Baked Potato Baked Cookies

10pm and I am finishing for the day. I find that during the morning my brain doesn't kick into high gear until maybe 11am, noon. By 2 pm I am firing on every cylinder and if I don't have to cook dinner, I'm full on with it for hours and hours. Today I took a break and did the treadmill for a bit, and came back to do things. 

I also find in the evenings there are no meetings and no interruptions, so I can actually focus. I have to submit tickets to the devs when I can't fix something, which means I have to log into their system, while i'm in my system, and copy/paste things from me to them to submit them. And it can be confusing and messy. 

So it feels good to get to the end of a day and close the laptop. Unless I have an entry to catch up on. Like tonight. 

I don't just work work work, I do take breaks. You know I need to do steps, and sometimes I do steps while I bake cookies too. I have been threatening to make Pan Banging cookies for Geoff, and today he left super early for school orientation. So I woke up and puttered around and made cookie dough. 

That lil'baked potato in action... Toffee wanted to go out so I went with her and it was so incredibly hot. I thought about watering the garden but opted instead to go back in. 

I've had dogs who have loved to be outside in the absolute freezing cold. Toffee just wants to be outside in the heat. She spreads out like a pancake and just soaks in the sun. She then totally ignores me when I try to call her in. I spend a few minutes working, then go check her, then work, then check. If I'm in a meeting sometimes I walk around the house with my camera off, carrying the computer, and I check her. 

Gets me some extra steps. Eventually she comes in, but it's a little hassle to deal with her hot nonsense. 

I baked the cookies from the dough I made right before Geoff got home so it was a treat for him.

This recipe calls for making dough balls and chilling them, so I can do this all in stages and it works out. Make dough, do work. Make balls to chill, do work. Bake cookies, do work while cookies bake. 

I realized my large ice cream scoop that I use for these big cookies is broken so I ordered a new one, and made as well good as I could with this one and a small spatula.

They are beauties when they come out.

At about 7:30pm, I went out and watered the garden. Doug went to the gas station and got oil for the Mini. Toffee came out with me and watched. She hates to have the hose squirted at her, but you'd think that'd feel nice on a super duper hot day. 

I was roasting hot, so hot. I need to do some weeding, and I'm looking forward to this time next week when the temps will drop into the lower 80s. I'll head out then and get them weeds. 

Digits down below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill, 20 min/1.24 mi; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 135
4:15pm: 237
11pm: 116

food & meds:

9am: jardiance + phentermine
12:30pm: big bowl of BLT salad
1pm: met+glip
7pm: small bowl of baked ziti w/ricotta, mushrooms, ground beef; met+glip
white wine

I'm not a bot

Worked until late, Geoff made dinner but I do not like when he doesn't make enough protein for 3 people so I ate a leftover chicken breast from the other day. I always tell him "double up on what the recipe calls for meat," but he looks at me like I've lost my mind. 

We have a problem with our volvo, the fan that cools the engine dealie won't turn off after you stop driving, so the battery drains and dies. Doug jump started it off the mini, and tried to figure out a way to disconnect whatever is powering the fan. Too many fuses, and one of the internet suggestions was to remove the negative charge to the battery, but he couldn't get it off. 

He opted to let the battery die instead and we'll deal with it tomorrow. 

Speaking of tomorrow, Geoff has his new student orientation for his Associates. Please put a tiny spot in your heart (the 3 humans who read this and yeah sure, the 2,000 AI bot crawlers that mine my blog for content, you too. Pray for my kid). 

He could use some good mojo. He had a nice job interview today for a lab down near his college, so he'd work Sunday thru Wednesday night shift, and then school Thursday and Friday. 

We will see if he gets that job. And if he does, we move into high gear to get him a place to live. 

That's about it. Another hugely busy day. I got a comment on one of my ticket replies from a client and he said: 

I hope you are a real person rather than an AI bot with that pseudonym, for no other reason than I have never had a satisfactory engagement with an AI bot.. SInce your responses don't return immediately, I suspect you are real and am gratified that such seems the case.

