The weekend

The weekend flew by but it was a good one even though it rained all day on Saturday.

Saturday was the only day in the next several weeks that I would have off so I wanted to do something with my hubby. Also wanted to do something for my birthday and didn't care really what as long as we got out of the house and somewhere other than walmart.

We got up early Saturday morning and went to breakfast then headed to St. Louis. I wanted to find a new pair of running shoes as well as maybe a few skirts or dresses for work. I am not a big city person or a big mall kind of girl but figured we don't get out much without the boys. We walked and walked and walked in the first mall and I found myself some new shoes :)

Brooks pure adrenaline 12's (pretty sure thats what they are) I wore them the rest of the day to make sure I liked them and honestly I love them! Can't wait to do a workout in them at home. Kenny surprised me by buying them for me I had planned on using birthday money.

We shopped a few more stores and I found a dress on clearance at JCPenney but just wasn't seeing much I liked.

When we were heading out of the mall we stopped in Dick's Sporting goods and I eyed the Garmin watches of course they had one in pink. We talked to the lady and she told us about it (I had been eyeing them online for a while and knew what they could do and how they worked). Another surprise he bought me one!!!!

Now to figure out how to use it :) I am super excited about it and happy he got it for me. I hate always having to use my phone to track my miles mainly because it drains the battery. And living in a rural area some apps don't pick up very well. Not to mention its my favorite color.

After that mall we went to the one that had Cabela's attached to it. As he wanted to do shopping there. I think he spent 3 hours in that store and could have stayed longer! I went out in to the other parts of the mall and picked up some shirts and a hoodie jacket for me from Old Navy and then got the boys some things at Childrens Place. I came back to where he was and I think he was 3 isles over from where I left him! He has been wanting a big gun safe for a long time and well I told him to just pick it out and get it. We didn't come home with one but he researched them and wants to look a couple other places before making the purchase.

We left there and headed over to Texas Roadhouse I wish I would have took a picture of the food but was so hungry I forgot. But I pigged out we had the onion blossom, rolls and then ordered steak with corn and mashed potatoes. I was so stuffed when we left but it was so so good!

It rained all the way home and we got home super late. I had to get up early Sunday to go work an auction. Well not super early but still early after getting home late.

One of the guys that was helping us brought us breakfast

Biscuits and chocolate gravy. I had seen chocolate gravy on tv pretty sure by Paula Deen but hadn't ever tried it. Oh boy was it yummy in fact I have a bowl of it at home. Tasted like warm chocolate pudding and nothing like regular breakfast gravy.

The auction was good but very very very long! Auctioneers said it may last 5 hours and it went for over 8! It was cold all day I had wore a tshirt and sweat shirt jacket but still was freezing. Lucky I have some nice friends that come to auctions I was able to borrow a jacket for the day. Was about 4 times to big on me but I didn't care I was warm.

I bought way to much at the auction but have enough toys to do the boys for birthday and Christmas this year! And found me a pink watch I didn't see the watch but the two guys behind me who were much taller about beat me up to tell me I needed it lol. Pretty bad when your new boss at your new job already knows how much you like pink....


It was a good weekend and Saturday was a much needed break from working all the time.

Weekly Chase

Why is it that the two days on a weekend goes so much faster than two days during the week....



Last week my goals were


1- Challenge goal of continuing to spend time with the kids and hubby hope the weather is nice so we can be outside together or go to the park and play. Did pretty well with this was a busy week and it was cold and rainy most of the week.


2- Challenge goal work on the negative thoughts in my head and turn them around or tune them out. Still a work in progress but getting better.

3-Bring lunch at least 3 out of the 5 days this week. Yes did that and if I ate out I had something healthy

4-Get in at least 2 strength workouts in Continued with daily pushups and then yesterday moving heavy soda coolers and carrying stuff for the auction.

5-Start researching foods and recipes for the clean eating challenge I joined that starts May 1 Have some good ideas and need to go shopping to stock fridge.


This weeks goals.

