GIRLS ON THE RUN IS SO MUCH FUN 2023

Today I am going to focus on the positive. I am still battling some mental demons, but they have let up a tiny bit and for that I thankful.

Pardon his messy room, but my deal is if you want to live like a pig fine, keep your door shut.  I adore his cat and his love for his boy.  I walked in to see Andrew playing his VR headset and there is Elvis staring at him lovingly.  

We have hit the "I don't need a coat" stage of his life.  Sigh.  Middle school boys.  A day or two after this it was "I am wearing shorts" and it's 20 degrees outside.  

We have also hit the "I don't need a haircut" stage.  One of his friends at school has the exact red curly hair as his so I convinced him to let that friend's mom cut his hair.  Don't worry, she is a hairdresser and she knew exactly how to make him happy.  As always he looks SO grown up when he gets it cut.

Even though my job is seriously stressing me out to the max right now, I still love it and my co workers.  We did a new to me project, which tends to make my anxiety get pretty gnarly because I am super afraid of failure and my co worker stepped up, took the lead, and while we had hiccups, made it the best she could. I am proud of her.  

Running at night and seeing all of the Christmas lights brings me so much joy.  I love the cold, the twinkling of the lights, and the space to think.  

#teamwinter all the way!

We don't get to see family much over the holidays.  After we had Andrew and Santa became a thing, we stopped traveling back to Tennessee for any holiday.  Plus, having dogs, crazy red dogs at that, makes things even more complicated.  We have tried to build some new traditions that we can do as a family here in Kansas.  One of those is to go to a little town East of here named Saint Marys and go to their little dry goods store called Sugar Creek.  

They do Christmas right by having amazing ice cream sundae creations and the gingerbread house contest.   People do amazing work with these houses! We get to vote on the top three, but there were so many great ones that it was hard to chose this year.  

And this year they had a food truck park that had woodfire pizza, yummy chicken chili, and beer!

Sunday was about the Girls on the Run 5K.  I didn't get to coach this year thanks to my new job and it seriously broke my heart. I had hoped we could find some way to compromise and let me off in time to go over to the school, but with the types of experiments we do, it just wasn't possible.  Some of our football family had their twins doing the program this year, so when they needed a running buddy, I was ALL IN!  Except, whoops, they are super fast and I am not anymore.  It worked out great, we started together, and they kept stopping for me to catch up, but I finally convinced them to JUST GO!  The course was a bit long (almost 3.4 miles) and they finished around 32 something with me and another one of my favorite girls finishing in around 35 something.  I also got to see all of my girls from last year in the Heart and Sole program at the middle school and get lots of hugs.  It seriously was the best day ever....until the Chiefs lost but that is another story.  

Have a great week y'all!

And the home of the......CHIEFS!

What a week!  While my anxiety was still playing in an endless loop in the back ground, we had overall a great week.  I guess I am just high functioning at this state.

We started out by going to Monday night football at Arrowhead Stadium.  While Neyland Stadium is larger and in my opinion louder, it was a ton of fun.  I had put out a plea on FB to find someone to ride with because the whole parking situation sounded like a nightmare.  I am so very glad that the Marions that use to live here in our area contacted me and said come on over and ride with us!  I would have seriously been in tears getting into the stadium and parking.  It seriously is the worst I have ever seen getting into and out of any big event I have ever been to.  We got a small taste of it years ago going to the Billy Joel concert at the K, which is next door.  It was so bad we almost didn't even see the beginning of the concert, but luckily he went on a little late so we didn't miss.  Talk about no direction or crowd control.  However, once we got in, it was easy to get around and get what you needed.  Plus, they had a gift shop right by our entrance to our seats so SCORE!  New hats and a clear bag for me, little tiny football players for Andrew and a magnet for our fridge.  The score didn't end of being what we wanted at all, but we had fun, slept at our friend's house for the night, and drove home the next day on 4ish hours of sleep.  Enjoy a bunch of photos taken in the rain with my phone not in order because iphotos has lost it's ever loving mind.

Kelce touchdown!

Chris Jones Sack!

My man, Jason Kelce.  Love him!

First time walking out and seeing an NFL game.  He just stopped and was in awe!

Jason Kelce warming up.

Glad to have the video boards because we were so short we couldn't see the entire game!  People stand up for four hours straight.  That is dedication!  Let me tell you I was sore from standing all night on that concrete.

ESPN Monday night football crew!

Coin toss with the captains!

