Author Archives: rachrn34

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When the kids missed the bus

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This morning I was awoken by Allyson telling me she missed the bus so I jumped out of bed, threw some clothes on, and took her to school. I should start by saying that when my kids entered high school, I was done waking them up for school. After all in four short years they would either leave for college or have a job so they needed to learn how to be responsible for getting themselves up and ready. After all when I was in high school I was not only responsible for getting myself up but waking my mom up too because she left after me. Anytime the older two would complain I would just tell that story and also how I walked twelve miles to school every day. The second is a lie but the first is the truth.

Not too long ago Emily and I were talking about the time the girl she rode with car had a flat tire and I had to take them to school. Heather lived behind us and her last name was Troll (she’s married now and just had her first baby a cute little boy). Brian nicknames everyone that hangs out our house so she was always referred to as the Trollinator. I was never so mad in my life. I am pretty sure I yelled at them the entire way to school that day. However things were different back then.

I was working evenings so I never got to bed before one in the morning. So to be woken up at six thirty was a crime. I was mean every single time it happened, a lot of yelling cursing came along with it. Emily never really missed the bus or the carpool much but Kayla was an entirely different story. One year she was tardy to first hour so much that two more times and she would have failed the class. However, being the mean mother that I am, I still would not make sure she is awake. After all the ultimate goal is to get these freaks out of my house and living on their own.

I cannot remember exactly when I switched my hours to 11 am to 7 pm but I started going to bed much earlier. Seven years ago I started all this running stuff and would get up as early as six am to start long runs so I sort of turned into a morning person. Or at least to the point if I have to get up to take someone to school, it does not cause cursing and yelling. So this morning when Allyson woke me up I was so nice and I even offered to stop at the gas station to get her the cold Starbucks coffee. She was like I just opened a soda and then says, I’ll put it in the fridge and finish it when I get home. I have no idea where she gets popping a soda open the minute she gets up. Certainly her father and I have never done such a thing.

Driving home I realized it is so true about child number three. They get by with a lot more because you realize half the stuff you thought was important with the first one is not a big deal at all. Also you are tired of fighting and some things just aren’t worth the fight. So Emily and Kayla got screwed in that sense but just think of all the great cursing and yelling memories Allyson has missed out on.

 

Mole Moral ~ As Brian always says, “Never wake Big Red, you just never know how she’s going to act when she doesn’t get her beauty sleep!”

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Pokemon Go 10K Walk

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I downloaded Pokemon Go probably a week after it came out but I only was interested in catching one of each Pokemon because I didn’t really know anything about the game. Around the time I got the major headache, Emily’s boyfriend at the time finally talked her into downloading it. I then learned all kinds of stuff, like how to evolve one Pokemon into another. I always had it up and running on my daily walk to U-Gas for coffee and one day one of the young kids told me they had Facebook groups for Pokemon Go . So I found the one for St. Louis and learned even more stuff, like where the nests were, what events were happening and who caught what. The group has a lot of really nice people in it. Emily joined too and we played a lot together until she moved away.

A few months ago, I noticed a kid with the screen name Tony Bologna had never caught a Porygon and he would make jokes about it.

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It then became the standing joke that anytime anyone caught one or hatched one he would get tagged in the post. He would always make the angry face in response. Some people even started naming them the Tonygon. He was a great sport who then asked the question would anyone want to walk with him while he attempted to hatch one. I thought this was a great idea and Porygon can be found in 10K eggs which meant a 6.2 mile walk. So after a bunch of talking in the group it was decided to do a walk to benefit Stray Rescue. I got the best dog ever from them so I was all in.

The walk was this afternoon and I skipped the Halloween 10K this morning because I was up half the night with stomach issues. I attempted to talk myself out of going to this as well but I had bought t-shirts which I needed to pick up. I didn’t know anyone that was going so I put myself way out of my comfort zone and showed up. Tony is a nice kid who never STOPPED talking. I felt like I was back out hunting with Emily who also never stops talking. He made me realize how much I miss her but since he kept on talking I got over that rather quickly. He started off by leading us down the wrong path so we all had to turn around. I love this guy as I would have done the exact same thing.

