Lately...

Lately I've been very buy. The weather is getting nicer and nicer and I love it! I've been getting outside and getting more active. It's a lot easier for me when it's nice outside. Have a quick photo dump of my adventures....

My good friend Nara asked me to do a 5k with her. It was her first one, (I think she is totally hooked now). Even though it was cold and rainy we still had a great time and it was nice to catch up with her again.

 Parker helped me pick out these Yoda earbuds, the force was with me. There is a tiny green man in my ears!!

This is us after we finished.. YAY MEDALS!!! They don't just hand those things out, you have to earn them.

Parker is a very busy little man right now. This is from his first baseball game. He hit a ball and was so excited about it! I'm so proud of him for getting active and involved. It's a lot of time for me with practices and games and everything, but it's so worth it.

Here's a pic from Parker's soccer game last weekend. He is number 14 in the green shirt.

We went to Fleet Farm last Saturday and on our way home we had an encounter with this guy. We passed him and I was so worried that he was going to get run over so Brian turned around so I could get him off the road. (Maybe I have a soft spot because I have a tortoise, but whatever the reason, I did not want this guy to get run over.) When I nudged him to see if he was alive I was shocked because he whipped around and tried to bite me! Whoa buddy, I am trying to help you!!! I was going to try and pick him up from the back but then I noticed that he also had long claws that looked like they would easily gash me. So Brian got out of the truck and  we were looking for  a stick that we could use to make him move. We couldn't find a strong enough stick, but Brian grabbed my snow scraper (Guess it's a good thing I still had it in there after this never ending winter). He was trying to just prod him a bit and make him walk towards the side, but  thing just kept trying to attack him! Meanwhile, people are driving past occasionally and I can only imagine what they were thinking. The turtle just kept spinning in circles so eventually Brian had to kind of roll him to the side of the road. In the end he got him moved off the road, and I am hoping he went down the ditch and into the pond and not back onto the road. I don't know how fast snapping turtles grow, but I would guess this guy was pretty old.

Parker and I got our bikes out on Sunday. We walked them to the track nearby our house so Parker would be more comfortable riding and I could go on my own and still see him as I was going around. Then we rode our bikes back home. All in all we went about 5miles. I am pretty proud of him and his little legs. 5 miles of walking and biking is a lot for those little legs and a one speed bike.

Monday I started 1st shift!!! I am really happy to be on a "normal" schedule. Something I haven't had in 5 years. I get to sleep at night. Although I am having trouble with this, I am so used to not sleeping more than a few hours at a time, so when I am trying to sleep I wake up a lot. I am getting up at 5:30 a.m. which is an adventure because I have never been a morning person. They are kicking my ASS on first shift!! Like no joke! I have lost 3 pounds this week and I am fairly certain that it is all sweat. I have lifted hundred, seriously hundreds, of 40 pound blocks this week among all the other things that I have lifted. My muscles are all sore and jello like. I have had no problem falling asleep (the first time). But, I feel good. I am working hard and time goes fast because there is no time to look at the clock. It's also really nice to walk out  of work and go about my night knowing that I can do the things I need to do and still get a good night of sleep.

I must be enjoying first shift because I volunteered to work tomorrow. (Saturday) Although it's not a production day, we are just checking product and opening product. Another plus to first, I can work a Saturday and still have a decent weekend. Since Brian has to work Saturday morning and Parker is with his Dad, I figured I would work.

I'm looking forward to more good weather this weekend and enjoying Mother's Day...

