Wow, is it cold out there

Today I had a busy day and at 4:30pm realized I needed to get a walk, get some steps. I headed outside and it was cold! and WINDY! and wow. I missed the hotel treadmill badly. I did a fast loop around the block and got back inside as quickly as I could. 

I knew there was no way I was going back out there, and by 8pm after talking with Linda for a while, I didn't think I'd get the last of the steps in. I needed over 3k. 

I went downstairs and chatted with Doug and figured what the heck, if I can get 1500 outside maybe I can do the rest inside somehow. 

Bundled up. New gloves on. Playlist set to Ghost, out we go. 

No wind. Perfect! It was cold, yes, like proper real cold, but without the wind it was outstanding. I watched the timer on the fitbit, 15, 18, 20, 23, push to 25! yaaaas there she is. 10k. 

It's only November. And it is going to get for real cold soon. And I don't think I'll always be able to do that but. We did it. 

We did it. We got her. 

I have to renew my drivers license, which is usually no big deal but they want me to have an eye exam. And my birthday is next week. So I have to cram this in there somewhere. I just tried to make an appointment online and I need my drivers license number and screw that nonsense, it's downstairs. Feh! I'll tackle that in the morning. I'll see if I can take time off on Thursday or Friday afternoon to do the license thing. Can't let this slide! Gotta have an appointment and all that for the eye exam with the renewal. Wish your girl luck. 

I'm kind of bummed because I really like my license photo. I think I get a new one on this visit? Maybe? 

Doug set up some time for us to have the Mini go in for that check engine dealie so she can get an inspection. But Geoff has a job interview for a per diem lab job at the local hospital at the same time. Doug took off Wednesday to go down to our old stomping grounds and see our doctor and get blood work done, so he needs a car. So we'll reschedule that for ... next week? Maybe? 

Wish Geoff luck. He's been idle since we moved here and a per diem job coming up on the holidays with  his school schedule would actually be outstanding. He could use a win, and a foot in the door at this lab. Hold the boy in your hearts, would ya?

Anyway. All told, even with some work nonsense today it was a nice day. A couple good client calls, a rescheduled one for Wednesday morning. And a bit of a late night kerfuffle with an announcement that needs to go out to all clients that went out even though ... it was in draft mode. So that's annoying! gah. Just when I think I figure out our email communications tool, it messes with my head!

Too lazy for a picture today, so .... digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. one walk - 14 min/.82 mi walk (short because of wind and cold!); second walk - 25 min/1.34 mi (less wind, still cold, but pretty alright out there) 10k+ steps by bedtime 

blood glucose:

8am: 123
5:15pm: 118
10:30pm: 93

food & meds:
8am: jardiance (out of phentermine)
10:30am: bowl of mac&cheese w/bacon
12:30pm: met+glip
1:15pm: protein granola bar
3:30pm: a bunch of pepperoni slices
6:30pm: kielbasa and about 6 pierogi; white wine
8pm: met+glip
more white wine

The Home Things

This morning, we did the usual Saturday or Sunday goofing off things. There was a 9am football game that turned out to be very exciting, and after it was over Doug pitched the idea of a canal walk. 

To be honest, I wanted a day here in the house futzing about with things that need done. So Doug and the dog headed out, I talked to Jess for like an hour, I took a 30 minute walk and thought about pushing it further but.... I did say. 

I wanted to futz. 

So Futz I Did.

I undressed the beds and put the sheets through the wash. I did 3 other full loads of laundry. I cleaned the shower and noticed it needs to be regrouted ASAP along the side where the faucet is, before water runs down into Geoff's bathroom below. 

There was a mini-emergency at work and one of my colleagues tapped me in so I drafted an alert, and got the rundown from one of the developers on how long he thought it'd be a problem. 

"29 hours, maybe." 

Ope. No. That has to be fixed faster but I think we have to rely on other people tomorrow morning. 

The squirrel dudes came to take down their anti-squirrel contraption and finish the blocking of the attic vent, and I paid them. One of them said he hopes to never see us again, and I agreed that'd be awesome. 

Geoff made a pot roast for dinner, pretty good. I must say! 

While I got a lot of things done I didn't get everything I set out to do done. But I'm sleeping in clean nice sheets and a good blanket. I guess it may snow here. There was rough weather all around us today, mostly to the east back in the old stomping grounds. But all told we had a solid and nice day. 