It was like eight loops around the lake or maybe it was seven. We started out with twenty-five people and ended up with five or six that did all of the laps together. Some of the others left early and some walked a little slower. It didn’t help that it started misting and continued on for a couple of miles. It didn’t bother me at all after the half marathon Emily and I ran with the first nine miles being pretty much a downpour requiring our phones to be in plastic bags. I was thinking I cannot believe we are doing this many loops until I reminded my crazy self my 50K consisted of a .8 mile loop and I ran 26 miles on a cruise ship and 336 laps (28 miles) at the rec center this summer. The kids walking with me had no idea what a total nut job they were with. They were probably thinking this old hag is in pretty good shape.

To hatch eggs in the game you have to put them in incubators. Tony had been saving his 10k eggs so that he had nine of them and could walk and hatch them all at once. The game gives you one unlimited incubator but if you want more you have to buy them with coins. You either get coins by buying them with real money or earning coins by leaving your Pokemon in gyms. (Ok I admit this sounds almost as crazy as trying to explain soap operas.) So we came to the end of the 10K and his eggs started hatching but prior to this he shared a really cool story with us and this is why he has made my blog.

This past week he was at Des Pair park and he came across a Porygon in the wild but he did not attempt to catch it. He walked on right past it as it would have ruined the walk since the whole point was help Tony hatch one. Here this kid has been trying to get one for a year and a half and he has the opportunity right in front of him and he bypasses it to make the walk legitimate. As soon as he told the story I texted Emily and said he’s making the blog. It’s a real good thing he’s already married because after spending two hours with him, I think he’d make a fantastic son-in-law. His wife’s parents are very lucky.

So his eggs started hatching and I was nervous for him. The first thing hatched was Dratini and then something else. However number three was a Porygon and so was number four, so he could evolve one into Porygon2. His wife’s reaction yay he can finally shut up about not having one. He then said no reason to play the game anymore except he doesn’t have an unknown or a shiny and neither do I. So I am pretty sure we will both keep on playing. He would like to have another event next year but is cutting it down to a 5K. I thought about suggesting a fifty mile and who ever finishes it gets all the prizes. Hahahaha, just kidding, I am not doing that again.

 

Mole Moral~ People can be whoever they want on the internet, some people are even cooler in real life than Facebook. Tony Bologna is one of them and even though I don’t believe that is his last name it was awesome meeting him today!

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Breast Cancer Awareness

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One of Emily’s friends who just finished chemotherapy and surgery for breast cancer told her that I needed to write a blog about breast cancer and self exams. She seems to think I have a lot of readers and I am a nurse and I should just do this. However, my initial thought was my blog is about my family and not about social topics so that’s not possible. And in the next thought, it was as if God picked up a big old bat and smacked me upside the head and said idiot you have breast cancer in your immediate family and Emily’s friend is like twenty-five years old. And so here it goes as only I could talk about it.

I knew for years that my Grandma Carty had breast cancer and that was back when they did a radical mastectomy and removed muscle. She had to learn how to use her arm again and it was horrible. I always thought she was around thirty-five but my mom informed me not long ago that is was after my dad was born. She had my father at the age of forty-five so I had the age all wrong. She lived until the age of ninety-three I think. I am really bad with ages as you will see.

Back in 1994 my mother had a mammogram in April and she never received the results. She didn’t think too much about it until six months later when they contacted her to tell her it had gotten misplaced and she had a suspicious area. She knew right then it was cancer and our family doctor told her to calm down as she was ten steps ahead of the game. My sister was headed to South Africa for Christmas so we kept it a secret from her and she had her biopsy in December while Karen was out of the country. I took her of course and I remember the doctor telling us that he was 99% sure it was cancer but we were to wait until the pathology came back. It was only in one boob but she wanted them both removed. They refused and said that was overkill and only removed the cancerous one. She would then need yearly mammograms and be charged full price even though she only had one boob as she did not opt for reconstruction. We then met Dr. Greco the oncologist who was recommended by one of my burn unit buddies. He was running two hours behind but when he finally came in, it was like we were the only people on the planet and he was wonderful. She was put into a study and had four rounds of chemo and then took either a placebo or tamoxifen for the next five years. (She eventually found out she took tamoxifen). After her third round of chemo she told Brian and I that she was dying. In his usual I can’t handle this emotional stuff he told her that was stupid that dying people didn’t carry on they were dying and she would be fine. She was of course fine, but a nurse he is not. She made it to the five-year cancer free mark, then the ten-year and is currently at year twenty-two. She still smokes and the doctors still blame everything health wise on her smoking.

