Food Processor

I have a food processor, it isn't a cuisinart or some high-end fancy machine. I bought it to help with Boy Scouts to slice peppers and onions for the annual big town bbq. It may be a Kenmore of all things?

I rarely use it. Mostly because in the last two houses, it was stored in cabinets that made it hard for me to get to the stupid thing. 

But here, it is super accessible. We have wonderful cabinets. I have drawers that are currently empty, that's how many cabinets we have.  Doug accidentally bought cabbage the other day instead of iceberg lettuce. He suggested we make corned beef and cabbage but no one has any corned beef for sale at the market right now. Naturally. Because. Irish thing. 

But I can make coleslaw. In between meetings, I got the machine out, and bonus fact - when we moved, I found the disk that I need to use to do shreddy dealies. I've been using a blade thing that chops things up but doesn't shred. 

Moving was awesome for me to find the things I need. And now I still need to find the things I need. Ha.

I also had a small bag of baby carrots that needed to be used, so ... in you go. I got a recipe for slaw dressing, it was a little more watery than I would have liked but, still tasty! 

Using the food processor was tons of fun. I'm easily entertained I guess. 

Doug and Geoff went to get our car from the shop, and I got that all made and happy. I expected Doug to return with a new propane tank but he forgot to take it with him. So okay. I can't grill the chicken I wanted to. That is okay. Geoff had a back-up plan, and we had the coleslaw to go with his backup plan. 

I took myself for a walk. Geoff had taken Toffee earlier in the day and Doug wasn't in the mood to go with. So, activate playlist and let's get out there. I extended my walk longer than I planned mostly because the Beastie Boys and Stevie Wonder encouraged me to loop another block. 

After dinner, Doug's mom called and it appears we are planning a mid-November journey up there to help with some things at the old house. There are a couple pieces of patio furniture I have always wanted, that she isn't moving to the new place and we've been hearing for years that she's just going to stick this really nice set at the end of the driveway. But now, we have a place for it. 

It may be me and Doug, it may be Geoff and Doug, but people are going. And Linda and I have been planning a trip up to our mom, so that will probably be November 1. 

Still figuring that out. Time to go visit the mamas.

And tomorrow, I'm going to go into the office. A colleague is visiting from away and I wanted to see her. I gamed out the trip, I could drive to the MARC train, which is almost an hour from here, and then take an almost 90 min. train ride, and then walk 3/4 of a mile to the office. i'd be looking at a 2.5 hour trip. I could drive all the way in, but our parking garage is under construction. So I'd have to street park and I don't know what that'll be like. And, it used to take way over an hour to get there from our house 12 miles away from the city. 

So I'm opting to ride to the nearest Metro station, which hopefully will be an hour drive, and then a 45 min. subway trip to my office stop. 

I sometimes question why we did this. I also could have planned better, gone to S&S's house and stayed the night but we didn't have our car back from the shop until late this afternoon. Wish me luck here, kids! 

So a good day with kitchen gadgets and a long walk. No picture, but digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  solo walk, 33 min/1.67 miles; 11k+ steps before bed

blood glucose:

7:45am: 105
4:30pm:127
10:30pm: 122

food & meds:

7:45am: jaridance + phentermine
8:15: 2 chocolate chip cookies w/coffee
11am: bowl of mac & cheese and hamburger
1pm: met+glip
6:30pm: 2 fish filets, some homemade coleslaw, some curly fries
8:30pm: met+glip
no wine/alcohol

Pocket full of Kryptonite

Ohhhhhh Cookies. How do I love thee. You are indeed my weakness.

Last night, I was bored and slightly drunk off 4 beers, and the ESPN stream stopped working. All of Sling TV stopped working. So I folded laundry. I baked cookies. 

And I didn't eat any cookies, Doug and Geoff did. I exercised self control. 

But this morning, your girl had no chill. Absolutely no chill.

Doug and I were both awake at about 4am for a while. Too early to get up and start the day, we both made ourselves go back to bed. I think he slept well, at least his soft snores were an indication that he was able to go back to sleep. 