My first bike ride & my thoughts on selfies

              Yesterday I took my first bike ride. Well, not my first ever, but my first actual ride on my new road bike. I had taken it on a test ride where I discovered my brakes did not work, but that didn't count as a ride. I had originally set out with a goal of riding 10 miles. Three weeks of this stupid cough and I am still feeling like crap, so I should have known this was very ambitious.
              Riding a road bike is a lot different than riding a mountain bike. It is taking some getting used to. There is something thrilling and terrifying at the same time when you are zipping down a hill on this skinny skinny tire leaning way forward to the point that you feel you may just tumble off the front of your bike. At about 3 miles I started coughing really badly and I couldn't take a deep breath so I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to push myself to 5 miles before I turned around. So I turned around at 3 miles and headed home. After my ride I was trying to think of a route that would be fairly flat, but as it turns out my town is super hilly everywhere! You don't notice this so much when you are driving up them, it's that whole using your own power to get up them that makes you realize that even small hills are a big deal. One of my main goals was to ride all the hills. It would be so easy to just get off the bike and walk up them, but that's not the point of my training. I am proud to say that I biked them all! Not super fast, but I did it and that makes me pretty proud of myself.
            It was only my first training ride so I wasn't expecting miracles, but I have realized I have a long way to go yet. Based on my average pace yesterday my century would take me at least 11 hours. I think I am shooting for a goal of about 6 hours for my century time, but I'm not totally stuck on time, I want to finish. I have a friend that keeps up a pace of at least 16mph, someday I will be as awesome as she is hopefully!
             I learned a few things on my ride yesterday:
1. Biking is relaxing even when you are terrified of crashing, hey that's what helmets are for.
2. I need to make a playlist for my rides, mushy love songs do not do much to push you on a ride.
3. Ow! I have not invested in a new saddle yet, but I will be ordering one tonight. Standard seats are not made for lady parts.
4. My helmet gives me a headache. As someone prone to migraines caused by like everything, this doesn't surprise me so I am hoping that I will get used to it. Until then I will just stay prepared. As my Dr. says, there is no point in suffering through it when you can stop it. I'm not all about taking medications and don't do it if I can avoid it, but I have learned that trying to suffer through a migraine just makes me dumb. Plus my medication is non addictive so that makes me feel better.
5. I realized that I have never in my life owned a bike helmet before. Kind of says something about my mother....nuff said about that.
6. 100 miles is a long distance. Like no joke, a long distance...but I have come up with a training plan that will prepare me so I don't feel overwhelmed.
7. I'm fat. I already knew this, but riding a road bike all leaned over confirmed it. My knees were all up in my gut and it made me laugh. But, I'm working on that so maybe someday I can ride without gut punching myself.

       Overall my ride was pretty good. Today I feel pretty good. My legs feel great! I thought they would be all like sore and junk, but they feel great! Other parts, not so great but I will survive. My arms feel like they got a pretty good workout too, I am glad that I have been doing strength training with them. I have read that cyclists often forget about them, but that's a big mistake. Who wants tired weak arms on a 100 mile ride?

Here it is, my post ride selfie....along with my thoughts on selfies. Selfies have become the new "thing". In general, the term annoys me. I mean really, basically every photo is a selfie simply because thanks to technology we no longer need someone else to take a picture for us. I think this is a good thing because you don't have to worry about someone running off with your camera or phone. Selfies are now the biggest spreader of head lice, and that gives me the creeps... While it does annoy me when people feel it necessary to take a photo of themselves in every single outfit they wear, I don't think I have a problem with selfies. A lot of mine are of me after I have done something I am proud of, yay good selfie! Or of things I do with my bestie, yay good selfie! Or me and my son, Yay super good selfie! So I say go for it! If you feel super cute in your outfit, selfie, if you have done something awesome, selfie, I guess if people have an issue then just keep scrolling. My bestie is almost 38 weeks pregnant and I look forward to her selfies!
   My first of many training rides is in the books, I've told you some of my thoughts on selfies, there you have it.

Until next time,
Love ya!

The Beard

  Every winter my husband grows a beard. It doesn't really bug me because he keeps it pretty well under control. It doesn't really get all that long and if it does he will usually trim it. Also, he usually shaves it at the end of January for my work winter party. He doesn't make me shovel snow like ever, so I don't complain. If that's the tradeoff, then I guess it's not so bad. But this winter...this winter has been different. This winter I have some issues with that beard.
    First of all, he started growing his beard the day we got married. It's like we are Amish, he literally hasn't shaved since the day we got married. I guess considering that was October, it's no that awful. Except we are going on like 6 months of that beard!!! It was so freaking cold out this winter (like no joke, 50 below temps with the wind chill. And for many days, not just a day or two), that he didn't even shave for the winter party this year. Here we are, officially into spring, and he still has not shaved. So I didn't get my mid winter clean shave, and he still hasn't shaved the thing off. We had a discussion about it recently it went like this:

me: when are you going to shave your beard off?
Brian: It's still cold out.
me:  But it's spring now, it's been like 6 months.
Brian: It snowed out today, that gives me another week.
me: The snow didn't even stick, you can shave.
Brian: You aren't mad at the beard you are mad at the weather.
me: Of course I'm mad at the weather, shave your beard.

I lost, the beard is still there because it's still cold out and supposed to be below freezing again this weekend. So I am trying to decide how to wage war against the beard, but I doubt that I will win. The beard has the force of Brian behind it and he is bigger than me.