Her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer maybe three years ago. I cannot remember her age but she was already in assistive living as she was blind from macular degeneration and nearly deaf. She decided not to do any treatment and is in heaven.

I will be honest and say I am not good on keeping up with self exams but I have had a mammogram every year since the age of thirty-five. I think I missed two years because life got busy. I so often hear people say they hurt too much and all other excuses. I am not going to lie, I do not enjoy having my boobs manhandled by a stranger and jammed into a machine. A couple of times it has felt like my collar-bone was meeting my waist but it lasted at the most fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds of discomfort was more than worth another twenty-two years for my mother. No one could feel her lump, even when the doctors knew where it was they still could not feel it. So a mammogram saved her life and in the back of my head it might be an excuse for me skipping the self exams.

A nurse I use to work with on Women’s Health was diagnosed five months after having her third daughter. She felt a lump and at first the doctor office (not sure if it was her doctor or a nurse practitioner) was like it’s probably just a milk duct but then decided lets send you for an ultrasound (I think, its her story not mine and I suck at details). She was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer with mets to the liver. The survival rate is five years so. I mean it just sucks. She is currently in remission but every PET scan is a nightmare until the result are back. I cannot imagine what she goes through on a daily basis. She just had a second birthday since the diagnosis and you better believe your life she was grateful for it.

Since my mom did not have reconstruction she had a breast prosthesis that she wore in her bra. The thing looked and felt like a real boob. Emily was two at the time and she would put it under her shirt and say she was having a baby. My mom and I thought it was hilarious but it would make my sister so made she could have spit rocks. She really did not have our sense of humor. In the grand scheme of things it hurt no one and I never took any pictures or might have just added it to this post.

 

Mole Moral ~  Do your self exams, see your gynecologist yearly and have your mammograms in the intervals they are recommended. No excuses!

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Mo Cowbell Marathon

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The Mo Cowbell half marathon replaced the Lewis and Clark marathon back in 2011. I ran the last Lewis and Clark half marathon and then the first Cowbell marathon. Four years ago the full marathon was added as an option. That year I had plantar fascia release on my right foot and the next year on my left. The third year it was two weeks before my fifty kilometer race so it was out once again. I decided I was running it in 2017 no matter what. I had originally planned to run the fifty in April but due to the headache from Hell I had to postpone it until August. This meant I had six weeks between races.

I had decided to do the ultimate reset and took three weeks off from exercise. I had a hard time having enough energy to walk much less consider running. And the next three weeks I just kind of ran but not super hard. I have done the half marathon three times so I remembered the course well. The second half was much tougher. I thought it was an out and back on the Katy trail but it wasn’t exactly. We somehow hooked up to a connector trail or something and I ran past one of the cake locations that Allyson and I only found by seeing the bridge in the picture and driving to it. It was close to the Family Arena. I felt great until mile 15 and then not so much. The same thing happened during the fifty mile. By mile twenty I was pretty sick of running. I only got through it by reminding myself I only had six more miles instead of thirty.

Around mile sixteen I started receiving texts from Emily. She was at urgent care with a massive kidney infection. They gave her three shots, one was an antibiotic, one was anti-nausea and the other an anti-inflammatory. They also checked her for strep and felt she most likely had viral strep and put her on an oral antibiotic as well. They were considering sending her to the ER. I think I finished the marathon about the time they decided to send her home and told her to come back the next day for another antibiotic shot.

I could blame my time on texting while running but it’s really because all summer I did not train for speed at all. I trained for endurance to make it through the fifty without dropping dead. I also didn’t want to push it too hard and injure myself and not be able to run the fifty. So this winter I plan to work on running a lot more and walking a lot less. I don’t plan to be super fast or win a race but I would like to beat my very first marathon time which was 5:25:00. We shall see if I can actually not have something else happen to make me start all over with running for the fourth or fifth time.

 

Mole Moral~ The faster I run, the sooner I’m done!

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My bestie from nursing school

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This past week I went to Edwardsville IL to see my best friend from nursing school. I suppose I am getting older because as I was driving home and later when I was walking, I was thinking about how we met and what a good blog that might be.

So it was August 1985 when I started nursing school at Deaconess College of Nursing. It has since been bought out by Chamberlain College and it is a horrible nursing school. Back in the day Deaconess was one of the best and also one of the most expensive. I was originally going to attend Lutheran School of Nursing but they stopped accepting financial aid and since I qualified for financial aid, I changed schools at the last-minute.