I kind of fluctuated and fell asleep for a while, but I was cold, then hot, then cold... and Toffee was very close. I ended up getting out of bed before 7. 

I had to pee, after all. So that was a good enough time to get up. And there were cookies. 

There is nothing more lovely than dipping a chocolate chip cookie in a cup of coffee. Nothing. And I maybe had ... 3 to start with. More before noon. Had to convince myself to stop it for the sake of the blood sugar. 

I goofed off on my phone and checked Slack. There was a lot of action already at work so I slid into things. One of my colleagues is the support manager for a big project that just launched, and she's going on vacation tonight so I did a crash course on how to spot problems with content sent to the new platform. I love learning things, and also love learning things that actually click and make sense to me in the long run.

Around 3:30, things were quiet so I decided to go for a walk. Managed to pull a full half hour out and did some jogging, but not as much as yesterday. A good mile and a half plus. Knowing what routes are the best for me to do is important. 

Doug took Toffee for a walk and I made dinner. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Geoff has school so we're on the hook for our own dinner. The mini is in the shop (we can pick it up tomorrow) so I made do with what we had in the fridge. 

After dinner, around 7:30pm, I knew I was about 2k shy of 10k, so I told Doug I was headed out to walk to the end of the street and back. This is usually a goodly amount. I was a block away from the house and there was this massive streak of lightning followed by a tremendous burst of thunder. 

I ... jogged the rest of the way home. I was going to turn up the side street and come back down through the alley to throw in some more steps but nope. 

Doug was waiting on the porch for me, he heard the thunder and was wondering how far off I was, so he was relieved to see me hit the corner right before it started pouring. 

And that was it. It poured for a few minutes, no more thunder or lightning. Done. Huh. Funny that.

And that's about it. Not much else fun to mention. Just a super busy day. 

I think Friday afternoon we are both taking off. We have to get bloodwork done and because we moved far away from our doctor's office, it is a schlep to get to the lab. But we're gonna do it! And maybe come back and work. Maybe. 

Digits below! No pic today but I thought of taking one. Just didn't do it. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Solo walk (not as much jogging as yesterday but a little). 30 min/1.57 mi. Forgot to activate my fitbit tracker to count the walk at the end of the day, but that was about 12 minutes, less than half a mile. 10k+ steps by bedtime.

blood glucose:

7am: 94
5pm: 95 (had to check it 3 times to be sure, seemed wrong!)
11pm: 133

food & meds:

7am: jaridance + phentermine
7:30am through the morning... several chocolate chip cookies (so good) dipped in my coffee
12:15pm: Turkey & mayo on 647 bread; met+glip
vodka tonic (around 6pmish) 
7pm: nachos, chips, cheese, ground beef, guac, sour cream
8pm: met+glip, another cookie
gin & diet tonic

Don't Call It A Comeback

Work was very slow today because of a giant internet services outage. 

Someone posted on Threads "I am literally very shocked at the amount of companies that use AWS." I was thinking "uhhhhh, how could you be? AWS runs the entire freaking internet. Where have you been!" 

Whenever we move a service or product onto AWS I die a little bit inside. When one of my very favorite people on earth left our company to go work at AWS, well, I died a lot inside. 

Luckily, none of our client websites were down because of this. A few tertiary clients that we do work with haven't been able to update their websites since last night (if they updated them at all over the weekend). 

With that quiet comes the knowledge that I do have some project work I could do. I had zero meetings today, and no motivation to do things. I worked on mocking up a website for one of my clients, we're meeting tomorrow and I didn't do anything with the knowledge I had that he wanted to do a thing 2 weeks ago, and I answered helpdesk tickets. 

Around 3:30 I figured it was a good time to go for a walk.

 Geoff had taken Toffee for a walk already today and so I slipped out for a solo jaunt. 

I didn't play pokemon but listened to the gym playlist, and I even jogged a bit here and there. 

Don't call it a comeback, I guess. But here we go with trying our best to get back to where we were at the beginning of the summer. 