I did get a good laugh today though. Went to the carwash. Took the dog along....good times...good times. Also yesterday, there was a patch of sunshine in the afternoon so I decided to get out my new road bike for a test run. For some reason I decided to start out going downhill...and about 5 seconds later I discovered that my brakes didn't work. Luckily I don't live in a busy neighborhood though so I survived. I made it back home and Brian made some adjustments so that my brakes work and it's all good now.

That's pretty much all I've got for now. Looking forward to some sunshine so that I can be rid of the beard. But looking at the weather, he is right, it will be at least another week.

Weekend Bust

   So this weekend was a total bust. Or at least most of it was. Saturday after work I took a nap for a bit. When I got up we were going to get our four wheelers out for awhile. I haven't had mine out since fall. I think Brian might have for a bit, I mean the electric start didn't break all by itself. Anyway,  I have been sick with this horrible cough so I was excited to get outside and four wheeling doesn't require physical effort so I should have been fine. Well, we got them out and 10 seconds later Brian got his stuck.

See, buried. Apparently there is a little bit of water under that snow. Anyway, he got out his plow truck and pulled it out and that was the end of the four wheeling. I got to go out of the barn and around the corner. So, I went home, Brian stayed there and did some stuff for awhile. I took a shower to warm up. I have to admit, I think I got enough fresh air in that time. My lungs started to burn and I started to cough again. After my shower I cozied up to watch the new episode of Hell's Kitchen... Love all of Gordon Ramsay's shows!!!  Brian came home to change his shoes because they were wet(gee wonder how that happened) but never ended up going back to do stuff. He watched the show with me then we decided to go on a dinner date.

   He wanted some Chinese food so we decided to go somewhere we haven't been. I was like oh let's go to Fond Du Lac and eat there then go to Festival to get some meat for the grill tomorrow. I am never allowed to pick the restaurant again!!!  (Probably not true) This place was horrible!! We went to the buffet in the forest mall. If you ever think about going there, DON'T! Stay away, far away! Their buffet which claims to have over 100 items on it had about 10 items on it. Not even kidding. And what they did have out you could tell had been sitting there for a very long time! Not even joking, we were in and out of there in 10 minutes and they still charged us full price. How do you get off charging full price when you only have a small portion of your buffet filled? So we left, and we went to Festival. Brian likes the Festy burgers, and we were planning on grilling out Sunday.

   That was another huge disappointment. The festival there was awful! They only had one type of festy burgers, the blue cheese ones, not what we wanted. They didn't even have plain burgers! All of their pasta salads were really dried out and gross looking. Oh and the cheese, I work in a cheese factory, I pay attention to cheese, this was nasty! It was so dried out that the edges of the round slice were curling upwards and they were white and cracking. I really wish I had taken a picture it was that bad. So, we left the festival without buying anything. So, Saturday recap, four wheeling didn't happen, dinner date stunk, got no meat to fry on the grill....total fail. We went home and watched some Netflix and went to sleep.

I woke up at 5:30am coughing up something. I'm not sure I have a lung left to cough up anymore. Apparently I hadn't taken any of the Dr. prescribed meds before bed. Kind of did that on purpose, was trying to save my plans I had for Sunday morning. Well, at 5:30 I knew I had no choice, I took some medication which I knew would knock me out, turned off the alarm I had set for 7:30am and resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to make my run that day.

If you have read my blog at all, you know I have pretty much been obsessing over this damn St. Patty's Day run. It was an epic mental failure last year and I was looking forward to changing that this year. I thought even with my cough I would get out there and somehow still pull it off. I was convinced I had to do it even if I had to walk the whole damn thing. Then I started coughing at 5:30am. Then I knew that I didn't have a choice. To even try walking a 5k in the low teen temps with that cough would have been worse than last year.

So I didn't do my run. And now I feel like a failure all over again. That stupid run had gotten the best of me twice now!!!! I know there is a point where I have to put my health first though and skipping that one run so that I can get over this thing faster was the smart choice. I know this I really do, but it still sucks and now it is going to eat at me for a whole year. AGAIN!  Oh well, moving on.

I slept until 10:30am Sunday then I had a very productive day. I got a lot of things done around the house, and made a pasta salad from scratch for with our dinner, and did some veggie prep for the next couple of days. I picked Parker up from his dad's, got some burgers from the store, piggly wiggly didn't let me down, went to the parent's soccer meeting, and had dinner.

Most awesome part of the weekend,  I roasted some asparagus, and Brian ate it! Like 5 stalks of it! I made something green and he ate it!!!! Parker didn't, but he has tried asparagus a few times and he just doesn't like it, I'm ok with that. But Brian ate it!!