I moved in on a Sunday afternoon and I met Gena in the bathroom. She looked like Mare Winningham (Wendy from St. Elmo’s Fire) and I told her that. She told me she heard that all of the time. She told me her name was Gena and was spelled G E N A and that her mom spelled it that way because Gina was too close to vagina and her mom didn’t want people calling her that. This is actually hilarious since I work on Women’s Health AKA the vagina floor. So that night we also met Leah Lerbs who was from Herman MO and we all went to Jim Buck’s party at the boys house. This was in 1985 so the five or six male students had their own house down the street and guys were checked in and out of the girls dorm and all boys had to be gone by ten pm. Anyhoo the party was absolutely stupid and Jim was a dork to put it nicely. He would eventually flunk out of nursing school our last year for leaving an uncapped needle in a baby’s bed. So we left the party early but became friends really quickly.

About two weeks later, I caught Gena and Leah outside on the commuter parking lot smoking  cigarettes. I asked them why they didn’t come and get me and they said because they thought I would be mad at them for smoking. Side note, when I was younger I most definitely had the I don’t smoke or drink holier than thou attitude. I said give me one of those suckers and that was the beginning of smoking during nursing school. I would eventually get busted because my friend Tim from high school had written me a letter saying he would quit drinking when I quit smoking and I left it on the living room floor like an idiot and my mom read it.

That May was our first nursing clinical’s. It was a four-week rotation and we were at Delmar Gardens North. I believe all three of us were together and we had the strictest instructor. She had actually gotten pregnant at the age of 40, five years after having a tubal ligation. I was just a hot mess convinced that I would fail. I hated it and I wanted to quit. During my clinical evaluation I was told I relied to heavily on my fellow students and I needed to be more independent. I took that to the extreme and have to be almost drowning before I will ask for help at work. Anyway, I passed clinical’s but I wanted to quit. My mother being the smartest person around refused and said I needed to go back one more semester for hospital nursing and then if I still hated I could quit. So that summer I worked at Hardees and drove my dad’s orange Nova and then back to nursing school I went.

I think I had Margaret Acre that semester and I loved it. I will never forget my first IM injection, I was so nervous and hesitant that she finally just grabbed my hand and jammed it towards the lady’s rear end. All worked out well. I will never forget she smoked during pre and post conference as well. During our first year we had microbiology and our lab teacher was awful. I will always remember the day Gena told him off because he was of no help on the unknown. She does not remember this but I do and I thought to myself I love how she is able to speak up and say what is on her mind with no bull shit. Eventually I would adopt this trait but I certainly didn’t have it back then. One of my all time favorite stories was our first nursing check outs which was on temperature, pulse and blood pressure. I had zero self-confidence and I just knew I was going to fail. Gena and I were partners and I had myself so worked up, I couldn’t even feel a pulse or read the glass thermometer. I start crying and she starts laughing because of my lip quivering. We both got sent to the bathroom until we could compose ourselves. Somehow I managed to pass that mess after we returned. I was always a stressed out mess for every check off after that.

After about the first week of the second year, Leah was so overwhelmed with all the stuff we had to do that semester, she decided nursing was not for her. She dropped the nursing classes but stayed in the others and finished the semester. She left and went on to become a teacher, starting with special needs and then history or she may have done history then special needs and then history again. I just know she has remained in Herman all of these years and has also coached basketball. I had a patient this week from Herman and she knew exactly who she was. It’s a small world.

Gena and I both worked as student nurse assistants. She worked on mother baby because she originally planned on being a pediatric nurse and was going to get her pediatric nurse practitioner degree and move to Colorado. I worked on the isolation floor and this was right at the time that AIDS was starting. I will never forget my first AIDS patient. Although I cannot remember his name, I still remember what he looked like. The day he finally died about three hours later his call light went on. We all felt like he was telling us good-bye. I thought I wanted to be a OR nurse. I spent two days in the OR and had enough of that. The patients couldn’t talk and it was BORING.