Getting soaked but still loving it!  Little red's poncho ripped pretty badly walking over so I had to give up mine.  I think i was cold and wet for days after I got SO wet!

Chris Jones!  My favorite defensive player.  If I was sure he was going to stay with the Chiefs for longer I would totally buy his jersey.  I think he had 4 or 5 sacks just this game.

Warming up and drying off for a minute.  New hat, who dis?

Patrick tried so hard to get us the win.   No one could catch and or hold on to the ball.  It must be very disappointing for him but he is a true team player.   This has been a weird year and I hope they can resolve the issues and get back out there and be better than ever. 

Get that SACK!

My man :)  Love him.  Everyone loves Travis and not going to lie, he's a cutie, but give me a man with some substance.  Give me a thic boi.  

I honestly can't thank Chris, Evan, and Landa enough.  They drove us to the game and navigated the horrible down town traffic, got us to the parking lot and parked after a long slow wait, and then got us home post game after sitting in one spot for almost an hour not moving. You would think a professional sports organization would have their shiz to together to get people in and out of the game, but nope.  That's okay, if the weather, the loss, and the parking were the only bad parts, I will take it.  Little red got his first NFL game and got to see some amazing players play their hearts out.   Plus, during commercial breaks they dance and get silly and it's so fun to watch.  You think of them as robots but they are real people and they like to have fun too. 

It was also my birthday this week too!  Tuesday, my actual birthday day,  I worked all day on 4 hours of sleep and a ton of caffeine  It was totally worth it!

Came home to roses, beautiful flowers, and a card from Andrew that melted my heart.  Plus, Tony cooked me a simple but wonderful dinner of beef tips and gravy over mashed potatoes with my most fav veggie, asparagus.  YUM!  AND to top that off, my co worker knowing that I love peppermint made me a peppermint cheesecake.  I feel so loved.

Thanksgiving day/weekend was all about eating and resting.  I am not good at slowing down and just enjoying the moment, so my goal lately has been to just do that.  Tony and I worked hard together, him cooking and my cleaning.   We had an amazing dinner and we only did four loads of dishes that day LOL!  While we had said we were going to scale back this year, I don't really think he did.  The food was amazing, we froze half of everything and had two days of good food before tapping out.

Running was really good this week.  I did two threes and an 8.5 because the snow made everything yucky in town and I am not a fan of falling.  I had tony come and pick me up so I didn't have to risk running on slick, slushy roads.  I LOVE running in the snow so timed my run so that we got the beginning of the snow storm.    

Have a great week y'all!  I am bummed to go back to a full week of work with no celebrating but here we go!

I'm ready

I never am totally sure about how to get my words out, so how about some word vomit?  Ew right?  It's hard to believe I have been blogging for years and years now every week and how this blog gives me a tiny bit of sanity every week when I write it.  Words get stuck and jumbled in my head, and it's a relief some days to get them out read them out loud and then leave them and walk away.  

Here lately anxiety has been my queen.  She has ruled over my every waking moment and I moving back into fight, flight, or freeze, which I just felt like I had successfully moved away from.  Just this week I was having panic attacks so bad that when I went for my morning run, I had a panic attack during my run because I couldn't even remember what day it was and what experiment I was doing.  Funny, it calms down when I am at work and allows me to work but I feel it creeping in there as well, slowly.  I am feeling like medical intervention may be necessary to give me some peace and some sleep.  I am pretty sure I am losing what little bit of hair I have due to stress.  Yet I am not sure how to get away from it?  How do you successfully compartmentalize the daily stresses and live a normal life?

 

 Sometimes, well most of the times I wish our small business would just fold.  Yes, we had stress prior to having this business, but nothing like now.  I want to go back to that kind of stress please.  I know that we could both make good money because even if my hubby is not the greatest at running a small business, he is a great electrician and now that he is on the road to being 100 percent healthy, I know he could do amazing things.  I know that closing something down that you have put your heart and soul into is never easy, but I am ready. I am ready for the stigma, the talk, the probably court for him to file bankruptcy to get out of the debt. I am ready for the bank to take all of our assets, even our house if necessary.  I am ready to be done.  I am ready to just live my life and not worry about who is quitting, who is stealing from us, who is writing down 8 hours and not working 8 hours, who do we owe money to and who is not paying us for whatever reason.  I am ready to not to have to work my main job, come home and then head to a second job.  I am ready to not to have to fight the bank every month to fund us one more month.  I am done. For those of you who keep your small businesses going for years and years and years, I am in awe.  We are on year 7 and each year gets worse, not better.  I know for me, I am not cut out for this roller coaster and I want off so that I keep any shred of mental capacity I have left.  

