.  Boom has been a little too mouthy with Deuce and had actually caused a few puncture wounds on deuce's ears, meaning it was time.  The first night we had him home was super rough.  He cried all night even though he was on pain meds.  I held him most of the night and finally got a couple of hours of sleep.  The next day he was cone free most of the day, as we worked from home and the next night was way better.  The third night was rough again, not sure why, as he couldn't get comfortable and paced most of the night. I have had boys have issues with razor burn so not sure if he is just being a drama queen or what.  I did order a new cone for him to try versus the big heavy plastic cone.    

We also started phase 2 of the purge.  We have gotten Andrew's room back to the way we wanted it to be, now we are trying to work on a closet for Andrew to get the rest of the junk out of our bedroom.  This house is so weird in the way it was built.  None of the bedrooms except the addition master bedroom have closets, and we are pretty sure his bedroom was the original attic.  There are two alcoves in the hallway that we have used for storage and we decided the one that had tubs needed to be Andrew's closet.  We have shelving at the shop where we can store stuff especially if it is in labeled tubs.

We proceeded to take all of the tubs downstairs to try and go through them and organize them better.  Many of these tubs have pictures (back when we had film and actually took them to be developed) and sentimental stuff so we are in the process of going through everything and making some decisions.  PLUS, I found 4 tubs of baby clothes!!!! I  thought I had gotten rid of all of the baby stuff, but nope!  Of course now is the worst time to actually be purging stuff since no one is taking donations, but it feels good to at least get stuff ready to be donated at some point and to get all of the crap out of my bedroom and into some sort of organization into his new closet:)

Hope you are having a good week and making it through this mess.  I am praying for all of us to stay sane and healthy.  Much love to all of y'all!!!!

No point in counting anymore :(

With all of the races being canceled and or postponed, there is no point in counting towards anything anymore.  I may loose my mind trying to home school and work, but I am blessed because at this point I can continue my job and am in an office by myself so there is that.  I have always had super mad respect for Andrew's teachers and now even more than ever as I try to motivate him to do his work.  At this point we are just working off of work sheets and recommendations via his teacher, but I do believe that they are going to do some sort of on line learning in the future, much like the teachers at KSU are having to do.  Thank GOD again I am employed by my hubby's company because KSU has sent the students home and also all non essential researchers, which they have deemed most if not all research as non essential.  For now I will be able to collect a paycheck and not go on unemployment like so many of my friends are having to doing now.  I am keeping all of my friends in my prayers as we all enter very uncertain times.

My week started out with a trip to my chiropractor.  She gave me a new exercise to work on, bird dog.  Again, I was totally doing it wrong and she had to tweak it to make it right.  Who knew I could do so many SIMPLE exercises wrong.  That's the problem though, they are deceptively simple, but if you shift your hips on don't use your core right, you don't work the correct muscles and the exercise is pointless.  We also talked about my running and how to approach it.  I know that running 3 miles without slowly building up was a really bad idea, but mentally I needed it and I don't regret it.  Moving forward though, I needed a better plan.  Right now we are going to do at least a week of walk 1 mile, run 1 mile, walk 1 mile and then bump that up to walk, run, run.  I am working on cadence and core engagement and figuring out what keeps the pain away.  My cadence is pretty high, since I have little short legs, but for some reason when I walk and even when I run if I take little bitty steps I don't have any pain or discomfort.  I am going to target 3 days a week for my walk/run and then go from there.  I have also been released to bike so as soon as the wind isn't blowing 100 mph I will head out on my bike.  My gym shut down till further notice, so not going to get to that hammy machine any time soon.

In some ways I am grateful for my injury and trying to look at this time as a good thing.  If I was training now I would be in my peak weeks and my immune system would be so compromised.  I would have paid for several races that have all been canceled.  My heart hurts for those who have had their big goal races canceled or postponed.  Having had a huge DNF on my first 50 K years ago, i had a huge feeling of what do I do with all of this training???  I was able to find another race a month later and use my training for that but now people don't even have that and who knows when we will.  Until we get a vaccine for this stupid virus, we aren't going to defeat it totally, it will just hang around and come back as soon as we all start gathering again.  Here is huge prayers going up for the scientists who are feverishly working on a vaccine and or treatment so we can defeat this virus.  