Bro, I am the realest real person that ever realed. And an AI bot couldn't do my job. All the computer data center energy behind it would explode, and we'd all die. So no. Not a bot. Thanks for asking though.

Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill, need to double check, but, 20 min/ 1.33 mi? I think? 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 143
5pm: 134
11:30pm: 83

food & meds:

9am: jardiance + phentermine
9:15am:pb & low sugar j on multigrain seeded bread
2pm: turkey and cheddar on 647 white bread; met+glip
6:30pm: dirty rice, shrimp, and one of the chicken breasts left over from greek marinade night
7pm: met+glip
vodka tonic w/diet tonic

Warming Up

Everyone I know is getting ready to experience weather. Hot, stupid, sweltering weather. It is kind of funny because I feel like I've been spoiled by the decent temperatures. Even if it has been in the high 80s, by evening it drops down and I'm able to take a nice walk. 

Yesterday I went out around 4pm and it was humid, and I sweated like a giant pig. I tried to run a bit but it was not working. 

And if I thought yesterday was hot, it's gonna get hotter. 

I went for a 9pm walk tonight to finish up the steps and it was warm but like "nice" summer-like warm. I liked it. Too warm to just want to sit outside and chill but okay enough to just do the walk and come home. I only did what I had to. 

It feels like summer now. Just like this and I don't want it any hotter.  But. Ya know. Here it comes. 

I went out between meetings around lunch time and watered the garden. I want to stay on top of everything to make sure nothing burns or bakes. Toffee loves the heat, she loves to go out there and lounge in the sun. My neighbor (without dogs, on the other side) thinks she is a riot. She comes out and talks to her every day. 

We had a nice yap after I watered everything, and we talked about her back surgery and physical therapy. She told me the low-down on some of my neighbors (over here, she's a corrections officer. Those guys are dealing drugs, the signal is when they flash the deck light 3 times to let someone know to come up. Over there? That guy went to jail after several instances of drunk driving and now he doesn't drink anymore, he smokes a lot of pot...) 

If you want to know the low-down, find someone who has lived in the neighborhood 10 plus years!

I found out the fireworks for our city are going to be in the park literally behind our house. Cool, cool cool. If it isn't brutally hot Friday night, we'll maybe walk up and enjoy. We won't have to drive into town to the ballpark, which is where I thought they'd be. 

Sending everyone cool thoughts and cool breezes over the next few days. I didn't have a picture today so you go without!

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill kind of a jog, 15 min/1mile; night walk to finish steps, 18 min/.86 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:45am: 106
4:30pm: 155
10:30pm: 140

food & meds:

8:45am: jardiance + phentermine
9am: last slice of banana bread
1:30pm: tuna salad no bread (approx 1 cup) met+glip
4:30pm: m&ms mixed with mixed nuts
6:45pm: chicken alfredo pasta a la geoff
7:30pm: met+glip
vodka+diet cran

Misty Mountain Road Trip

This morning I woke up at 8:15, went to pee, and crawled back into bed. Just because. It was nice to sleep in until almost 10, and I woke up in time to get my 9am steps in. 

We were drinking coffee and Doug said he wanted to go to the farm stand and get some things, so I got showered and we got out the door before noon. We went to the local farm stand but they are closed on Sunday. So we went around the corner to another one, got peaches and some black raspberries that were very very ripe and marked down for fast sale. 

Then we headed into downtown because there is a farmers' market only Doug mistook the day it runs. They run Saturdays, not Sundays. So we continued to drive, and went on an adventure. We went through the north part of town where it gets very farmy very fast, up into Pennsylvania and an area called Rouzerville. We drove up mountains and into the clouds. Everything was grey and the layers of green trees and clouds and mountains was very pretty. 

We ended up in Emmitsburg, MD and it was lunch time, so we decided to stop in at a restaurant that promised beer and food and atmosphere. But they're on vacation until July 9th. Doh. Okay, what else is in town, and Chris has to pee. 

Nothing. There was a pizza parlor, closed on Sunday. Another sandwich shop, closed for vacation. 

Thanks Emmitsburg, you're a jerk. 