Sorry to be such a bummer.  I actually jumped the gun and wrote last week about what was happening this week because of course, anxiety.  We had our check up with the brain surgeon on Tuesday and all was good.  I posted the MRI in last week's blog and it was a doozy.  Here is again just in case you didn't see it.  

I really don't know how he was functioning with this in his head.  When he would say his head felt like it was going to explode he wasn't kidding.  We are so amazingly lucky that he didn't have a stroke.  He is enjoying being headache and staple free now and back to wearing hats and working as much as he can in a day.  His biggest complaint is fatigue from doing too much.  He was released to do short drives but he is driving all over the place no matter what right now.  We are slowly navigating through this to his new normal.  He has gotten back to cooking a lot which is fun to see and even helping me clean.  He's been doing laundry and some remodeling of the house by adding can lights in areas that previously were super dark and had no lights.  We finally got rid of our old treadmill and are thinking about options to replace. I am leaning towards a peloton mainly because I think that would be better for Tony and the plethora of classes would keep everything super interesting.  I don't think he will ever be a runner and I feel like walking on a mill with no tv or anything to look at would not be fun for him.  Plus, I have secretly wanted one for years as I love to bike and I know through other bloggers that there are some super simple and quick classes you can take for strength and stretching that are awesome and have a big impact.  I need to get back to strength and re ignite my love for lifting and maybe that would be the key.

I will end on running. I got three runs in this week, two 3 mile runs and one 8 mile run.  I talked to my mommy the whole time I was running my long run and it made the time fly by.  This seriously is my favorite time of the year for getting my runs done and makes me really want to figure out something to train for.  Joy to the Run starts in a couple of weeks and I can't wait to see what they have up their sleeve this year.  They made speedwork fun for me again and that is hard to do!  Plus, I have the Girls on the Run 5K coming up in a few weekends.  

I post this last because well Facebook reads my mind and then posts all of these recommended for you memes.  All of the ones I posted today in the blog have come up on my FB feed this week, but this one was the best.  Someone once told me that you truly know who your friends are when the worst hits and you are at the lowest of lows.  I have had SO many amazing people including my mom of course come out and support me and support Tony.  I will never be able to thank them enough or give back to the universe what they have given to us in this time period.  From the calls, texts, messages, cards, visits, to just the simple I am thinking about you, we have been so blessed and lucky to have so many great people/families in our lives.  

Have a great week y'all! I am going to try with every ounce of my being! 

A new normal?

Brain tumor update:  Thought i would start with this.  If you don't recall or are just reading this, my hubby who had had some pretty bad headaches finally got sent to the ER and then had brain surgery to rid his brain of a baseball sized tumor.  He first had to stay in the hospital several days pre surgery to take massive doses of steroids, but then had brain surgery and was discharged 3 days later.  I am amazed you can have your skull cut into, your brain exposed, a giant tumor removed, and then be home 3 days later.  We had our first follow up with our GP just for a check in and everything looks good.  He is progressing nicely to complete recovery and should be back to no restrictions next week.  Holy moly batman, everything is moving so fast, but I am happy.  There has been a lot of reflecting and should of could of would of.  Lots of plans made for the future.  Lots of shuffling at work.  Lots of priority shifting.  I hope it isn't too little too late kind of deal.  I am also ready for the roids to be out of his system.  He has been redecorating/moving stuff around/adding can lights to every room of our house and up all night not sleeping.  The GP said it could take up to 10 days post taking the last pill.  

Running update:  Got three runs in and even a longish run!  I love this time a year for running!  I feel like I am floating on air when it's cold out.  Plus, the bird of prey are very active when it's cold outside and I can play is that an eagle or what is that?  I am contemplating races and goals and what my schedule can handle and what it can't.  While part of me wants to commit to something, the other part of me is very grateful to be able to run whenever I can and NOT follow a schedule. I am doing the Another Mother Runner Joy to the run again this year which includes work outs, yoga, and running.  I have had fun doing this the last few years and look forward to doing it again.  