I wish my phone would let me record video while listening to music, because you would have (probably) been entertained by me jogging to LL Cool J's "Mama said knock you out," and singing along. 

Hilariously. 

I didn't plan on going the way I came, and only wanted to be out 20 or so minutes to get back to work but I did a bear left instead of a go straight. I came upon a cool stone house that we've driven past a bunch of times, and noticed on the stone wall outside it has a name, Graystone Manor. 

A quick google search returned a little bit of information about the history of the property. The info seems outdated by several years and I wonder what the current situation is of the property. It's funny because the sign says Gray Stone Manor, there's clearly a space there between the two words and it is GRAY here. But all the info on the internet is GREYSTONE. 

No wonder people have a hard time doing research on the web sometimes. 

Maybe I'll go by again and head further down the road to where the driveway is to try and see what the story is back there. 

I got home and worked a bit more. Doug decided to walk Toffee and nothing else was happening at work, so I went with. We went on a longer loop in the opposite direction that I went earlier, stopping to smell the smells and stare down the squirrels. 

After dinner, we were watching football and ESPN streaming went down. So Doug put on Toast of London, which we've watched through before and I don't enjoy. So I decided to bake cookies. 

Realized my cookie scoops are missing? Can't find them anywhere and I thought the kitchen was 100% accounted for but .... there is another box somewhere. 

Anyway. Chocolate chip cookies with pecans were the result of my boredom baking. I didn't eat any, may have had a wee bit of raw dough but. I'll have a cookie tomorrow. 

Digits below this picture of beer from sitting on the patio while Toffee ran after squirrels. Patio life in late October is so sweet. Especially after two walks. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Solo walk, did a little trotting as well. 20 min/1.13 miles. With Doug and Toffee, 30 min/1.34 mi. 12k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:15am: 108
5pm: 120
10:30pm: 148

food & meds:

7:15am: jaridance + phentermine
11:45am: bowl of tuna salad, no roll/bread
1:15pm: met+glip
6:30pm: kielbasa, pierogis, peas, beer
9:45pm: met+glip
2 more beers 

Getting Scrappy

Doug slept until 10:30am, must have needed it. He went down to the guest room somewhere between 5 and 5:30am. I was awake, then asleep, and then woke up and he was gone. Toffee usually follows whoever goes downstairs but she stayed with me. 

I rarely make it all the way through the night without needing to use the bathroom. Someday we'll have a bathroom up here and it will be nice, but, for now we slog downstairs. When I went to bed last night, my belly was expressing itself and singing the song of its people so I thought for sure I'd need to hit the head after 2am... That never happened. 

But at 7ish, I did need to pee. So Toffee and I went downstairs, I fed her, did my bathrooming whilst she ate, and let her out. It was warm but very windy. I sat on the patio for a while, barefoot, and came in when she was done with her shenanigans. 

Doug watched football and during the 1pm game, almost to the end, he suggested we go to the dog park. I was happy for that to do steps and get walkies in.When we got there, the only dog present was a great big huge brown lab mix. They seemed to get along really well at first, and I was very happy. 

Then, he tried to mount her. And she was having absolutely none of that and let him know. And it was kind of scary. 

They got snappy, bitey, and I have to admit it's the first time I've seen her really go at it. They both were fine - and the other owners were pretty cool, very apologetic. I said is it your apology or ours? because I think my dog could have handled that better maybe? So we were apologetic too. 

They ran and played and chased balls and another dog came, some sort of Doodle something, Her name is Pepper and she is super sweet. And all three of them had a grand old time together. After about an hour, Brown Dog left, another dog arrived and we were ready for more football, so we packed up. 

I told Doug we really need her collar or her harness to stay on. I know he likes for her to have all her mobility and not get overheated with the harness on, but. Note to self. Something to grab is very helpful. 

We got home and she passed out on the floor, just like the old Meg play dates, which, of course, makes me miss Meg. 