We got in the car to head down Rte 15 south. We were intrigued enough to stop at The Grotto behind The University at Mount Saint Mary's, but the parking lot was packed and it was crazy busy so we basically turned around and left and went back south on 15. 

Hungry. 

We hit Thurmont where there was a brewery but the internet told us they close at 2pm on Sunday. How's that a thing! So we ended up at a Family Restaurant, with a buffet. So we stopped. The parking lot was packed, but the dining room was pretty empty. I guess there was some giant bowling league awards event so that's what all the cars were. 

The food was not great but I was starving and I ate it. Everything was like cafeteria food. The fried chicken was like what. you'd get in a Swanson's hungry man dinner. Green beans should not disintegrate when poked with a fork. The desserts were basically grocery store pies. But I did have some. 

Doug wanted to figure out the back way home, we headed down towards Frederick, and he headed back into the mountains. He wanted to figure it out himself and I was watching google maps on my phone, giggling. 

Eventually he said 'Waze me home, this is stupid,' and we were a couple miles north of the interstate and headed back easily. Tons of traffic, we could have figured out the mountain route but it was easier to do this. 

Doug took a big nap, I took a big walk. It looked like it would rain at any moment so I wanted to get this done. I may have figured out my 5k route for practice, basically if I add another block around and loop around that neighborhood that's another mile. 

I won't be doing that any time soon, though. It is supposed to get way up into the 90s and even 100s here. I'll be using the treadmill and taking it way easy inside. 

At the restaurant, they had slippers and PJ pants with dogs on them. I thought I got the picture of the slippers, but, I did get a picture of the PJ pants, thankfully. Digits below (things are wonky because I slept in, and then forgot to bring my meds with me for lunch time). 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Solo walk, 40 min/2 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

10am: 103
5:45pm: 150
10:30pm: 74

food & meds:

10am: jardiance + phentermine
11:30am: pb&j on multigrain seeded bread
2:30pm: weird buffet - slice of roast beef, some catfish, green beans, piece of fried chicken, mashed potatoes & beef gravy; 2 small pieces of pie products
3:45pm: met+glip
7pm: one cheeseburger over nice salad w/ some fries and bleu cheese dressing; white wine
8pm: bowl of sugar free carb smart vanilla ice cream w/black raspberries
9:30pm: met+glip

What The Dill-ey, Yo

It was supposed to pour down rain today, so we told Geoff not to mow the lawn. It did not pour, drizzle or even... do a thing at all. Dumb. I did look at a radar map, and everywhere around us seems to be raining. So maybe it'll take a turn this direction. Maybe it will dip south. Maybe. 

Geoff could have mowed every lawn in this end of town. 

I woke up around 8, surprised I slept through the night mostly. I did wake up at 4 but willed myself back to sleep without going down to the guest room. I only got up at 8 because I really had to pee. That willing myself back to sleep at 4 had its repercussions. 

It kind of sucks, I have a horrible headache and I'm majorly blah today. Considering it is the weekend and I don't have to work and I can have time not thinking about work. Very disappointing. 

This morning I walked out to the garden beds and investigated the growth. Hello little babies, hello nice tomato growing so nicely. Hello peppers. Hello little lettuces. I noticed the garden bed is actually very busy with ants, and I do not know if that as alright or super bad? Google told me both yes and no, so that was not helpful. 

Doug and I sat together for an incredibly long time. Usually I'm out there by myself but he is warming up to the space. Plus, it was nice and cool, not cold, not windy, not humid. Just right.

I came inside and watered all the inside plants which is a good chore. I usually do that during the big Friday meeting that we had last Friday but I sat on the couch and stared into space instead. I felt like harvesting some of our dill for a marinade, so I whipped up a super basic greek yogurt marinade I learned at the cooking school and set some chicken up to hang out in it.

I started to feel better around 4pm. Doug went out to mow the lawn, Geoff took miss Toffee for a walk. I went to the market because I wanted to make potato salad and grill some chicken. I love the potato salad recipe I make but it is a time investment. I managed to get a lot done at once, only slightly burned the bacon. And I should have used the whole bag of potatoes because it was so good (Geoff .... really liked it!) 