Another week of uncertainty, another week of change.  Prayers going up for health care workers on the front lines of this.  Prayers going up for our fellow small business owners trying to make it through closures both mandated and voluntary.  Prayers for those infected.  Prayers for everyone!!!!

6 weeks till Flint Hills 50 and SPRING BREAK

This is week 2 of spring break (week one was last week and we left KS on Thursday to head to TN to split times between the two grandmas).  It's always super hard to leave my mamma because well, she is my mamma and I love her dearly.  I honestly could live next door to her for the rest of my life :)  Yep, bonafide mamma's girl here.  In fact I would love to just steal her away and hold her hostage in KS.  Okay enough sap.  Here are some pictures from my week.

Fish sticks with granddaddy.  He has had a blast with my step dad.

Hen bit is in bloom in the fields here in Martin TN and it makes me so happy to see buttercups and hen bit blooming it's butt off.  3 miles with some running thrown in.

Grandma's new dog daisy. She was dumped pregnant and heartbroken.  My mom in law took her in and she is just the sweetest dog ever.  Stella would just like it if she would stop sniffing her butt so much, thank you.  

Union city has a mcdonalds play place.  It was a ghost town so we had it all to ourselves.  We also went to the local park that was only slightly under water from all of the recent rain.  

More walking thanks to stella freaking out about andrew not being right with her.  About 2 more miles of laps around the cute little "lake" that is next to the playground.  Lots and lots of ducks to look at and fisherman to watch catch little tiny fish.

Crazy eyes on the bridge.  I really, really, really needed a run.  I did my normal run walk intervals and felt fine.  My nervy feeling is back and has been and I am wondering if it is from all the sitting due to driving and not being able to do much due to the rain.   The good news is nerve issues actually benefit from running as it increases blood flow.  

Hung out at the coffee shop and did some work and enjoyed some quiet alone time.  I love my kiddo but he is glued to my side when we go places, so nice to have some alone adult time to myself.  Due to coronavirus sending all of the students home for extra time off and distance classes, I had the place pretty much to myself.

A trip to Snappy tomato.  Sad that they closed the location in Martin where I practically lived when I was in college but glad they still have a location in Union City so Andrew can enjoy.  

Back to Jackson for one last visit.  We made the decision to head back early thanks to the virus shutting everything down.  I wanted to get back to my house and family, plus have an extra day to do laundry and rearrange.  

Stopped on our way out of town for one last breakfast with grandma and pops.  Good thing we stopped because I had forgotten my purse back at my parent's house.  Luckily we were only an hour away.  Andrew really had a hard time leaving TN this year.  There were many tears shed by all of us.  I have a feeling we will be back in the summer for sure!!!!

Got home for the big reveal!  Backstory, Andrew's "room" was the old attic of this house.  It's huge and has mostly been storage and toys for years.  We have been trying to get him ready to transition from our bed to his own bed.  We are hoping by making it a fun themed room that he will want to stay in there minus us :)  The only problem?  See below!!!!

Years of toys and our storage items need to find new homes because that is my bedroom under all of that stuff!!!!  Andrew has outgrown his train phase, so all of that will be sorted and sent to my mom's house to be sold.  As for the rest, I am not sure.  Our house has 0 amount of storage so it may have to go live at the shop or us get a storage rental unit.  All of those boxes in the picture above are my beloved Breyer models that I had hoped some day would see the light of day again in some sort of display.  There is only about 200 or so of them in those boxes.  Sigh.  lots of work to be done but we knew this day would come so nothing to do but get er done!

A beer and a burger post drive.  Probably will run today as I type this, just a short one again.  Need the stress relief for sure!!!!    Still waiting to hear if my son's school will shut down.  We will be business as usual unless our plants shut down that we service as well.  Service is booked out a full three weeks unless people start canceling.

Have a great week and enjoy social distancing!

7 weeks till Flint Hills 50 and I am still not running

Hi  and welcome to the beginning of spring break and to another week of walking!  Here is a brief synopsis of how the week went down.  I am still walking, power walking at that, and throwing in some little short runs to satisfy my running craving. I  am up to walking 3 miles comfortably and will probably stick between 3 and 4 miles for the rest of this month.  I am trying to walk as much as i can, but I am thinking once I add more running in, I will have to go to every other day or just 3 days a week or something a little more forgiving than every day.  I am also trying to do PT as much as possible, but honestly not getting every day as we are slammed at the shop right now.  Weight lifting with my hammies hasn't happened yet again because the gym doesn't allow kiddos in and we have no baby sitter at our finger tips.