At the time Deaconess was a three-year diploma program with an additional year to receive a BSN. However the BSN program was not accredited by the NLN (National League of Nursing) so Gena and I decided to attend SIUE. Her dad had a bunch of rental property in Edwardsville so we moved in together at the property on M street. We lived together for a year until she and Eric got married and I then moved back to St. Louis and commuted to SIUE until March when I was finished. Deaconess was finally accredited but only back until the year after we would have graduated. I had planned to get my masters degree so I needed the accreditation. However after all the stupid busy work for a bachelors I said forget that. I would end up working at Deaconess for two years on a medical/surgical floor before I would then go to work at Mercy for good. Gena ended up at Anderson hospital and has worked on the medical floor for twenty-nine years. She never did pediatric nursing and I could blame that on the mean clinical instructors. They were tough as nails and told me I had no business being a nurse and I should consider a new career. I almost failed clinical’s but I called my mom for advice and then used my Gena voice and told them I had never been around kids, I don’t like kids, I was never gong to have kids, and I would never be a kid nurse. That word never, I ended up having kids and when I worked in the burn unit I actually took care of kids.

Gena has three boys who are all doing wonderful. Her oldest is 26, middle is 24 and youngest is 22. None of them are married or have kids, just like my girls. We both agreed the best part is we are not grandmas so we are still 25. I just realized that we have been friends for thirty-two years. I am not sure how that happened, but somehow it did.

We get together about three to five times a year. I always drive to her house because she does not like driving in St. Louis. I don’t mind as it is a nice forty-five minute drive. She always buys me lunch or cooks because I drive over. She did come to my house twice. The first time she and Eric came when her oldest was a baby to see my house and the second time was a total surprise. My nephew Andrew had been born and died six hours later and that night she showed up with a precious moment (we started collecting them in nursing school) that said safe in Jesus arms with a baby on a cloud. That meant the world to me. I don’t think I ever told her just how much that meant. She came all by herself just because she cared about me so much. Emily was learning how to rollerblade and I’m pretty sure we were smoking out on my front porch. I still have the precious moment in my cabinet given to me by a very special friend for a very special baby.

 

Mole Moral ~ A bathroom, a lame party, and cigarettes led to the very best friendship ever! So whoever said smoking is bad for you is cray cray!

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21 Day Food Detox

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Before I left on vacation, a friend from church had posted on Facebook about her 21 day ultimate reset experience. I knew she was a beach body coach so I looked it up to see what it was all about. It intrigued me and sounded like something I wanted to do so I ordered it, knowing it would be at the house when I returned from vacation.

For the last year I have eaten nothing but crap as in highly processed and junk food. It was to the point nothing tasted good or interested me besides junk. I had put on about ten pounds which I could afford but had I not been training, it would have easily been twenty and then I would once again be ten pounds away from my heaviest weight. It was time to do something. I arrived home on Saturday and Monday was my start date. I always tend to start things on Monday. It’s the day of the week I joined weight watchers almost 21 years ago. I have been a lifetime member for almost twenty and have lost the weight three times. I didn’t want to have to do it again. It gets a little harder each time but I needed something to get me on track.

About six years ago I saw the movie Forks Over Knives and I really wanted to switch to a plant-based diet or even vegan. The way meat is raised in this country is disgusting and I am not sure when it went from a luxury item to a staple but somewhere along the way it has. I was all set to take it on after my hysterectomy but that was a disaster and then it never happened. The reset I did went like this, no meat after the second day. No dairy after the first week and no grains after the end of the second week. Therefore by the last week it was all fruits and vegetables. About three days into it I watched What the Health and Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. Both of these documentaries also focused around plant-based diets and of course shock value regarding the meat industry. I wasn’t even five minutes into the health one when I said I was never touching lunch meat again. The fat guy did nothing but juice for two months and all his health problems disappeared. He said he juiced vegetables because it was way too much to eat. He also did not recommend people doing this for that long. Most of the people did it from 3-14 days and all raved about how much better they felt. So that was motivation to stick out the twenty-one days.

It was a lot of cooking and food prep, both of which I hate and try to avoid. I tried all of the recipes and even the bizarre ones and I liked all of them except the coconut greens. I could not choke those down and actually almost hurled them. But many times during prep I was cussing and thinking to myself it’s so much easier just to go to McDonald’s or to open a box of macaroni and cheese. I say the convenience of food has led to the diabetes epidemic in America. Since all of the food was pretty much fresh and dairy was gone I pretty much stayed in the produce section of the store. I did wander around looking for stuff for the two other people in my family. I refused to cook for them because all they did was make fun of my sticks and twigs diet. The amount of yummy sugar treats called my name but I stayed strong. I only cheated one day and that was at work when there was leftover cake and I couldn’t take it and had some of the icing. Icing has always been my favorite. It was really interesting as it was week three and I could totally taste the coconut flavoring in it. I don’t think I would have noticed if I was still eating sugar by the pound.