Anyway. Here are a couple pictures from our fun night out with Alex on Friday. I'm so glad we can tap him into a hang out when we are up seeing mom!  Digits below

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 30 min solo walk, 1.55 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 144
4:30pm: 118
10:45pm: 142

food & meds:
8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
11am: bowl of plain greek yogurt w/granola bar crushed up & the last of the blackberries doug bought while I was away (before they went bad!)
12:30pm: met+glip
6pm: trail mix, white wine
7:15: bowl of pot roast
*white wine but with full sugar ginger ale. oops. 
8:30pm: trail mix

Trip Home

I woke up organically at 5:20am, thanks to the water I drank at midnight, so I wouldn't have an alarm go off and wake up Lin. 

We had taken all my stuff to the car last night except my backpack, travel kit, and laptop. So I packed those up, filled my water bottle, put the last of the whole milk in my Yeti to snag some lobby coffee, and I was out the door by 5:35. 

Lin wanted me to wake her up to say goodbye so I did. 

When someone's sleeping in a hotel room, everything becomes 20 times noisier. Flipping the light switch on to check my blood sugar, running the sink to wash my hands, getting a little bit of ice to put in the water bottle, the door latch closing behind me. 

I felt like I was waking the entire hotel up. 

Since I have a rough time seeing in the dark, I was worried about hitting the road so early, just as I had been last Saturday but because Cape Cod is so much further east than where I live in Maryland, the sun started to come up nicely about 6:30. It was very cloudy, so all the clouds held some sort of magic light, and everything brightened up even before I made it to Fall River. 

One note, I don't know why I have it in my head that right across the Connecticut state line from Rhode Island that there's a service plaza, but there isn't one. And I kept waiting for it, and waiting for it, and it is 90 minutes from the RI state line. 

Hey, Connecticut, get you a service plaza east of New London already, okay? My bladder would thank you. 

I made it to Madison, barely, and walked around for a while. I was trying to pre-load the day with steps because I didn't know if I'd miss an hour because of traffic, and wasn't sure I'd get all the day's steps once I got home. Felt pretty sure I was going to break the 33 day streak. 

Each hour afforded time to get out of the car somewhere. I got gas after the Cuomo Bridge, I got out and walked around somewhere in New Jersey. I got chicken mcnuggets at a Loves Truck Stop/McDonalds in a town called Shartlesville, which was making me laugh because I was actually afraid I might .... Shart myself before I got there. 

I'll be sure to giggle everytime I drive through. 

The ride was absolutely delightful, no traffic, beautiful light, tons of foliage. Relaxing. At my pace. 

There were tons of curiosities along the way, one was a park right on the highway in Carlisle, PA for the US Army Heritage Trail. Right on the side of the highway there are tanks and helicopters - and it looks like a cool place. The internet says it is about a mile walk through, with vehicles and equipment from all different eras of the US Army's history. Kind of unique. Maybe will get a stop one day. 

By the time I got to Chambersburg I was ready for the trip to be done. I thought about getting off 81 and getting on 11 and taking back roads the rest of the way, but I stuck with the highway. 

Toffee was incredibly happy to see me. 

And Doug and the boy were too. 

It was about 2:30 when I got home, Doug and I caught up while Geoff went to the store. We decided to head to the dog park, where Toffee had a pretty great time. There's a dog named buddy, and he loves me and Doug, because we have treats. He's not supposed to have treats... he's on a diet. I still slip him one when momma isn't looking. It isn't fair to give 8 other dogs a cookie, ya know? 

After the dog park Doug asked me if I needed to load up on steps and yes, I did. So we took a long walk from the dog park around the way and back to the main drag that comes to our house. All told a pretty good walk, and I needed it after mostly sitting for close to 9 hours. 

Happy to be home, for sure. And I think the bean is happy too. I thought this picture of her when we started talking about the dog park was priceless. 

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Two walks, one to the dog park, 15 min/.67 mi; left the dog park and walked around the park and neighborhood, 41 min/1.78 mi. 13k+ steps by midnight

blood glucose:

5:30am: 87
5:30pm: 139
10:30pm: 97

food & meds:
7am: jardiance+phentermine
10am: apple w/pb
1pm: 10 chicken mcnuggets, met+glip
6pm: small amount of spaghetti w/hot italian sausage & sauce
2 beers
7:30pm: ronnie trail mix
8pm: met+glip

kismet

Way too tired for an actual entry. Will update tomorrow. Had a big full busy day. zzzzz. 

The title is related to the fact we reached out to our friend in Rhode Island and he was free to come hang out so we had a lovely dinner, great time, and it was totally kismet that we had this time together here at the end of my stay. 

The plan is to get up hella early and hit the road. Linda is going to spend an extra day here and do some cleaning at Shirley's. Hopefully I'll be home before dark.  