1-Challenge Goal continuing to spend time with the kids and hubby. It will be another long weekend of work have an auction Saturday and then supposed to work on the ambulance Saturday night.

2-Challenge goal work on the negative thoughts and turn them to positive.

3-Drink less soda and more water. I am starting the clean eating challenge May 1 so I need to get soda gone again.

4-Get in 3 workouts this week its a month until my obstacle course race and I need to cram in workouts and cardio to be ready.

30........

Yesterday I turned 30.... So today I am in my first day of being in my 30's.....

To say that yesterday went as I had hoped is a huge understatement. I don't like to get my hopes up for things to go as I wish in my mind they would because its always a let down.

Got woke up at 5:45 by the fire pager but I didn't end up going because it was to close to time for me to get the kids up and ready for school and daycare. However having a loud beeping jar you out of a sound sleep isn't the best birthday wake up. Both kids were crabby and didn't want to get up.


The night before I got a birthday lemon pie from Brenda.

Yes I ate some that night... Then yesterday morning I got a bowl out and took a big slice with me to work. Figured that lemon pie for breakfast on your birthday was acceptable....

Needless to say the last piece of the above pie is on my desk at work and is breakfast again today.

The day was just another day other than getting several facebook happy birthdays and then a few realizing I was the big 30 and had to announce it. Got a call from my mom which shocked me and a couple texts from friends.

Mid morning I got these from my mom and stepdad.

They brighten up my office and they smell good too! I was surprised to get something from her.

As the morning went on everyone kept asking where I was going for lunch and if my husband was taking me out or friends. No one was taking me to lunch it wasn't a big deal but after hearing about it all morning I was depressed. On my lunch hour I ran to my other job to drop off some money towards a workout thing that was bought for the employees to use then ran thru McDonald's. There are very few options for food in St. James and McD's is right by interstate and was quickest. So my 30th bday lunch was a premium chicken snack wrap.

The afternoon went on and everyone kept asking where my husband was taking me for dinner. I was in no mood for it but I was like we aren't going out tonight its a school night and not worth trying to have a nice dinner then rush kids bedtime.

I was upset that a few very close friends never talked to me yesterday not sure why it bothered me other than a couple were ones that we text daily and yesterday heard nothing from them :( Silly and petty I know but it still bugged me.

However about an hour before work ended I got facebook messages and text messages with this picture

Saying guess who ended up on the front page of the paper this week.. Yep me and not a very flattering picture either.
After work my husband informed me he would be home late as he was going to buy feed for the cow and that me and the kids could come across the road and help unload it.

I got this bike for Nathan last year at an auction and we hadn't put the training wheels on until recently. He loves it as it goes very well in gravel where the other one did not. He rode it all by himself over to Grandpa and Grandma's.

The kids got up there to help but weren't making much progress had more fun playing than scooping it in to buckets.

So I climbed up there and filled bucket after bucket up 750 pounds worth of cow food....

Finally got it done around 7:30 I told my husband I was not cooking dinner after all that and that he was going to have to cook and I didn't care if it ended up being frozen pizzas. He decided we would run to a local restaurant the Vichy Wye for dinner. We were all dirty and tired and I didn't really care as long as we ate and I didn't cook or have to clean up the mess. I didn't think to take a picture of my dinner but it was yummy fried catfish and a salad...

We got back home and I noticed my counter had grew pies and a card from my grandparents. So lemon pie number two and she made my husband and boys a banana pie.

I think after eating two whole lemon pies I will be good to go on wanting a pie for a long time. I usually only get lemon pie for my birthday and sometimes for dinners we have. Grandma always made the best pies but in recent years they aren't the same :(.

So nothing exciting on my birthday and nothing was the way I hoped it would be. But it was just another day and today is Friday and almost the weekend.

Almost the big 30......

Its within hours of me turning the big 30 not sure why this number has bothered me so much. No other ages have bothered me. 18 you were an adult... 21 your car insurance went down and you could buy a drink.. 25 I had a party and celebrated with other friends who had April birthdays around me. But something about 30 bugs me to no end.