We traveled to Tennessee Thursday and Andrew did amazingly well.  I like to stop once on the way down to fill up and have lunch, but that means driving straight through till almost 2 pm.  We packed a ton of snacks and drinks, and he was amazing at not whining about wanting to stop.  He actually slept some and just talked to me some.  I had several podcasts cued up on my phone and my aftershokz headphones to keep me sane.

We spent Friday at the zoo with my father and my half sister and her two kiddos.  It was a BLAST!  I LOVE zoos and the Memphis zoo has really redone most of it's exhibits since I was a kid.  Highlights included petting sting rays, feeding giraffes, multiple gift shops (my kiddo loves gifts shops LOL) and tons of cousin time with Bella and Nic.  

We really need to plan more cousin excursions because even though they were a year apart, they really had fun together!

Mom and I got walks in on Saturday and Sunday as well.  Mom regularly walks 3 miles, so she took me on a tour of downtown Jackson.  It's amazing how much they have redone the place and how nice it is compared to when I was younger.  It's actually a place you want to be now.    

We also did 2 group hikes with one being about 2 miles and the last being about 4 miles.  I didn't turn on my watch on either time, but on Saturday we just hiked our property and on Sunday we did some paved trails and then hit the boardwalk and nature trail out at Pinson Mounds.  I ran out here last year and I was dying to run again, but did enjoy showing the trails off to my mom and kiddo.  The hike ended up being a little longer than I had anticipated, but we kind of went the wrong way and went away from the start/entrance and had to back track to get back.  I had brought snacks and there were plenty of places to stop and catch your breath.  

Looking forward to our full week of spring break next week and more walking and hiking.  Mom's gym actually has the prone hamstring machine so we are trying to figure out how I can get over there to work out and use it with mom and without the little.  Plus it is suppose to rain so we may be hanging out at the gym anyway using the indoor track.  Have a great week!!!!

8 weeks till Flint Hills 50 miler...which I am not running :(

This week has been crazy due to the software change over at work and a surprise audit that I hear all the contractors have to go through.   In fact the auditor was super shocked we had never had been through one in our three years of business.   Yeah for all the reports and all the details shared.  Here is a short synopsis of the fun stuff.

I did 5 walks during the week: 2.26, 2.5, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.0  miles with a quarter mile at the run for a couple of those:)  I started using my Altras on my 2.0 mile walk with a tiny run splashed in and I am loving them thus far.  My right knee which had been hurting due to compensation I think, quieted down immediately.  I also have been wearing them around the shop and during the day just to get use to them.  They are quite roomy and very cushiony and I am crossing my fingers that they stay working for my wonky body.

Andrew came down with strep Thursday at school, but lucky for us, he had a day off of school Friday already, so no missed school.  Post first dose of antibiotics and some advil, he was as good as new.  He isn't a huge fan of the pink stuff, but I told him the alternative is a huge shot in your butt, so drink up.

We had several fun events this week including Lego club at the library, Read across America at his school Monday night, and Body Venture also at his school.  I got to be a guest reader in Andrew's class and read 3 books to them and got to volunteer at Body Venture as the BRAIN!

If you get a chance to have Body Venture come to your school DO IT!  It is an amazing set up where the kids get to travel through the body and learn about eating right and exercising and what can happen to your body if you don't.  Even though I lost my voice by the end of the 2 hour session, I had so much fun and hoped that I taught the kiddos something interesting!  They give you a script so don't worry about knowing anything in particular.  I even learned some really interesting facts about the brain myself that I didn't know!

We also gave ourselves permission to have one big cheat meal and day drink.  Being business owners is not for the faint of heart. The roller coaster ride that it entails has some great highs but some super low lows and we need some time away with good food and some tasty beers.  We work every day, most weekends, and most nights till late but it is ALL worth it.  

We are super enjoying this spring like weather for sure and I am WISHING i was back running.  We are going to try and be outside and enjoy this weather as much as we can, even if I am not running just yet.  I am trying to remember to be patient and not rush ANYTHING.  Have a great week!