Overall, Saturday and Sunday morning stunk, but in the end, it could be worse. I have much to be thankful for and next weekend is a chance for new adventures.

Goal setting

     Awhile back I wrote a post about my goals for this year. I've got some big things planned this year, but I have awhile before any of them get here. I know myself, and this is not a good thing. I need small goals, small things to work towards all the time or I won't make it. I've been doing ok training for things lately, and I do actually have something coming up. This weekend is the dreaded redo of last year's St. Patty's Day run. I am both looking forward to and completely dreading this run. I know how much of a run is mental, and I am totally worried that my brain is going to get to me and wreck this run again. But that's the reason that I am doing this specific run. Last year this run got me. It got me big time. But I need to beat it. I will run it and even if I don't do fantastic, I will do better than last year. But after this run I don't have any particular thing planned for awhile. I am doing a run in April, but I don't have a specific goal for this one. It's one a friend of mine invited me to do with her so I am just going to do it and see how it turns out.

      Anyway, I needed to set a small goal for myself, something to work towards in the mean time. I recently put myself on a shoe shopping ban. Except for the cycling shoes I am going to buy, but these are for a specific purpose.(This sucks big time!) So of course just a few short days after I put myself on a shoe ban, I go to walmart and see these guys.

I mean, totally awesome! Go walmart you have done well with this one. But of course there was the stupid shoe ban that I have placed on myself!!! So I contemplated it for a day, then consulted my bestie, and she agreed that I must have them. So I decided that if I use them for an incentive then I could justify them. So today these babies are in my possession, however, I am not allowed to wear them until I am 10 pounds lighter. So I am going to weigh myself today, and when you see me wearing these awesome shoes, you will know that I am down 10 pounds from today. Need to bust some booty, cuz I wanna wear these. And I'm pretty sure that Ashley is going to get herself a pair so we can be shoe buddies!!! Yes, we are grown adults and we still love to buy the same things and wear them at the same time totally on purpose. We are awesome and we know it.

     So here is my new goal, lose 10 pounds so I can wear my new shoes. That should get me through a bit until my next goal. I am thinking it's going to be in May, but nothing set in stone yet.

R.I.P. my pal

       The weather today is totally gorgeous! I took Molly out for a walk. She got a little wild when Brian put her harness on, it's been forever! The weather was fantastic, which has caused a lot of puddles. Molly does not like puddles...at all... she does her very best to go around them. We didn't go super far, the route we took is just over 1 mile, but it was so nice to get fresh air into the lungs. After our walk we picked Parker up from school then took him to get a hair cut. I wish my hair grew as fast as his....anywhoo.... While at the salon I got hit with reality smack in the face. Like Bam, here I am! Brian texted me to tell me that his brother's dog had died. Zeus is Molly's dad and honestly probably the only reason that we have Molly. Brian didn't want a dog and I did like really bad. I've never had a dog and after I bought my house it seemed like I should have one. So Brian's brother had his dog studded out and when the puppies were born I absolutely fell in love with Molly. Brian had a soft spot for her since she was Zeus' pup, and he bought her for me. Zeus was a fantastic, well behaved, super friendly dog. If he liked you, you would know it. If he wanted attention, he would get it. He seemed to think that 90 pounds was still lap dog weight. He will be greatly missed by our household.  Last night we took Molly to visit Zeus since it had been awhile thanks to the long, super cold winter. As always she was super excited to see him. We went out to eat then headed home to get Parker in bed for school. And today Zeus is gone. He just turned 11 recently so I suppose he had lived a good life. But it made me realize that Molly is already almost 4. She is such a great dog and has the perfect personality for our family. It just makes me very sad that her life is 1/3 over. I know I can't dwell on that, but this whole pet thing kind of stinks. I've been dealing with that almost every day actually. At the end of this month we will have had Parker's guinea pig, Steve, for 4 years and he was fully grown when we got him. Research tells me the average guinea pig lives about 4 years. So every night I go in to feed Steve hoping he comes out of his hut to greet me so I don't have to shake his hut.  I'm glad that ShelLdon has an expected lifespan of 80 years.

              The lesson I have learned today is, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy your pets. They are so loyal to us. As I type this, Molly is  laying all curled up next to me. Pets are good for the soul. We got lucky that Molly fits perfectly into our family, she is just like us. I'm not sure I will get another dog after her. I feel bad for her next time we go visit Brian's brother and Zeus isn't there. R.I.P. big buddy, you will be missed.