Gonna miss this jerk.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 10k+ steps by midnight

blood glucose:

9:30am: 140
4pm: 183
11pm: 122

food & meds:
9:30am: jardiance+phentermine
noon: scallops+fries; met+glip
4:30pm: high noons
8pm: chicken tomato tortilla soup
9:30pm: met+glip
white wine

Check Engine Light

My check engine light came on in the mini yesterday which pissed me right the hell off. We just had a butt ton of work done to it for all the seals in the stupid engine because she was leaking oil. And we have to get the brakes done, that's next. She has 143k miles, she's a go kart with a BMW engine. She is fun and good and I like her but. 

Shit, bitch we just took care of you so much so hard. The hell? 

Because we're at a hotel, there's stores and stuff all around us, and after work I took her over to the Auto Zone to ask if they could read her, let me know if the code was benign or deadly. 

Turns out it's somewhat benign, but it will need to be fixed before the end of the month when she needs to go for her emissions test. Fair. The guy told me "there's nothing for you to buy from us, just take her probably to a dealership for this one, not a regular mechanic. That way they'll get it all figured out for you." 

No charge. A saint, a gentleman, lovely. 

Today I had an afternoon of meetings, and Linda went over mom's to work over there, take her to lunch, and possibly go through mail and futz with some cleaning. She said mom didn't need anything cleaned really, she didn't have a lot of laundry. So she was able to get work done while I talked in meetings. 

She brought my lunch back late, so that was dinner. I pondered just ordering delivery or running over to 5 guys but there wasn't a big enough break time between meetings. The hotel internet went out right before our Office Hours for work, so I ran downstairs and the kid behind the counter and I did things, tested things rebooted their router in the office, and he ended up calling tech support while I pulled the meeting up on zoom on my phone, after downloading the update, and re-authenticating into the platform blah blah blah. Only 5 minutes late. Not too bad. 

Lin and I played videos and songs, listening to the Trans Canada Highwaymen, a bunch of Tiny Desk, I introduced her to Muna (both in Tiny Desk and in "real" format) and Foxing. 

Before we knew it, 11pm got up on our faces. Bed time.

No picture today. Probably stuff tomorrow. I am taking the morning off, I haven't pulled my weight with mom this week, and I'm sure there is shit I can be doing before my 1pm meeting, 2pm meeting and 3pm meeting. 

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. treadmill for a quick break 15 min/.82; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 127
4pm: 91
10:45pm: 129

food & meds:
8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
10:15am: apple w/pb
1pm: met+glip
4pm: buffalo fingers over a small salad w/bleu cheese dressing
6pm: small piece of cheesecake
6:30pm: bowl of trail mix
7pm:met+glip
wine+diet gingerale 

BBQ Ride

Today we drove over to the new restaurant one of mom's favorites (and one of our favorites) is working at. LL wasn't happy with the situation when the foodrinkery that mom loves changed hands. Her brother opened a BBQ place (he owns a food truck but was ready to stop rolling). 

Mom has only seen her once since she left the foodrinkery, so we wanted to take her over. And we'd get to see her too. 

It was further than I thought, and I ended up taking a 2 hour lunch but made up for it by working through the evening. 

We had a lovely visit, it was great catching up. LL looks super happy but she misses everyone from the old place. Her brother is a lot of fun, full of stories and loves to tell them. 

We bought "merch" because he had t-shirts and sweat shirts for sale. And we got a slice of cheesecake (LL bakes all the desserts!). 

I highly recommend the joint, if anyone is on the north side of the canal in the Buzzards Bay/Bourne area. Get the cheesecake (we are saving ours for tomorrow). 

Digits, below. Mom and LL, and a fun whale.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill this morning, 15 min/.88 mi; after lunch 10 min/.46 mi; finishing the day, 20 min./1.03 mi. 10k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:30am: 124
5:15pm: 140
10:15pm: 132 

food & meds:
8am: jardiance+phentermine
9am: 2 sausage patties w/ american cheese on english muffin
1:30pm: pulled pork sammitch on a nice roll w/coleslaw and a lil'bite of mac & cheese; met+glip
5:45: bowl of trail mix
wine+diet ginger ale

Lunchies with Mumsie

We had a pretty busy day. Lin was spreadsheet crazy and I only had one meeting, but there was a lot going on. I left around 12:30 to go get mom to go to the foodrinkery, and one of her friends was sitting there at the bar so we joined her. A favorite bar tender, a favorite waitress, people coming over to say hello. There's a guy who hangs out there who is a Steelers fan so he and I always like to catch up and talk football.

I had her home before 2, and I asked her if she wanted me to hang out. She said no, it was naptime. 