Walkies and steps, I went a route I haven't gone on in a while and it was a good trip. I was tired though. Still kind of meh. I hope I'm not coming down with something.

Anyway. Caught wind that there was an outage on the product we launched. Great. super. So happy. I am not on call and no one tapped me into the coverage. I hope they resolve it because it is still being stupid. And now I'm mad.

But my garden is nice. 

Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Solo walk, 30 min/1.5 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:15am: 111
4:15pm: 119
11pm: 110

food & meds:

8:15am: jardiance + phentermine
12pm: multigrain seeded bread toasted w/pb low sugar j
1pm: met+glip
7pm: big piece of chicken grilled in yogurt marinade, potato salad; white wine
7:30pm: met+glip

More Blood

Toffee somehow injured her paw today and while she is not exhibiting pain or limping or anything, she's leaving spots of blood all over the place and I'm walking around behind her cleaning. The floors look GREAT but I have to spot clean the couch with our cute little dirt devil upholstery cleaner. Now I'm very thankful I didn't get to it last weekend when the boys were away. 

We're keeping an eye on her. I think she just skinned one of the paw pad dealies. Nothing catastrophic, and she's good at letting me hold her paw and compress it with gauze. 

Yes, we'll keep an eye on it, and we're not going to the emergency vet for a boo boo of this nature. This does not boo boo emergency rank.

Work was insane, again. But I'm caught up on new tickets (mostly) and have a ton of tickets that are open waiting for me to reply. 

Around 3pm I realized I needed a break. It was hot out. The rain was not coming. I got the hose and watered the plants. We have peppers! The dill is ready for me to do something with! Tomatoes! green and not ready but, TOMATOES! 

I forgot to take pictures. I just wanted to do the task. 

Back to the grind. It was after 6:30pm and I said fuck it all and Fuck this WEEK. This week has been a year. My work son lost internet today around noon and the internet provider forecast that they'd have it back on by 9pm tomorrow night so he packed up and went to his parents. It is a 2 hour drive or something. He got there and they didn't have internet. 

Bless him. Bless that gift he received. You can't do work if you don't got the internet. Oh whelp. 

So I decided after reading one last bonkers crazy ticket that I'm eating dinner, and I am taking a walk. I was only at about 4k steps and usually by that time I am around 6k. So I went.

I want to plot out an acutal (safe) 5k route so I can practice for August, and I thought I did good and got to 2 miles but. Not quite. Okay. Next walk do the same, and turn left. Go up to the big park. Loop back around, go through that neighborhood, cross the street at the light. Also, I could just run it on the treadmill. I haven't run in a while. Zero running miles this week. Good walking miles, but. No running.

Wish me luck. 

Anyway. 

My people are in Chicago tonight with a certain band having a blast. I'm jealous I'm not there but honestly, I couldn't hang tonight even if I wanted to. My brain just would not be in it. Soon, friends. Soon. 

On that note. Off to bed. It is supposed to pour tomorrow, so I am not sure what we'll do. I will try not to answer helpdesk tickets. maybe. 

Digits! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Big Long After Dinner Walk solo. 32 min/1.77 mi; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 106
4:45pm: 150
11:30pm: 126

food & meds:

9am: jardiance + phentermine
12:30pm: bowl of BLT salad
1:30pm: met+glip
6:30pm: 2 nice pieces of pork loin and about 6 pierogis
gin+tonic
7:30pm: met+glip
8pm: bowl of caramel corn and mixed nuts mixed together

Blood

Today, Doug needed for a piece of medical equipment to be brought back to one of our Doctor Office locations. He had all day meetings, and he was trying to get Geoff to do it, but Geoff was balking over doing it. 

I volunteered to do the errand. Simply Because. I needed a break and I needed to get blood work done anyway. Very overdue. 

Sometimes it is just nice to get in the car and drive somewhere and not do anything thinking wise other than focus on the road, the traffic, staying safe. 

I enjoyed my time away from the computer for a little over two hours. An hour there, 15 minutes getting bloodwork done and dropping off the thing for Doug, and an hour back. 

