Crazy Busy Tired

Sorry for lack of posts lately. Nothing new or fun to write about on top of being busy with things that wouldn't make for a fun post to read. So I will do a catch up post hitting some of the things that has been going on and they are in no particular order.

* Life went from pretty calm and only working a few ambulance shifts a month to crazy every weekend busy between working both jobs, helping with the fire department for the auctions and taking some classes.

*Weather has still been hit and miss nice one day cold the next which has dampened my mood as well as efforts to get out of the office at lunch and walk.

*Finally sucked up the courage to make an appointment with a chiropractor the thought of someone twisting and popping me makes me cringe. However I can twist pop bend crack all day long and that don't bother me. But it was time to finally get my hips corrected they are out of whack and its affecting me trying to run walk or ride my bike. So vs pushing thru the pain (which I have done for more years than I care to admit) I will be smart and get realigned.

*Last Friday I took vacation day from my office job to attend a class at the ambulance base, was a good class lots of good info and I honestly learned a lot. There is another class I really need to take on the 25th so hope my boss sees I have the work caught up and hours made up so I can take it. Plus it sounds fun RSI rapid sequence intubation I believe is what it stands for. I have yet to see anyone be intubated but I know it will happen and I need to know what I can do to help my partner.

*This Saturday and Sunday is a class at a local fire department that I signed up for months ago. Sounded cool fire cause and determination and arson awareness. Yep two days of classroom but figuring out that there will be a practical live burn that we do..... So I will get to try out my new gloves and new pink nomex hood but not so fond of having to wear SCBA.. or having the massive crash course on relearning to use it since its been YEARS (12) since I have had an airtank and mask on.... To say I am a bit frazzled is understatement.

*Saturday night the kids stayed with my mom so we went to dinner at a local bar and grill. Planned on just having dinner and going home. Well one drink tasted so good I had a few with dinner and ended up closing the place down with another couple we knew there.

*Sleep would be great between working the last two nights and Nathan deciding he don't want to sleep by himself anymore I am wore out. Think its just a phase he is going thru as I remember Blake doing the same thing around the same age. Plus he is getting some molars in, allergies acting up with all the pollen oh and watched a movie that scared him and now don't like zombies. SO between me putting him back to bed a million times telling him leprechauns aren't real and zombies aren't real we usually end up on the couch trying to sleep.

*Hard to believe theres only a month left of school and I will have a 4th grader! He's already asking how many days until the pig roast and how much older does he have to be to shoot the pig.

*Theres lots of other things going on that has created stress and busy times but not things I will post about on here.

If I survive the chiropractor appt next Tuesday I will post about it as well as post about my fire class I am taking this weekend.

April already what happened to March????

Wow hard to believe its already April. Where did March go heck where did the whole first 3 months of the year go????

April needs to be warmer than March was very much over being cold having frost on  my windows each morning. Not that I am ready for thunderstorms and tornadoes but they do sound better than snow and ice. April is also the month for my birthday I will be 31 on the 25.

Last month my goals were:

Goals for March:
1-Get some mileage in on the dreaded treadmill. I have signed myself and hubby up for a 4 mile race March 22, some friends of ours are doing it and talked us in to it. Wish I could say that mileage happened but it didn't. However the race came and went and I survived....

2-Continue spending more time with the kids in evenings and once weather warms up taking them to the park or for long walks or bike rides. Doing good with this one hasn't been warm enough for park fun, but have taken them skating a few times and went on a couple short bike rides (forgot how sore those seats can make your behind).

3-Find ways to manage stress better I would like to say I am better at this but learned its a process can't just happen over night. So I am better with it than I was this time last month.

4-More water less soda (its getting easier but days when stressed I WANT my Dr. Pepper) Tried the Advocare Spark drink and like it and also use Zipfizz some as well. 98% on this only have one soda a day and sometimes none....

5-Learn to open up more to my close friends before getting to the over stressed overwhelmed point. Lets just say I opened up to a "close" friend and didn't go so well. So I have one or two people I know I can talk to about anything and I will have to be ok with that.


Goals for April:
1-Participate in a instagram challenge called #HeatItUp. Never tried one of these challenges before so thought it would be fun.

2-Decided to do the April plank a day challenge however I know if I try to aim for the seconds and minutes it states each day I will get overwhelmed and quit. So I am just going to do a plank each day for however long I can hold it.

3-Do more family things with the kids and hubby. Blake loves roller blading so I think I am going to make that something me and him do together until Nathan wants to go out there with us. Then find something that Nathan and I can do together.

4-Less soda I don't need to add more water doing good at that. Right now I really only want soda when I eat certain foods or really stressed. So I will just limit it more and more and hopefully one day I won't want it.

5-More bike rides with the boys. I learned Saturday that I need to figure out what is out of whack in my lower back hip area that has been causing pain and making it hard to ride the bike.

6-Continue to work on stress management.

Another race done.