With the weather cooling off a bit, I thought it was time for a roast chicken. So Geoff went to the market while we were at the dog park, got all the fixin's and I got everything rolling. It started to storm, we were in a big thunderstorm line but it kind of went north, not due east. Still may catch some something. Tomorrow it will barely be 60 after this front comes all the way through. 

Cold for these parts! 

Work will be busy this week. Hoping Doug gets propane for the grill. He cleaned it on Saturday and I wanted to do some chicken breasts for salads but we're in need of that one important piece of grilling necessity. 

Digits below this cute rock I found in a garden last weekend and forgot to publish! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Technically, 3 walks. Fitbit detected me doing movement for a continuous period of time around the house today. 15 min/.37 mi. Walk to dog park, 13 min/.63 mi. Walk home, 16 min/.72 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:45am: 93
4:15pm: 123
10:30pm: 108

food & meds:
7:45am: jaridance + phentermine
11:30am: brekkie egg sammitch. English muffin, sausage pattie, egg, american cheese
2pm: met+glip
5pm: trail mix
6:30pm: roasted chicken w/mashed potatoes, carrots, stuffing, gravy
7pm: a little more trail mix
8:30pm: met+glip
vodka+diet tonic w/lemon

Olde Mother and the Squirrels

 Welcome to homeownership, amirite guys? 

We've owned this house for 5 weeks. The other day I was sitting here in the bedroom, the AC was off, the fan was off, and I was folding laundry. I heard the pitter patter of very fast feet. I thought to myself, huh... noisy little jerks running on my roof. 

We have squirrels. A LOT of squirrels. They love the black walnuts. 

Doug was outside this morning and came in to get me. He noticed that the attic little vent dealie at the top of the house was damaged, and he saw a squirrel go into it.

Well shit. Little jerk/s. Running IN my attic not ON my roof. 

I honestly think this is very very new, because there is no way the home inspector would have missed this. And we hadn't heard anything until I did the other day. It's the time of year when little fluffy things look for happy warm places to be, and unfortunately this guy or guys or guys and gals picked our attic. 

We had a bit of a disagreement about next steps. Because of course we did. 

Doug said he's going to borrow our neighbor's ladder and climb up and fix it. I said no you are not - that's a young man's game. You're going to call a professional to remove the squirrels and THEN they'll fix the dealie. 

If he goes up there, he'll "fix" the thingie and trap those little dudes or that one little dude in there - and then it'll run around for days losing its mind. And then it will die and then my house will stink, so no. 

Or he will plummet to his demise.

Nope no. Nuh uh. Nope. I'm going to call the pest inspector guy who did both our home inspections and ask for recommendations. He's super nice, and if he doesn't remove squirrels, he'll know someone who does. And then fix the vent dealie on the attic there, both ends of the house, and check on the chimney area too. 

Anyway.

Today we knew we had to go to a V store to return our modem/router. Service ended at the old house on the 21st of September and you've got 30 days to return the thing. 

Our new town does not have V as an internet option, so there are zero retail stores here. We had to drive to Frederick, about 25 miles away. 

Interstate 70 is really a pretty drive, and the leaves are turning, it is beautiful. Bright, Sunny, 75 degrees. Yes. We dropped the modem off and got a print receipt. Success! 

Then to downtown Frederick. There is a nice brewery in town that Doug & Geoff went to while I was out of town a couple years back. So he wanted to take me there.

 Olde Mother Brewing Company has been rocking downtown Frederick for 10 solid years. Gorgeous little tasting room and there's a burger joint attached but separate. I should have had a burger, but we just had beers. 

The beers were tremendous and super beer tenders were also super nice. We walked in and Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan was pumping over the speakers which made me want to make a big flourishy entrance of some sort. 

"Who is this, I don't recognize this song," Doug says to me. "Is this ABBA?"

Oh, honey no. It is not ABBA but I bet she'd love to know she was mistaken for them. 

We left our tab open and took a walk down the street a ways. Doug got distracted by an antique store, and when we walked out I told him I needed to pee, so we headed back to the brewery. 