When I got to the lab I realized I may not be fully hydrated. I had coffee, but I didn't load up on water the way I usually do when I have blood work done. And it was a challenge today. Yup. It wasn't fun. 

Still, it was better than answering tickets. 

I got home and had a team meeting with my colleagues and we all griped about our individual projects. I did a bunch of work, took a walk and chatted with Linda. Geoff grilled dinner and Doug took Toffee to the dog park. I should have gone to the dog park but then I wouldn't have had a yap with Linz. 

Around 8:45 I realized I was still way behind on steps so I went on another walk. It was such a perfect night, I just went a couple blocks further than where I usually would have turned. I realized that I need to think about running more again and get back to doing 2 miles at once, instead of 2 long walks that get me just over 2 miles total. Gotta get ready for that 5k in August, friends!

That's about it. Here's my arm, with two bandages. One was a fail, the other success! But... Ouch.
Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Two walks. With a yap and Linda, 23 min/1.09 mi. Solo with sunset and clouds, 26 min/1.21 mi. 11k+ steps by midnight

blood glucose:

8:30am: 126
4:45pm: 177
11pm: 123

food & meds:

8:30am: jardiance + phentermine
11am: slice of banana bread
noon: small bowl of chicken salad
2:30pm: met+glip
3pm: 2 baby bell cheeses
4pm: another big slice of  of banana bread
6:30pm: 2 bratwurst w/some spicy fries
8:45pm: met+glip (forgot to take earlier)
no alcohol (none in the house that I wanted lol)

To Do List

Geoff finally got his class schedule all buttoned up. Thursday and Friday classes. I set up a to-do list for us, just like a dev sprint, and we'll approach things with some daily scrums together, just like work.

Unlike all the other times he took classes and just drove from our old house, we're further away, and we have to figure out housing for him. He technically would want to stay over at least on Thursday night. And to be honest, I'd want to stay a Wednesday and Thursday. 

Doug and I were talking about hotelling, or Furnished Finder. In theory, a hotel 2 nights a week vs. a furnished room in a house for 900 a month, it may be better if we commit to him renting a room. He can decide how often he comes home. 

While we were talking, Doug looked at Toffee, and I said "oh yeah, he can't live without her!" 

So we are making Geoff progress and that's a relief.

This morning, my helpdesk tickets were flooding. And I had a panic attack. I messaged my manager and told him I just can't today. I cannot. I .... can't.... so he said "jump on a call? I have 15 minutes before my first meeting." 

We jumped into a video call, and I'm super proud of myself for not crying as I just said "okay, so I'm t he one who normally cheerleads through things and keeps it together but I'm freaking out about all this, all the tickets, all the broken things, and I cannot today."

Thankfully he said "I hear you, and me too." 

"So how do we handle this, what do we do?" And we talked about how we know that the devs are working on this. The lead guy - I love him - he owned the problems, "this is on us and we are working to make it right." 

JB said, the best we can do is answer the tickets, and help the users. I told him that I am super so good at answering the new tickets that come in, and bad at going back to when they reply to me with an update or further questions. So good at the new tickets, super bad at the follow up. He said he'd be happy to jump into my Open cases and take some and reply. 

After our morning meeting today (where I walked for a solid 15 minutes without stopping!) the devs are making incredible progress at restoration of broken data and everything. We are doing one-off "hey, so, this client is still missing XYZ since the restoration, can you find that." 

And they find it. 

I was answering a ticket and the product crashed. Just absolutely crashed. I screamed "THIS IS FINE!' and walked away and made chicken salad after I messaged JB and my work son to say "okay. alright okay. She's crashed. Someone just let me know when she's back because I need to make chicken salad." 

There was too much traffic to the server with all the users in there, and with the devs attempting another data restoration. They got it back and I made lunch.

Today didn't suck nearly as bad as I thought it might right out of the gate and I'm very glad I don't have any Vodka otherwise I would have started drinking so early. Instead, I worked to a reasonable time, walked the dog, and then came back to go to older tickets from Monday to try and tackle those issues. New tickets can wait. 