Guess in my mind I had ideas of where would be what kind of person I would be. That I would be at goal weight and wear __ size of pants and see _____ number on the scale. I won't fill in what those numbers are because honestly they are unrealistic.

A few people close to me know about my issue with turning 30. I have had some positive feed back from them as well. I was told by one good friend that I have changed a lot since we reconnected a few years back. Another told me 30 is the new 20 :). Some said age is just a number it doesn't define you.

So I have took time and have done a lot of thinking and yes I have accomplished a lot. I have accomplished a lot in the last year:
-My first ever 5k last June and several since
-My first ever half marathon in October
-Applied for and finished EMT school graduated top of class
-Officially joined the fire department
-Learned to stand up for myself and get a thicker skin (well still a work in progress but way better than a year ago)
-Jumped out of my comfort zone several times
-Made some amazing new friends
-Applied for and got my first EMT job at the district I wanted to work for.

But there are things I haven't accomplished that are in the back of my mind.
-Getting my distorted eating thoughts and actions completely under control
-Learning the triggers for it and learning to stop it before the cycle takes off
-Being negative and letting negative thoughts of others affect me
-First obstacle course race (doing one in May and don't feel ready)
-Running a full 5k non stop (fear is stopping me and haven't figured out how to get around it)
I'm sure I could list way more in this but I won't

Not sure what tomorrow will bring trying to not get excited as I know its a day of work then home to do laundry clean and cook. I will be surprised if my mom calls me this year since she "forgot" last year. And I don't want to get excited and then disappointed either. Trying to make Saturday a fun day for my husband and I as  its my only day off for quite awhile and lately it seems we never see or talk to each other.

What I did for fun on Friday

I took a vacation day from my Monday thru Friday 8-5 job to go do something "fun". Ok I doubt many readers will think its fun and I decided not to show some of the very realistic pictures.

Almost every year the school works with the Ambulance, Fire Department, Police and other agencies to put together what they call a docudrama. Its a mock vehicle wreck that they have the highschoolers watch usually before prom and graduation. Its to get kids to think twice about drinking and driving or riding in a car with someone who has been drinking. Also about the dangers of popping pills and driving. They have been doing this since I was in highschool there back in 2001. I decided it would be fun to go to my second job and partake in this event.

They get wrecked cars pile them up together and it looks realistic we also get students from school and put fake blood and make up on them to make them look like they are really hurt. And yes I will spare pictures but if you search facebook for St. James Ambulance District you can see 200+ pictures from the day. We had kids with sticks stuck out of them girls that looked like they had glass embedded in them. Anyway I was nervous there would be tons of cameras and video cameras not to mention students watching us work. I had a slight disadvantage as I was the only one with the ambulance crew that hadn't done one of these on the EMT side.

Anyway we spent time getting the kids ready and our mock scene all set up and off we went. I pulled some pictures off Facebook and tried to make sure they were ones that weren't gory looking but still showed what I do for my second job.

Can't seem me but I am next to the van at the end of the stretcher you can see my legs. The van was where our crews patients were. Now on a real wreck you are going a million directions and its chaotic at times. But for this we had all planned which vehicle we would assist and which patients we would end up with.

We ran thru the scenario twice since to get all the upper class students out there.
They had "family" of the kids being upset and having to be restrained by cops. Showed cops putting a couple of the kids in the cop car for driving under the influence.

We were taking one of our patients to our ambulance yes I am almost at a run my medic partner was way taller and long legged but I kept up with him.

This was from the second go round. They were going to show the students about having to use the jaws of life to get the door open to get the girl out. I had no clue that there was a camera taking pictures. Yes I am looking at  the camera but not sure when or how he snapped it.... I guess I should have known since last year in the extrication class I was in a ton of pictures and never saw the guy with the camera..
Anyway I was in the van with the girl holding her head steady while we waited for the fire department to use the spreaders to pop open the door. The poor girl was nervous so I told her what they were doing and why. All the while I was secretly wishing I was the one using the spreaders. Yes I am strange but they are cool to use especially when its not a life death situation.