Yes I lost weight. I dropped about eleven pounds but keep in mind my weight was up about four pounds from vacation and totally enjoying myself and eating out all three meals for ten days. The best part about the weight loss is my work pants no longer feel like I am going to bust out of them. I was to the point if I didn’t drop weight I was going to have to buy a bigger size. I feel so much better and food tastes good again. I am still cooking and freezing the extras which will cut down in the long run on how much food I have to make. I realized I have a freezer in the basement and I may as well use it. I still have not had meat or dairy but I did add back in brown rice and quinoa. I am hoping to keep this up as it is so nice not having sugar cravings and just wanting junk all of the time.

Today was the first day I have run since the race. There was no exercising during the detox except for walking. Detoxing off of food was awful. Day four I had full body aches with hot and then cold and then hot and then cold. I actually napped under a comforter with jeans on and was still cold. Please remember I live in hot flash hell and have barely slept under a sheet for months. I was thinking during this time, if this is anything what coming off of drugs is like, I am grateful I never tried them or used them. It was horrible! I even took Motrin for my legs which was a no-no. However, they hurt worse than the day after the fifty mile run. I was also not suppose to take anything for headaches during this time. I didn’t follow that either, I had Excedrin when I felt a headache coming on. There was no way I was risking going back into a five-week headache for this twenty-one day program. I did not have one single drop of coffee for three weeks. It’s the only thing I really missed and up until about day eighteen I wanted to kiss anyone who was drinking it, just so I could taste it. Unfortunately, Brian hates coffee or he would have been kissed a lot.

The twenty-one days wasn’t easy but it wasn’t nearly as hard as doing fifty miles. When I make up my mind to do something, I am all in and this was no different. I won’t recommend the program only because it is not cheap at all but if you have money lying around the difference is amazing. Oh yes there are all these supplements and detox drink that goes along with it which is the cost factor. But if you are rich or have spare change look up the twenty-one day ultimate reset. If you need a coach, I know a great one and she will get part of the profit because its pyramid beach body but it’s still good. And no, I did not drink one single shake of theirs either. They are actually not really recommended during the detox. I have found other vegan shake recipes, the first two I have made have been good. So who knows maybe I can keep this up, only time will tell.

 

Mole Moral ~ I love the show The Hulk when growing up and it is so nice to no longer feel like I am going to hulk out of my work pants!

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Beauty Beyond Bones

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This is the name of a blog who has been following me for quite some time. At first I thought maybe it had been a year but then I get to thinking back and it seemed like she found me right after Big Stuf the summer of 2016. I remembered this because her blog is about recovery from anorexia and there was a girl at camp that summer that was struggling with it. I actually had preconceived notions about her dad (nothing related to the eating disorder) and he came to camp to keep an eye on her. I spent some time with him and God was like bam you idiot stop looking at people through your eyes only. I meant to start reading her blog back then but I never got around to it.

One of the reasons is I’m lazy about reading. I use to love to read but now given the choice I will waste time playing stupid games on my phone. The other reason is my sister has battled an eating disorder off and on since she was 18 years old. It is always very easy to tell how she is doing based on where her weight is at. So maybe a week or so ago I decided now was the time and started at the beginning. I think she has been writing for 2 1/2 years so I am no where close to being caught up. I haven’t even finished the first year. All of the posts are so good that I have been taking my time reading them and reflecting on them.

I think by about the fifth or sixth blog a light bulb went on in my head and I understood why my counselor told me that I could easily slip into an eating disorder. (That conversation with her also showed up on time hop a month or so ago). I remember telling her at the time I enjoyed food too much. I also remembered that was back when I was running a lot. Ok I know I just trained and ran a fifty but I did this much slower and walked a lot of the training. Back then I could run a half marathon with no walking. And i was super focused on nutrition and what I was eating. The last year I have managed to eat all junk and highly processed food and if I hadn’t been training I would have easily been right back to my starting weight (170) for the fourth time in my life. However food and nutrition is my next blog post. I don’t even know this girls name but so much of what she has written I have totally related to. I remember studying eating disorders in nursing school and telling Brian I had all the signs and he told me that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. Back then I thought wow maybe I am stupid but I learned a long time ago when he cannot handle something he says stupid things.