On the way home, we took back roads. Stayed totally off the highway. It was a lovely drive (and, there was a Sheetz on the way and you know your girl had to pee again). 

Digits below some pictures, the roses are continuing to bud and the zinnias are going bananas!

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Two walks, one with Doug around Frederick (with a large stop at an antiques store), 17 min/.7 miles; Solo before dinner, 11 min/.56 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 128
n/a pm: x
10pm: 138

food & meds:
8am: jaridance + phentermine
11:30am: apple w/pb
12:45pm: met+glip
3pm: 3 beers at Olde Mother
6:30pm: very large bowl of bacon corn chowder a la geoff (had potatoes in it)
8:30pm: met+glip; ramekin of candied nuts

Oh Hooray it is FriYay

 

A short work week but it felt like a long one. Next week my boss is out Monday and Tuesday; and two other co-workers are out Wednesday through Friday. So it should be interesting. We just rolled out a new product that I don't support, but with both of them out it could be very busy. 

That's okay. I actually understand the product and can help people out. And I'm so proud of all the work they did - I have been super way on the periphery of it all. Sometimes it is like that. We have a lot of products, and I'm not in charge of them all. 

I had two client meetings today. One was to go over a problem a staffer was having with a product I support. She was doing things almost alright. But. There are things she could do better and I helped her out a lot. We also had a lot of laughs. I really love her - and that makes things fun. End of day, I trained a brand new client on that same product. I was happy to let them know they are probably the last people I'm training on this product in the state it is in. We're getting ready to launch a reboot/refresh of this product and they will be happy to see all the new things that are coming.

Two hours later.... 

They were also fun, and I really can't wait to see what they do with this tool. 

Around 5pm today, Toffee was napping with Doug, so I slipped out for a solo walk. Without her, I can walk faster so I pounded through 20 minutes for an exact mile. After dinner, I needed to do more steps so I went out again and took her with. She did pretty good. At night when there is no traffic I'll walk her in the streets and on the asphalt where she won't stop to sniff every three inches. I got back to the house and dropped her off, and went back out for another 10 minutes just by myself. I trotted a little bit, not a lot, but it felt like jogging.

So far, for the month of October, I've only missed 1 day of 10k steps. So I feel like I'm back in the game walking-wise. Goin' an gettin' it. 

Not sure what are plans are this weekend but I have a little bit of a list of things. Doug may have things he wants to do. And I do hope we get some things not at the house. We'll see what the days hold. 

Digits, below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 2 walks; solo 20 min/1 mile; with Toffee, 20 min/1.05 miles. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 94
5pm: 109
10:30pm: 155

food & meds:
9am: jaridance + phentermine
11am: apple w/pb
2pm: met+glip
5pm: atkins protein bar
6:30pm: creamy chicken stew w/tomatoes, black olives, onions, some sort of wontons? (thank you Geoff)
9pm: met+glip; bowl of fritos
vodka & zero sugar san pel. 

Recycling and Dog Park Day

The recycling and trash guys don't move in the same circles. Our trash is done with a truck that has arms. At 4:30am. Recycling guys come later in the day, and they do not have an arm truck.  

I had put our recycling and trash out last night. With the normal bottle/can/plastics recycling, the freaking giant blue bin was absolutely full. I packed in a couple crushed boxes, the 2 pizza boxes from last Thursday, and I collapsed as much cardboard into other cardboard so what looks like a box that used to be mac and cheese is really 201 other boxes smooshed in. 

I try to be as compact as possible. 

So I heard the truck coming down the road. I had also put out 2 large moving boxes full of packing paper. And I wanted to make sure that was okay. 

I have..... a lot more boxes. 

The dude was super sweet but slightly confused. He asked how much I had and if I wanted to bring it on out. Um. No not yet. I just .... wanted to make sure these two boxes I put next to the container were okay. 

He looked at me funny and said "oh yes ma'am. You're fine. You can put out all the boxes you want, just try to crush them down and put them inside each other." 