The coroner was even there as we had two kids who were dead. We had the helicopter come in and land and take a patient away. Bet that was the highlight of that kids day he got to take two helicopter rides yes I was slightly jealous.

See the coroner was there but I downloaded this picture to show how darn short I am. You can barely see the top of my head across from him on the left. I guess being short pays off when there are tons of cameras around you get covered up by all the tall people :)

It was a good day I won't go in to the bad and the stress that happened because in the end it came out ok. I hope to get to do this again the next time as well. I think its really beneficial for kids to see their peers "hurt" to make them think before partying and then driving home. I scanned the crowd a couple times and you could see the fear in some of their eyes. Accidents do happen some you can't prevent but there are way to many that can be prevented like drinking and driving popping pills and texting.

A nice surprise after a long weekend.....

I will do a post about Friday which was a vacation day from my Monday thru Friday job later. Still waiting to see if I can find some more pictures before I post about that day.

It was a very long weekend working Friday (on my day off) and then my first 24 hour shift at my second job. Followed up with cooking all day at the fire department after getting off the 24 hour shift.


I got a text from my best friend Saturday afternoon asking if I had received a package yet.. I hadn't been home since early that morning but couldn't remember if I had checked the mail then or not. Saturday was busy and I never really gave it much thought. Sunday was hectic getting off work changing and heading straight to the fire house. I had talked to Kenny a couple times he never said anything about any package so I figured it hadn't shown up yet.

Once I get done and finally get home around 5pm I walk in to find this box on my counter.

Excited don't even begin to describe how I felt. I hadn't got anything from her since she moved to Hawaii and I had no idea what to expect in the box.

I should have took individual pictures but I think the exhaustion had wore on me. Anyway the two shell necklaces on the top left are for my boys. I got a coconut bra a beautiful lei that is pink and brown. Two very pretty bracelets and a bag of macadamia nut Hershey kisses. Found out that you can only get those in Hawaii and oh boy are they amazing! I am not a fan of nuts or candies with nuts but these are to die for!  I also got my costume for my race next February that is Hawaiian themed. Its a grass skirt and full get up that goes with it. I haven't taken it out of the package yet but I will soon. Still not sure how the coconut bra works lol....

I wore my new bracelet today and LOVE it. I honestly was almost in tears by the time I went thru everything in the box.

She got the stuff to me prior to my birthday so it was a great way to start the birthday week. I haven't really been looking forward to turning 30 so this was a nice unexpected surprise to get after a long hard weekend.

Weekly Chase

Well not sure what today feels like.. Calender says Monday my body says not sure with working all weekend.. I will do a separate post about the weekend later today.


Time again for the weekly chase last weeks goals were:

1-Challenge goal continue to spend time with the kids and hubby I have no days off until April 27. So I have to find a way to make evenings count. Yes did pretty well with this goal the weather was crappy either raining or cold so no fun park outings after work but still spent time with them.

2-Challenge goal continue to work on the negative thoughts and re wire them to be positive one. Still a work in progress but getting better. I had doubted myself with my second job to the point I had stressed out big time all week. Friday it came to a head I broke down then realized I was being to hard on myself and had a great day at work on Saturday.

3-Planks, squats and pushups. Fail on everything but pushups...

4-Figure out how to hook the cables up for the bowflex and use it (we have owned it 7 years never used it) It is now hooked up and have the tv turned so you can see it from treadmill so the workout room is ready.

5-Eat healthy and when faced with fast foods make healthy choices not just whats convenient. Did really well with this even when I had to chose fast food I made good choices.


This weeks goals

1- Challenge goal of continuing to spend time with the kids and hubby hope the weather is nice so we can be outside together or go to the park and play.


2- Challenge goal work on the negative thoughts in my head and turn them around or tune them out.

3-Bring lunch at least 3 out of the 5 days this week.

4-Get in at least 2 strength workouts in

5-Start researching foods and recipes for the clean eating challenge I joined that starts May 1