This weekend my husband and I along with another couple did race to the rocker. It's a 4 mile race all on highway with lots of hills. 

Now heading in to this I knew I wasn't in the best shape but was going to do it anyway. A couple days before the race my sinuses started acting up and making me cough and feel like I was drowning. But I still wasnt going to back down from doing the race. My A goal went out the window as I knew pushing to hard would be dumb (plus I had to work a 24 hour shift the next day) and knew it would make me feel worse. So my B goal of not even being close to the last person was what I was hoping for. The night before the race we went to dinner at a local bar and grill and met the other couple we were racing with there for dinner and well for a few drinks.. 

The race had a 9am start which was nice no rushing around way early. We arrived and took a team photo before the race. 

As you can tell it was super cold I had two shirts and a jacket on and was still froze. We realized quickly our team most whole we had never met was super fast runners. I immediately felt bad that we would pull their team times down but were told that only the top 5 times counted anyway. 

The race ended up being one heck of a mental battle for me. I realized I need to suck it up and go to the chiropractor as my hips are so far out of line it's causing me to walk different which caused pain. 

Some of the miles felt they past quickly some drug on forever I was glad I was able to tackle the hills with no problem. 

I never did look behind me but made my husband look to make sure we weren't in the end. 

The closer we got to the finish line the more I wanted to be done so I ended up doing the last mile as the fastest of the day. We crossed the finish line I wanted something to drink and wanted to cry. I was frustrated with myself knowing we were the last two of the team to cross. But when I got home and looked up to see how many were behind us I wasnt to upset. There were over 90 people who finished after us!

It was still cold and I was glad to get back on the buses to head to the car. 

We stopped and ate Mexican on the way home and then spent the day helping my grandma move and go thru things. 

I am already looking for another race in a month or two to actually train for this time no more winging it. I want solid times not half ass ones. 

Skating and random things

Been quite a while since I last did a post... Didn't think anyone needed to hear about stress work stress work kids stress. Lets just say was a very rough few weeks. 

Anyway last Saturday I took the kids to roller skate. The babysitter was taking we grandkids so of course mine wanted to go as well. I have been skating since I was 2 or 3 my dad always took me every Saturday and Sunday my whole childhood. It was our thing we did together and most of the time he was the only adult/parent out there skating. 

Blake had been skating once Nathan had never tried. So we went and I got us all three on roller blades. Nathan preferred the carpet to practice on he did go out on the rink with me twice. 

Blake did good and by the end of the 3 hours he was more confident and could get himself around the rink. 

I skated the whole 3 hours minus maybe 10 minutes. When I would check on Nathan or take a quick break for a drink. The boys loved it and want to go back. On our way home I called my dad to tell him about our afternoon and I think we will make a skating date soon with him and the boys. 

After we got home I ended up running fire calls for brush fires so by bedtime I was wore out and SORE!

Friday morning I took Nathan for his preschool screening. So as a special treat we went to breakfast together before screening. He was one happy camper to have breakfast out with just mom. 

This weekend Kenny and I are doing the race to the rocker it's a 4 mile point to point race with some friends. I wasnt really planning to do this race and well I will just wing it (then have muscles that hate me later). I got a text last night that our team shirts had came in. I was quite happy with the color not so sure the guys on the team will be. 

However we will nice and bright and easy to spot. 

I don't really have many goals for the race. Other than dont finish last and try to beat my time from last year. 

A new month new week and a fresh start

I am pretty darn glad that February is gone done and over. It wasn't a terrible month but it sure wasn't a great one either. Had lots of thing happen that stressed me out and didn't help that its stayed super cold. We had a couple nice days but I was always working on those go figure.

I only posted twice last month, had lots of potential posts in my mind but never put them down and hit post. My attitude sucked for the last couple weeks of the month (still working on that now). Things were piling on that stressed me more and more to where little things would send me over the edge. I HATE that feeling and then hate knowing that I let bad old habits creep back in. Luckily this time around I was smart and let a couple close friends know I how things were going and I was able to keep some of the bad habits at bay.

This month I want to have a great month with food fitness and attitude and be in a good spot mentally. I have some things I wont discuss that I need to work on an change but lets just say I got hit hard with something unexpected last Tuesday that threw me in to a bad downward spiral.

Last month my goals were:

1-Get a schedule figured out where I can schedule time in for workouts. I have my first race of the year coming up in 22 days its just a fun 5k but I want to beat my time of last year. First race was wake up call that its not smart to wing a 5k (and not smart to stand and work 3 hours prior to race) I tied my time from last year which I was ok with.

2-Get my costume done for that race and quit procrastinating. I have the tulle just need to cut and make the tutu. Had it done in plenty of time even made two tutus for a couple little girls and another one the morning of the race for a friend.