So yes this girl went to inpatient for recovery but she said her recovery did not start there but actually with Jesus and when she realized he died on the cross for HER. She relates a lot of her life to bible stories which I love because it’s like reading the bible. I told you I just don’t read like I use to. It’s also like being in church while laying on my couch. She is not preachy or over bearing or obnoxious, she is just awesome. So today at church my favorite young adult sang my favorite song. I heard it first when she sang it and she sings it better than Steffany Gretzinger. While we were singing it I thought of Beauty and I hope she has heard it. Here are the words and as you read it, imagine Jesus saying it to YOU only.

Come out of hiding
You’re safe here with Me
There’s no need to cover
What I already see

You’ve got your reasons
But I hold your peace
You’ve been on lockdown
And I hold the key

‘Cause I loved you before you knew it was love
And I saw it all, still I chose the cross
And you were the one that I was thinking of
When I rose from the grave

Now rid of the shackles, My victory’s yours
I tore the veil for you to come close
There’s no reason to stand at a distance anymore
You’re not far from home

I’ll be your lighthouse
When you’re lost at sea
And I will illuminate everything

No need to be frightened
By intimacy
No, just throw off your fear
And come running to Me

‘Cause I loved you before you knew it was love
And I saw it all, still I chose the cross
And you were the one that I was thinking of
When I rose from the grave
Now rid of the shackles, My victory’s yours
I tore the veil for you to come close
There’s no reason to stand at a distance anymore
You’re not far from home
Keep on coming

And oh as you run
What hindered love
Will only become
Part of the story
Baby, you’re almost home now
Please don’t quit now
You’re almost home to Me

She has over 5000 followers as of February 2016 so this post certainly isn’t about blog promotion because she doesn’t necessarily need that. But if you want to read something that is God focused and really good then click here.

 

Mole Moral~ Sometimes putting off till tomorrow what you can read today, leads to a really nice surprise.

 
1

My mom writes a book!

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My mom has had a book in her head for many years and after she retired she wanted to write it. However she ended up with a Mac computer because Windows 8 came out and she couldn’t figure it out. As we all know Mac does not have Microsoft office. Although my mom swore she couldn’t figure out the latest version of Word anyway so it didn’t matter. She looked at Pages and then said forget it. A few years later she mentions this to Emily who introduces her to google docs and the writing commenced. I’m not sure how long it took her to write it but then the time to publish came to light. In reality let the nightmare begin.

I contacted my friend Rachel since her husband wrote Suburban Junky. She told me what site they used and said it was simple and easy. That should have been my first clue because then the nightmare began. This all occurred maybe a week before I was to leave for the race and she had hoped to have it published before I left. So we uploaded her book to the site and it was all messed up. None of the pages lined up, the chapters were mid page and all kinds of stuff. So after talking to Rachel again, the site needed the pages written in 6×9 to fit the print size of the book. Why there isn’t a simple conversion program is beyond me. However, Google docs wouldn’t let us change the page sizes to 6×9 and neither would Pages. Trying to convert it to PDF and upload it didn’t work either and if we wanted different page sizes it would cost money for that program. I didn’t want to spend money on something I didn’t think would work. This probably went on for two or three days. Rachel told me her husband wrote his book in Word so then I found a way to pay for Microsoft office month to month since we would only need it for a couple of months. I have a work project that I need PowerPoint for so it was a decent investment.

If you think I just opened word and it was obvious how to change the page size, dream on because 6×9 is not your standard page size. I actually had to Google it and then switch it. I then uploaded her book to the 6×9 and emailed it back to her to work on it. She had to rearrange the words and move paragraphs around but finally it was finished. So she came over again to pick out a cover. I had to leave for work so Allyson helped her finish it and she sent it off to be published. I left for my run and vacation.

So after about two weeks of total and utter frustration my mom is now published. Her book came while I was in South Dakota. It is called  O’ Heavenly Father Show Us A Sign  and you can click on the link to read about it and buy it.

Screen Shot 2017-09-04 at 5.32.21 PM

I have not read it yet but Emily and others have said it is really good. One of these days I will read it but I haven’t read much of anything the past few years. If you do buy it and read it please let me know how you like it.

 

Mole Moral ~ Sometimes it takes years to achieve a dream but I am sure my mom will tell you it is totally worth the wait!