Digits below this classic internet meme that is me.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Morning Meeting Pace, 10 min/.43, Toffee walk, 25 min/1.19 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 134
4:45pm: 146
11:30pm: 169

food & meds:

8am: jardiance + phentermine
1:30pm: big bowl of chicken salad
2pm: met+glip
6:30pm: shrimp and pasta dish by geoff
8:30pm: met+glip; 1 beer
10pm: another beer

Walking in Circles

Today was a really anxious day and one where I am absolutely glad I work at home. I am able to attend stressful meetings, turn my camera off, and walk in circles all around my house while hyperventilating. It is awesome.

Tomorrow I have a check in with my manager and I want to tell him how badly I am actually freaking out and panicking. He is a very supportive person, but he won't be able to DO anything, so what's the point. 

We just need for all the broken things with the new platform to be fixed. That's all. 

Geoff cooked dinner after we had a big discussion about more protein, fewer carbs and sometimes he doesn't get it. So that also was stressful. Doug and Toffee took a nap after dinner and I didn't want to work anymore, so I went out for a solo walk. 

I was getting ready to turn towards home when my Rush streaming ended, and it was my friend Amy in Arizona calling with a couple updates. She's relocating to Pennsylvania and she has a moving date around July 20th. I'm excited that she'll be two hours away by car instead of that many by plane. 

We had a great chat, and I kept walking straight and extended the walk so we could yap. I was happy for that, because it got me to almost 10k for the day, and I didn't have to hit the treadmill or go out again later to tack on more steps. 

I picked up the laptop and did more work before bed. Without having a panic attack. 

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I love our team, I love the gang, I just want for things to straighten up and fly right. 

My friend C would understand this. We've shipped the car to Pebble, it still needs work, and we're all rushing around .... trying to make the thing show-ready. And it isn't going perfectly. But. We'll get there? We can only hope?

Again, no picture, digits below. Good digits mostly. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Solo walk, 31 min/1.61; 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:45am: 123
4:30pm: 175
11pm: 128

food & meds:

8:45am: jardiance + phentermine
11am: small bowl of mac & cheese w/bacon
1pm: english muffin w/pb and zero sugar j
1:30pm: met+glip 
4:30pm: 2 celery stalks w/pb
6;30pm: chicken and dirty rice by Geoff
7:30pm: met+glip
white wine+diet ginger ale

Short Lived

Geoff reported to us  this morning that the temp agency informed him not to come back tonight to the placement they put him at. 

He said there were 3 guys, a giant conveyor belt, and too much stuff. I guess he didn't work fast enough for them (which makes sense, he's ... who he is, and lacks speed) and that he was sluggish. 

He was awake for 20+ hours so I get that. 

But he said no one was helpful, no one instructed him well, they were kind of jerks. And he is mad that he didn't even get a second chance tonight. 

I asked him if he asked for a second chance, to say "I'm sorry, I haven't slept since Saturday night, I'm not used to the night shift but I can get on that schedule today," and if he gave any feedback about how they didn't really give him good instruction. 

He said no. 

So, you didn't plead your case.

No. 

Alright then. That's on you. I'm sure you could have tried to communicate that, and tried harder to work faster if you had a second chance. 

He's just really disappointed, in them, in him, in everything. "I don't know why I bother, why I try. Hospital jobs don't want me, this dumb job doesn't want me." 

I feel like the world sometimes sees him as a Cheese Sandwich, and we know he is so much more than that. 

Anyway. I took two walks today because I didn't get time to run on the treadmill for 2 miles. Work was stupid busy. I'm tired. 

No picture tonight. Just the digits. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  two walks, one with Toffee, 20 min/1mi; one solo, 22 min, 1.3 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:45am: 119
4:30pm: 105
11pm: 138

food & meds:

8:45am: jardiance + phentermine
11am: everything bagel w/chive & onion cream cheese and roast beef
2pm: met+glip. 2 big celery sticks w/pb
6:30pm: bowl of left over pasta and meat sauce from last night (much better tonight than last night) 2 ramekins of caramel popcorn
8pm: met+glip
gin & tonic