3-Continue to drink more water and cut back on soda. About 80% on this I drank more water but some days still had two sodas instead of one or none. However I did have several days (not in a row) that I didn't drink any soda

4-Bring healthy lunches for work and cook more crockpot meals along with cooking more than we need at night so we have leftovers for a few days. This was hit and miss between me working nights and then nights I was home Kenny would work late I opted for dinners that would have lots of leftoves. We had roast and veggies, salsa crock pot chicken, grilled one weekend. Kids well they had lots of cheese pizza lots of yogurt and chicken. On days I didn't bring my lunch there was only one day where I opted for temptation on a hamburger from sonic and regretted it the rest of the day.

5-Spend time with the boys one on one and together hope weather starts to warm up some so we can go for walks or bike rides on our road. Mother Nature sure didn't allow for a warm up and my bike has still not seen much of the outdoors. Did make time to spend with the boys we had several evenings that was just the 3 of us and we would cuddle on the couch watching a tv show.


Goals for March:
1-Get some mileage in on the dreaded treadmill. I have signed myself and hubby up for a 4 mile race March 22, some friends of ours are doing it and talked us in to it.

2-Contiue spending more time with the kids in evenings and once weather warms up taking them to the park or for long walks or bike rides.

3-Find ways to manage stress better

4-More water less soda (its getting easier but days when stressed I WANT my Dr. Pepper) Tried the Advocare Spark drink and like it and also use Zipfizz some as well.

5-Learn to open up more to my close friends before getting to the over stressed overwhelmed point.

Freezin for a reason 5k

So last night was the 2nd annual freezin for a reason 5k. Last year I was prepared had been getting in a few miles a week. This year well it just didn't happen a lot of reasons but mostly just a fear of injury or that my ankle would re break. Yes I know silly but it was a mental block I just couldn't get past. However I signed up for the race planned my costume and decided to just wing it... 

Since the race is put on by the ambulance district I work for we had apt of work to do setting up. I worked the night before and was super busy all day and arrived at the race location at 3pm. Race time was 6 so lots of standing walking prepping etc. Race time arrived I put my tutu and accessories on and got ready to go. I knew lots of people doing the race all said oh hey we will do it together. Should have known better as that didn't happen... I ended up out there alone and let negative thoughts get to me. About a quarter of the way thru one of my close friends caught up with me and walked with me a bit I knew I should be a lot faster than them and it irritated me they caught me. I didn't wear my garmin or look a the time on my phone when I started. They walked with me and we talked about random things and I found a second wind about halfway. My legs were on fire my ankles were hating me but I wanted to be done so I went as fast as numb legs would go. The temps were in the 40's and fairly breezy. I started picking people to pass and did just that. I came back in towards the finish line and was looking for familiar faces to cheer me on and well most of the people who cheered as I left was gone. I got closer to the finish line and one of my coworkers was watching for me and her daughter dropped in with me and we ran the last few hundred feet. She was justthe inspiration    I needed.  I will do a post later with pictures as I only had a few on my phone but we had 3 photographers there taking pictures. 

I did lots of things very wrong about this race. I didn't eat well the day of or day before just snacked. Not enough water the two days prior. Being over tired and then standing on concrete for 3 hours prior to race. But all in all it was fun and had a good turn out. I am looking for a race a couple months out to sign up for so I can have something to train for. 

Science center and monster jam

Have to play a bit of catch up. We took the kids to St. Louis a couple weeks ago for monster jam. This year we had another friend and his daughter go, Dwayne, Connie and Desmon go with us. Blake was super excited for Desmon to go and Nathan was excited his Connie and Dwayne were going too. 

We got to St. Louis early to see big foot store and they were closed but we got a picture of Blake and Desmon out in front. 

With time to kill we decided to go to the science center. I had never been there and neither had my boys. It was pretty neat. I liked walking out over the interstate. 

Cut outs in the floor so you could see the cars pass under you. Was fun to see kids jump over those and some jump right on the spots. 

After spending a couple hours there walking around the kids were getting hungry. We decided to eat at Texas Roadhouse which was a good choice the kids ate well and all the adults liked it. While we were there eating the kids kept wanting to know how much longer until we saw the big trucks. 

Finally it was time to head over. On the way we drove past the arch. 

Wish it hadnt been so rainy and cloudy. 

Once we parked the kids couldn't wait to get inside. We found our seats and waited for the event to start. 

3 very excited little boys!!!!

The kids loved it and even tho we ate before coming in we had to make trips to food stands for high priced hotdogs and sodas :) 

I really liked they had a pink monster truck with a female driver! 

Who put on a great freestyle show. 

Of course my boys loved grave digger and son of a digger who won the race as well as put on an awesome freestyle show. Once we thought it was over this doom day music and sirens started wailing. (Which after two seconds made me crazy). But this black unmarked monster truck came out and did freestyle when he flipped over he waited for a black  SUV to come out put a tarp over the truck and SUV to get him out. No one knows who the driver or truck is but from my guess its part of the grave digger trucks. By the way it drove and the body style. 

It was a great day spent with some great friends. The kids were asleep before we got out of the city and slept all the way back.