Birthday Parties

     So my baby is turning 7 next Monday, don't get me started on that. I could go on a long time about how that makes me feel. Part of being a mom is birthday parties. I have now thrown 7 of them. Here is how the pattern goes: About two months before the party I start planning. What kind of theme do we want this year? Then I start thinking about decorations and food. About a month before said party I go shopping. Turns out my son is never obsessed with things when they are the "it" thing. When he was obsessed with Thomas and we had a Thomas party, I couldn't find anything. Turns out Thomas is big now, I could have thrown a pretty rocking Thomas party.

      This year's obsession is Star Wars. I don't like star wars, I hate the theme song, get my drift? But I love my boy so star wars it is. The only thing he asked for with his party was a star wars piñata. Turns out star wars isn't in right now and you can't find a piñata. So I went to my pal pinterest and I found out how to make one. And I made one.....THEN I BLEW IT UP!!! Yup, when I went to pop the inside I stabbed it and the whole damn thing blew apart......so I said it's ok I know what went wrong I can make a new one. But Parker said no, let's just buy a different one that walmart has, you will just blow up another one. On the bright side, I have learned that the death star is on the bad side, so  I guess I helped the good guys win...right? We ended up using the piñata I bought for his party two years ago that showed up 3 days after his party....Luigi totally fits into a star wars party it's all good.

      This was the first year that Parker had friends from school at his party. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Kids are not kids, there are categories. There are your kids, your siblings kids, and other people's kids. One of Parker's friends told me I was mean because I used my "serious" voice to tell the dog to go upstairs.
                                                     

This is my dog right this second, seriously took this picture less than a minute ago. Yep, looks like I am real mean to her, she clearly runs the show around here and she know it.

 

My siblings kids I can be real with, they do something they shouldn't I treat them just like I would my own kid. My siblings are the same way with my kid. But, when it's someone else's kid, you don't know the rules they have. You don't know how things are in their home, etc etc....So it was interesting. But it was ok and they were good. There was a lot of arm farts going on at the table which I typically wouldn't allow, but they were at least sitting at the table to eat so I let it slide.

 

The last couple of years I have been making Parker's cakes. I'm not sure why, it's just something I decided to do.  Perhaps it was the incident where my niece's cake came from walmart and there was a cloud that looked pretty much exactly like an inappropriate male body part...I'm sure it was an accident, but I don't know.... anywhoo, I really like making cakes. I do not claim to be a professional and I'm not all that artsy, but I still have fun doing it and will probably keep doing it.

 

So let's talk about this years cake...I made a three tier cake, but when I filled the pan for the bottom layer I forgot to spray it...and it didn't come out of the pan nicely at all. So the day of the party I had to remake the bottom layer. Then about three hours before the party I realized I had never gotten the frosting for the cake. I've tried making my own frosting and I've tried froting from a can, but nothing compares to the bettercreme whipped frosting that the real folks use. So, I had to drive to the next town over and buy the frosting. The people at  piggly wiggly are awesome enough to sell theirs in deli containers. Don't ask the walmart people to do that, they are not that nice. And they tried to sell me the star ship enterprise as a star wars fighter ship...some of the people that work there are SPECIAL!. Not all of them, don't get me wrong, there are some nice people there and I'm not hating on all of walmart. There are people that drive me nuts at a lot of places. I had a vision in my head of the cake, but the night before the party I decided we needed to get out of the house so instead of cleaning and making this masterpiece cake, we went out to eat and went skating with my family. It was worth it. The cake still tasted good and the kids didn't care if it wasn't a masterpiece. They are boys, they don't care.

 

Brian helped me with food, and when my sister arrived I put her to work too. I always do, even when we have card night or something, I always put her to work in the kitchen in some way. I love cooking but I'm not all that fast at prep. I blame it on being left handed. Brian says next year we are going to chuck e cheese or something and letting someone else do all the work. By the way, we did chuck e cheese once I think for Parker's 3rd birthday, he yelled at Chuck E when he was singing happy birthday to him.

 

 These are wookie cookies, my attempt to look like Chewbacca....not even close Parker tells me I should have done my research.

 Here is what the cake ended up looking like.

My attempt at a little dark side humor, who wouldn't go to the dark side for cake? Heck yeah, I'm there.

 

In the end, I blew up the death star, I wrecked part of the cake, there weren't many decorations because party city was lame and star wars isn't "in", but after everyone left and Parker and I settled in to watch a movie, he told me it was his best birthday yet. Lesson learned, I shouldn't put so much stress on throwing a perfect party. Kids just want to know they are special to you and that they are loved. It wasn't at all the vision I had when I started planning, but I would call it a success.