I stood in the driveway and watched her as she made it to her front door and unlocked it. Just to make sure she didn't trip up the steps. 

Back at the hotel, it was back to work and crafting an emergency alert for the team. I am (I think) getting better at this. I hate the process. It is complicated and easy to mess up a step. I prefer to write the alert and let someone else send it. But it worked and I was glad. 

Lin was still working so I went down to the treadmill. I didn't walk around as much as I usually do at home, so I needed a lot of steps to hit the goal. Made myself go 30 min, and if I made myself go to 40 min, it would have been 2 miles easy. But the goal is met. 

We didn't order dinner. I was still pretty full from lunch, and Linda had a pizza I brought back for her, so it was snacky snacks and winey wine for supper. 

Tomorrow another adventure. We're going to have lunch where one of mom's very favorite bartenders has moved to. No bar at this location but it is a BBQ joint, and hopefully lunch will be stellar. And it will be nice to see one of mom (and our) favorite people. 

Here's a mirror selfie from today. Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 30 min/1.83 mi on the treadmill; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 146
5pm: 150
10pm: 104 

food & meds:
8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
9am: egg mcmuffin-ish brekkie sammitch in the hotel
1pm: chicken cutlet sandwich w/lettuce, tomato, american cheese, onion rings; glass of pinot grigio
2:30pm: met+glip
7pm: trail mix, some cheese & pita chips; wine+diet ginger ale
8pm: met+glip

Sunday and Monday at the South Shore

Sunday
Lin and I woke up Sunday morning at stupid thirty because her body at 6:30am said it was 7:30am because, you know. We flopped around the hotel room and at some point I said, ya know, I will go now to the treadmill and get it out of the way. 

Good plan. 

We had some fun together here at the hotel and before we knew it, time to go over to mom's. She normally does not go to the foodrinkery she's fond of on Sundays but called us to tell us what time we should go. 

We pointed out it was Sunday but okay. We'll go out of turn. The restaurant recently changed hands, and there has been a lot of staff turn over. But one of our favorite long-timers is still there and she was behind the bar. We love her. I left her an obscenely large tip and we held down the corner of the bar for quite some time.

Jess came down and met us for lunch, which was nice. After lunch we took mom back to her place and she was ready for a nap so we felt it was good to leave and go hang out at the hotel. Jess hit the road and got home around 9.

Gotta say, it was super fun watching a Patriots game with a ton of Pats fans because it got wild there at the end!

Linda and I then spent the evening listening to music and talking. I introduced her to The Frames and Glen Hansard, Fitzcaraldo still kills me every time I hear it. 

Monday
I didn't take time off of work this week except for Thursday when I'm driving back home. So both Lin and I set up our laptops and started working. I always try to bring the lap desk so can lounge on the bed! I kind of regret not taking the whole week off or anything, but there's a lot to do. 

Hit the ground running today with our devs who were working on the problems of one of our products last week. Had a couple meetings, very productive. Linda and I basically didn't leave the hotel room, it was just all work, all the time. She had a late call with her boss and we decided to just walk across the parking lot to the 99 restaurant. "The Nines" as the kids call it, I guess. 

On our way down, we discovered the pool was drained and being worked on. That's disappointing! We were hoping for some pool time before I go home Thursday. Alas. Well. Next time, pool! You heard me.

Dinner was good. We bitched about the gubbmint. 

Found ourselves forcing awakeness until 10pm, because bed at 9 is dumb. I went to the treadmill at 8pm because I was over 2500 steps away from the 10k, so that was a good choice and I crushed it. I even was trotting. Not jogging, not running, trotting. Like a great big horse. Thump, thump thump... 

Daylight Saving messes me up so very badly, I swear. 

Tomorrow, lunch with mom. We didn't go see her today. Just basically worked our asses off and ate dinner. 

So Excite. But hey. I did it with my sistew. And that's all that matters.

Here's a picture from Sunday lunch of us hanging out! Digits for two days below. 

Sunday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill early in the day, 31min/1.83mi; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 107
xpm: forgot to tak a reading
9:30pm: 150 

food & meds:
9am: jardiance+phentermine
mimosa morning
9:30am: small plate of scrambled eggs, sausage patty, slice of cheddar 
I forget if I took met+glip at some point. Didn't record it, won't say i did.
2pm: buffalo chicken salad
8pm: met+glip
trail mix from ronnie
white wine (a bit too much)

Monday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Short treadmill walk waiting for lunch delivery. 15 min/.78 mi; 8pm revisit, 22 min/1.25 mi. 10k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 139
5pm: 107
9:30pm: 167 (wanted to wait to test after 10pm but could not stay up... )

food & meds:
8am: jardiance+phentermine
8:30am: hotel bacon and one small egg and veggie "frittata"
1pm: buffalo chicken wrap (delivery from local pizza joint); met+glip
7:15pm: smothered steak tips (w/onions & peppers) broccoli, mashed potatoes, gravy; white wine
8pm: met+glip

Before 5am after Midnight

Woke up at 3am, per usual. Too early. Didn't have to pee. Made myself fall back asleep. 