"Well, these ones are full of packing paper that needs recycled too, but yes. I'm the queen of box condensing." He laughed and picked up one of the boxes. 

His co-worker picked up the second and said "oh man, this makes me feel like I'm super strong!!!" He hoisted the box above his head and made grunting and struggling noises until he could lock his arms fully upright. Then he howled in victory. 

Walking to the truck he then made motions as if he was losing control of this giant heavy load. The first guy yelled "Oh no! I got you! I got you!" and they got to the back of the truck.

Hi-Fives all around. 

Who knew the recycling guys could be this much fun?

I swear I'm just seeing the beautiful side of people lately. It makes my heart fly. 

At about 4:30pm, we took Toffee to the dog park. It is getting darker earlier, and pretty soon 4:30pm is going to be dark o'clock. We talked about how we're going to possibly Dog Park in the dark and cold months. 

There were only two other dogs there, a big black lab mix named Beau who played hard, fast, rough, and awesomely with miss Toffee. And a big mutt named Buddy who just kind of chilled by his momma and watched, and then dragged his ass across the grass (but no! HE DOESN'T HAVE WORMS!!! IT JUST FEELS GOOD I GUESS! his owner said). 

After Beau left, Buddy followed, and there were no other dogs. We decided to walk home and get dinner started. Geoff was at class today, so it is on us to cook, and it was already 45 minutes past when Toffee gets dinner.

Doug has been to the dog park more than I have, and he has yet to see the same dogs and owners twice.Timing is everything, I guess. 

After dinner, in order to make sure I got all my steps for the day in, I went out and did another 15 minute walk just on the side street with sidewalks, from our corner to the end, turn around go back to the other end, turn around, head home, walk up to where the sidewalk ends... that's a solid walk. And it put me into the 10k mark before 8pm. 

The rest is gravy, as they say. 

So thankful tomorrow is Friday. Short weeks are nice but you have to pack 5 days of work into 4 and that can be a lot. 

No picture today but .... digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 3 walks, to and from the dog park with Toffee and Doug. 12 min/.52 miles; 15 min/.68 miles. Solo after dinner to hit the 10k mark, 15 min/.73 mi. 11k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 100
4:30pm: 138
10:45pm: 129

food & meds:
8:30am: jaridance + phentermine
11am: small bowl of mac & cheese and bacon
12:15: quesadilla w/bacon on 2 low-carb fajita wraps
2pm: met+glip
6:45pm: bowl of chili: beans, meat, tomatoes, shredded cheddar, sour cream, fritos
9pm: met+glip
sugar free san pel. w/vodka (2 glasses)

Sunbeam Dog and Daylight Saving Changes a Comin'

We had Toffee give up a couple good things to move here. Her window in the guest room where she'd sit on the bed and watch the back yard and side street, queen of all she did survey. And the mailman. She had to give up her lovely Dave and her daily treats. I miss Dave too. 

Around 3pm here, she gets whiny and pushy. I have to be careful if I'm in a meeting to go sit in a chair and not on the couch because she will get all up on me and it is not pretty. Some folks are entertained but it is utterly unprofessional. 

Our mailman in this town sometimes does not come until after 5pm, which is weird. And he does not have an affinity for Toffee, nor is he super friendly. 

But she gets something here that she never had at the old place. 

Our livingroom window faces south/west and in the afternoon, the sun begins to set, and she gets to sunbathe. Pitties love to lounge in the sun. And here, she doesn't even have to go outside. 

She "disappeared" this afternoon, and I got up, went to the kitchen for a glass of water and came back to find her just .... passed out on the floor. Okay then there, girlie. You enjoy that. 

Perhaps a new 3pm ritual? Until we jump back with the clocks in a couple weeks and she gets all confused. 

Geoff cooked dinner for us. He bought some pre-made burgers at Lidl and they were okay. He fried them in the frying pan because Doug said we shouldn't use our grill until he gets a chance to clean it. I would have preferred these grilled... but I'm not complaining. He also cooked some curly spicy fries, and those were very tasty. Luckily he did not cook the whole stinking bag or I would have over indulged. 