 

0

Meet the Flintstones

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Growing up Brian’s favorite show was The Flintstones. I’m pretty sure he’s seen every episode. One of his favorite expressions is “that Barney Rubble, what an actor.” Sometime after I had picked out my new fifty mile marathon, I was scrolling through Facebook when someone posted that the Flintstones RV park in Arizona was for sale. I clicked on it and started reading about it. I discovered the owners also owned one in South Dakota that has been sold about a year ago. They are now in their seventies and ready to retire. So I looked up the one in South Dakota and discovered it was located in Custer. I was so excited and decided I would surprise Brian when we arrived.
About a week before we left I was looking up the address to the place. Someone posted that it has been torn down and there was nothing to see. I was so disappointed and told Brian what had happened. It was another Schleprock strikes again. Schleprock is a character from Pebbles and Bam-Bam show. (Pebbles was Fred’s daughter and Bam-Bam was Barney’s). Schleprock always had a dark cloud hanging over him and everywhere he went so did bad luck. During our twenty-five year anniversary trip is when I was given the nickname Schleprock by Brian.
As we were driving into Custer the billboard for the Flintstones RV park was still up so we decided we were checking it out. The park was about a quarter-mile from our first hotel.

This is what we saw when we first walked up.

IMG_5182I texted my friend Meg and said we were going in. She volunteered to pay our bail. The place was so cool for kids. It’s a shame it’s been bought and left to fall apart. We enjoyed visiting Fred and Barney’s house and all the play areas they had for kids. Even the bathroom was cute. Brian and I both enjoyed it and worth the risk.

 

Mole Moral ~ Just because it’s on the Internet, doesn’t mean it’s true.

 

3

I finished the fifty mile run

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20987664_1368040853314506_579149930_nI can’t believe the race is finally over and I finished it and can still walk. I was up at five in the morning as check in was at five forty-five and the race started right at six. There were around three hundred runners but it was not a chip event so everyone started at the same time. The interesting thing about ultra events is most of the people are not about sprinting and speed but finishing it. Those that come in first are super fast but the majority are just normal people like me.

The first fifteen miles went by pretty fast and I felt great and then the uphill climb started and lasted eight miles. The course was on the Mickelson trail and was an old railroad track so the grade was between 1-4%. I had run hills all summer but not one continuous uphill thing for eight straight miles. So pretty much mile fifteen until twenty-three was awful. When I finally reached the check station before the turn around Brian asked if I wanted him to come down with me and take my picture. I said yes of course.

When the aid station asked if there was anything they could do for me I said “please kill me!” They asked me how I wanted it done and I said quick and fast. At least I knew that in two miles I would be headed downhill for eight miles. I was slowing down a bit as the temperature reached a maximum of 88 degrees with full sun on most of the trail. I realized around mile thirty I would not make the twelve-hour mark I had in my head.

The next difficult section was mile forty to forty-five because it was another straight climb up. I was about ready to off myself and questioning why I ever opened my mouth and said I want to run fifty miles for my fiftieth. I also realized that the cutoff was sixteen hours because this course was tough. The original run I had planned to do back in April was pretty much flat and had a twelve-hour cutoff. I thought I was never going to reach mile forty-five and see Brian but I did and he was drinking beer with a buddy he had gotten to know over the day. His brother was running ahead of me. His new friend said its all down hill and I said again just kill me but I took off for the most mentally challenging section.

I was tired and I wanted to die. I had three huge blisters on my feet. My music died with one mile left but I dug deep. I thought about all the ridiculous things I had done to prepare for this race. Back when I was training for the 50K, I did my 26 mile training run on a cruise ship in the dining area because it was raining. I ran 28 miles at the Arnold Recreation Center because it was going to be over 100 with the heat index. I got up and ran when I didn’t want to. I had made it to twenty-four miles of long runs when I came down with the five-week headache and then picked out a new race and started the training over again. I told myself if you can do all this five miles is just from your house to Imperial main street where you get a drink and use the bathroom.

Finally I saw the track that I was going to finish on and I started crying. This made running impossible, not that I could run even if I tried. I just thought back to how this all started over a year ago on fourth of July weekend when I remembered I said I wanted to run fifty and my birthday was the next year. I found the training plans and wrote it out and didn’t look back. And now I can say I finished the beast in 13:57:38. There were 10 gals in my age group 50-59 and I came in third! I really thought I would be more like second to last so then I start thinking maybe I should do another one. Then I smacked myself upside the head and came back to reality.

 

Mole Moral ~ When you set a goal and achieve it, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.