Woke up at 4:10, also per usual. Had to pee. Decided to get up. I hit the bathroom, started the coffee, put the cookies in a container, unloaded the dishwasher, loaded and started the dishwasher. I wanted to be on the road by 5am but I sat down on the couch to finalize laptop loading and Toffee got all cuddly. 

I didn't have the heart to just boot her. So we had some time here, and I started this entry. 

Good morning. 

I was on the road at 5:15am, a brand new way to drive up this way that I've never gone. And it was beautiful and still very fall. Didn't run into nonsense until Connecticut (which, you know, how much I love). Made it to mom's at about 2:30. I tried to nap while Linda was on the way but there were leaf blowers going. 

We had dinner at the 99 with mom, and after she left we got into our hotel to hang out, listen to music, and we talked to our cousin Jimmy a lot. A lot. 

And I'm exhausted. Thankfully the clocks turn back tonight so we get an extra hour of sleep tonight because your girl is exhausted. 

More tomorrow.

Here is a picture of a cat that showed up at our front door and Geoff took this picture for me. Hi cat. And my breakfast. Digits below.

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours.  missed 9am. Managed to hit all the hours otherwise and the treadmill. 25 min/1.34 mi. 12k+ by midnight 

blood glucose:

4:30am: 149
4pm: 87
9pm: 120 

food & meds:

4:30am: jaridance + phentermine
8:30am: sausage, egg, cheese croissant at Wawa
11:30am: met+glip
1pm: 4 chicken mcnuggets
5:30pm: buffalo chicken fingers & cole slaw; white wine
8pm: met+glip
one chocolate chip cookie
white wine+diet cran

It's the Spoopiest Day of the Year

This morning, I hit the ground running with a small emergency accidentally caused by our developers on one of the products. They pushed a bunch of little code fixes, but one of the things in the package was our Daylight Saving code that changes all the calendars. 

Ha. 

Several direct emails and some angsty help desk tickets... I reached out to the team and one of them said "well, it'll correct itself Sunday." 

Oh honey no. Please roll this part back. 

But here's the thing, I'm not a product owner or the boss of them. I can point stuff out but I can't tell them what to do. So I had to wait for the director on that team to come online, and she usually starts at 9 or a little later ... thankfully she caught our slack conversation because I pinged her directly. 

It was all fixed before 9am. Before my boss even knew what was happening. He asked if we needed to do an announcement/alert and I told him that since it is fixed, I'm not a fan of letting people know after the fact. 

In the afternoon, another thing with this product broke and yes. That did require an announcement to alert all the clients. 

Do you know how hard it was for me to not make all kinds of monster, ghost, halloween references in the announcement? So hard. So. Very. Hard. I'm very disappointed in myself. 

After work, we got our bowl of candy ready to go, and Doug and I set up on our porch. We didn't do a bonfire, the wind was 20mph with gusts of 40+, so we thought better of it. 

We had about 30 kids come by, which I think was a goodly amount. I had hoped for more because we had enough candy for 3000.

Earlier today I discovered one of my bedroom bureau drawers is busted. Must have been a casualty of the move but because I have not even touched my clothing to start putting it away, I hadn't noticed. Fuck. Not sure what to do about it, but I can't do anything about it tonight, right? Moving along.

After Halloweeners were done, I packed a bag, and folded 9000 pounds of laundry. 

I talked to Linda for over an hour. Getting ready for my trip tomorrow. I remembered that I promised Geoff I'd bake cookies tonight and then there I was at 10pm mixing up a batch. 

All told a really great day even with the work shenanigans. Looking forward to my trip tomorrow. One last thing to do before bedtime and we are good to go. 

digits, below. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the Halloweeners, but this mom and her baby cracked me up.  Taken with mom's permission. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Quick walk before halloweeners came, 25 min/1.31 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 102
4:30pm: 107
11pm: 87 

food & meds:

8am: jaridance + phentermine
10:45am: english muffin w/pb & low sugar j
1pm: met+glip
3pm: roast beef & swiss on 647 bread
5:30pm: shrimp & alfredo sauce over a little bit of spaghetti; white wine
7:30pm: met+glip
11pm: 3 toll house cookies
more white wine