While he cooked, Doug and I took Toffee for a walk. 5:30pm seems to be a good time to go. But I knew our walk wasn't going to be enough steps for me to hit 10k, so I made myself go out after dinner. 6:45pm is a really good time to go out right now. The sun is setting, the lights are on in the big park, we're kind of on a hill that gives you a view to downtown steeples. Church bells ring in the distance during the 6pm hour. Seems to be a thing here. 

Doug started watching some BritBox cop show called No Offence which takes place in Manchester, England. It's pretty good. I think we are up to season 2 after just a couple days. Feels a lot like Law & Order without the courtroom stuff. 

Alrighty then. Check out the sunbeam dog. She blends with the floor too. Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. (my fitbit app says I missed 11am but the fitbit itself says I got it so. Ha.) two walks, pre-dinner with Doug & Toffee, 20 min/.93 miles; after dinner solo, 25min/1.2 miles; 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:15am: 111
4:30pm: 140
10:30pm: 101

food & meds:
8:15am: jaridance + phentermine
12:30pm: pb & low sugar j on 647 bread
2pm: met+glip
6pm: one cheeseburger, no bun, and some spicy curly fries
8:30pm: met+glip
no wine/alcohol

Starland

Fun fact about this area, we seem to have a lot of roller rinks! I've counted 3 in a very small area. 

One is actually in our neighborhood. 

I was out for a walk a couple weeks ago, and there is a pokemon stop (to get supplies, it's called a "spinner") about 2 blocks away and up the hill. I figured it was a church. Churches are often pokestops and gyms (where you battle other pokemon trainers), but this. This is a roller rink. They are open Tuesday nights for Family Night and weekends. 

After dinner, I was about 3,000 steps shy of 10k. Part of me said screw it, but ... another part of me said "you've hit 10k just about every day for a flippin' week. Go get it. I know that about 20 minutes is usually 2500 steps, and we did that before dinner, so I knew I had to hit 25 to 30 minutes to hit the goal. Feh. 

Off I went. No baseball game at the field so no night lights on. That's going to be dark all winter. I walked that direction, up the hill 2 blocks, turned right, turned right again, heard a lot of commotion over at the park where the dog park is, night time over there seems to be sketchy and wild. So I turned back toward our house, and then walked over to the roller rink. 

I could see the neon light from a long way off, so weird in the neighborhood like that. 

I took a picture, I wish my camera was better at night. I got this new phone a while back and Doug talked me out of the really nice one that I wanted, with the muchmuchmuch better camera. So ... I suffer. For my art. 

The road that divides the incorporated and unincorporated parts of my town runs right by the roller rink, and it was super dark, so I didn't walk to my street that way to pickup the sidewalk where it ends. I turned down the road that runs parallel to my street. Tons of Halloween decorations out, I hope our neighborhood is a lot of fun. In my heart I already miss all the kids at the old neighborhood. 

Anyway. Productive day at work today even though it was a Monday on a Tuesday vibe. My work bestie and I knocked two DNS changes out of the park and sent out email to two other clients to get them rolling with their changes. This is a project on top of the DNS project that I did starting this time last year and it took me until the beginning of this summer to finish. 

Geoff went to return our router to our former internet provider but didn't have our cancelation notice number, and I texted it to him but his phone didn't work inside their office so he came home. He's on school break this week, so he has idle time. I wonder if he'll try again tomorrow? I also notice he didn't deposit a check he had that he deliberately took with him to deposit. Our bank got bought by another bank, and the nearest physical offices are 20 min. one way and 30 min. the other so I think we're going to change banks. 

I hate changing banks. I hate going through all the ACH automatic transactions and accounting for everything. Sigh. 

Our new bank's website sucks, and we're supposed to be able to use our old username and password to log in but hell if that doesn't work. I may end up at the bank in person soon. 

Right then. Bedtime. Digits below this lame out of focus night shot of the building...