We also had our end of year racing banquet.  While this year starting out exciting and fun, the middle and end were horrible and no good, and I am not sure how to feel about the totality of the season.  I find huge fault in our side (meaning Tony and I, not Andrew), but also have grace because we are trying to work multiple jobs and keep all of the plates spinning and in the air and we did the best we could.  We practiced maybe 2 times total all season, had very little time to devote to the cars, and of course was dealing with Tony's constant debilitating headaches caused by his tumor.  So what do you do?  I honestly two years ago wanted to walk away, but we keep coming back because maybe things will change.  Will they?   We are going to give it one more go next year.  We loved traveling and would love to do that more.  We have a great group now at the track that we have fun with.  Andrew ended up 6th out of 9th which is better than his usual last place.  He also came in second out of three in animal, a class we may not do next year due to low participation.  Time will tell and we are not making any decisions today, tomorrow, or the next day for that matter.  

Have a great week y'all!

The week of the tumor

The week started off with me having a crazy calm come over me.  If you don't know why I am so stressed, go check out my blog post before this one.  In a nut shell, upon an eye exam we were sent to the ER in Wamego and then onto the ER in Topeka Kansas for immediate brain surgery.  We ended up having to wait on the surgery as they tried to get some of the swelling down with massive doses of steroids.  I am going to break this down day by day, so I can read back on this nightmare when we are on the other side.

Monday:  I had to work which was a good thing.  Staying busy keeps my mind from wandering and I had lots to do at work to keep me busy.  We also got a call that our football family had something for us.  Upon arriving at his defensive coach's house, we were given a huge basket filled with gift cards, snacks, cards, and goodies to keep Tony busy post surgery.  We are so blessed by our wonderful community for lifting us up in prayer and for taking over for Andrew and me. 

 

Tuesday: Surgery day.  Up at 4 am to head to Topeka to be there before they wheeled him out for anesthesia.  We joked that he was going to be Harry Potter for Halloween with his surgeon's initials looking like Harry's scar.   They were very good about giving us updates throughout the process of pre op and keeping us calm.  We got to stay with him till they rolled him back to be put under.  The surgeon came in and we talked briefly about the plan.  He was very optimistic this would be doable with complete recovery.   Tony was in surgery for about 4 hours and in recovery for about 2 hours before we could see him.  I let his mom go in first and then I went in second.  He looked amazing for just having brain surgery!  He was in and out of grogginess, but he had no deficits when it came to neurological functions and he could talk and answer questions.  

Wednesday:  Came to the hospital in the morning to see Tony up and eating!!!!  I was so shocked.  The doctor had warned us that he would be out of it for a day or two.  He was awake, talking, and eating like no big deal.  He got his drain out, his arterial line out, and his picu line out all in one day and at that one day post surgery!  He also got moved to a regular room, so we could all be there.  

Thursday: Lots of PT, lots of walking, lots of more steps to get to come home.  Being back in a regular room means a ton less interruptions.  The moms took over so I could focus on working my science job. I am out of PTO until I earn more.  

Friday:  GO HOME DAY!  I am still very blown away that we could leave the hospital this quickly, but also very thankful.  At the point of writing this, he is still having much confusion and having some memory issues and swelling on his face, but he is mobile and on his way to recovery!  

Saturday/Sunday: Lots of eating, lots of walking, lots of working for me and lots of love from all over.  He is so excited to get to the other side of life minus that huge tumor.  He is going back over all of the things he has done lately and thinking, hmmm, was that the tumor that made me do that?  We also got out a few times and did some walking and went over to A and H farms to spend a couple of hours enjoying the sunshine and awesome fall temps.  

A couple of pictures to end.  This has been one very crazy and quick journey.  Our community has been so amazing doing a gift card shower for us.  We got a variety of cards with money, gift cards, snack boxes, chips, and so much love and prayers sent our way.  So many prayers and positive thoughts sent our way and we could feel every single one.  I have never had that kind of calm come over me like I did during all of this.  Our racing and football family have really stepped up and our community as a whole have taken care of us immensely, even taking care of my mom this week as well.  

This is a picture of a third of the tumor and those are my hands holding it.  It's a meningioma and it's non cancerous.  We are so very lucky that it is what it is even if it is huge.  His brain will have a period of time of healing and getting back to it's normal size minus that huge depression.  He is home and motoring around but still has some issues with memory loss and confusion.  They say that is all to be expected.  

I will never be able to thank everyone enough for what they have done for our family.  We have felt so much love over the last two weeks of this nightmare.  I am not sure how long the moms will be here but just having them here has allowed me to be able to focus so much more and not worry about every little thing.  I will never be able to repay them.  

Have a great week y'all!  I did get three runs in by the skin of my teeth.  I could have gotten four ,but chose to watch Chiefs football instead and just spend the day with family.