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 2 walks. One with Doug & Toffee, 20 min/.94 mi. Solo, 25 min/1.26 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime.

blood glucose:

7:30am: 140
5pm: 144
10pm: 110

food & meds:
7:30am: jaridance + phentermine
9am: atkins protein bar
12:45pm: met+glip
1:30pm: pb & low sugar j on 647 bread
6:30pm: piece of chicken parm
7:45pm: met+glip
small glass of wine to kill the bottle, mixed with diet ginger ale

The Williamsport that is not in Pennsylvania

Doug says to me at about 11:30am "Do you want to hear my plan?"

Of course I do. What would we like to do today. 

He suggests we head to Williamsport, walk along the C&O canal, walk about town, visit the brewery in town, and be home by 5. 

Sweet. Yes. Let's go. 

Unfortunately, right about then I started to feel rather sick to my stomach. Not sure why. I ate an English muffin, like ya do, at the time that you usually do. Maybe too much coffee? I don't know. But I thought I might throw up? 

I let him know I was feeling less than perfect but that wasn't going to stop our excursion. I just didn't want to overdo it. I felt like Homer Simpson did when he promised to take the kids to Duff Gardens and he wasn't going to let food poisoning stop him (mmmmmmm, sandwich). 

Williamsport, Hurrah! And if you know the Simpsons, you know what I'm talking about here.

Riding down the highway, I said "Isn't Williamsport in Pennsylvania? Where the Little League World Series is? Are we going to Pennsylvania? I didn't think the C&O canal went all the way up there." 

"Wrong Williamsport," he tells me. "That's very far away. But yes, that's where the Little League World Series is." 

And yes, it is far. 

From our house, the Maryland one is about a 15 minute drive if you use the highway, 20 minutes if you go non-highway. Not far at all. I had no idea it was there. 

It is right by the West Virginia border, naturally, since the Potomac River is the border and the C&O is the canal that helped everyone on earth get around the rocky and rough Potomac! We crossed the bridge on Rte 11 just to say hello to West Virginia, and turned around and came back to park. 

It was cool and windy, but nothing like the storm far to the east and north of us. Lots of bikers and a few hikers, some fishing, and no one out on their boats. We walked on both sides of the canal on the tow-path, and I sat a lot, feeling rather bloated and bubbly. 

Toffee had a lot of fun. So many things to sniff. 

Rte 11 over the Potomac, to WVA.

The Cushwa building, and yes, this is where the brewery gets its name

I've seen this name before on a bridge in Savage Mill, MD

We walked over to the welcome center which is closed due to the gubbmint shut down (both sides are to blame, don't come at me). Happily, I didn't have to use the bathroom or anything so we just walked about having the whole place to ourselves.

Doug wanted to go over to the Lock House, and technically it is an easy walk from where we were but he was merciful to me and my not feeling good. I opted to sit in the car and just rest a bit. There is a giant decommissioned power plant right there, and it is super cool and wicked spooky looking but my heart wasn't in it to poke about and take pictures. I listened to the Allman Brothers Band live from the Fillmore East.

So you know I didn't feel right if I didn't want to walk about and take pictures. 

Doug came back and our next stop was the Cushwa Brewing Company, which has a location in Colombia MD and over here in Williamsport. 

They share their space with pizza shop Rad Pies, so of course, let's have some pizza and beer. 

I have to say, I felt much better after a slice of Detroit Style pizza and a nice beer. The wall art for the pizza place is hilarious, and the pizza itself was fantastic. I'd honestly not had "Detroit Style" pizza but I have had Sicilian style. They're similar but different. The Detroit pizza seems to have this cheese crust additional to the Sicilian style, sauce on top, and yes. a light and fluffy dough for the pie. 

For years I've complained about being trapped in Pizza Jail here in Maryland. So far, this area's pizza is outstanding and wonderful, and Rad Pies has a rad pie. 

Wishing I felt better and had more than one slice. But I didn't want to tempt fate and over eat with how I was feeling. 

Have to say though, this did make me feel a bit better. 

Miss Toffee was welcome inside, which is good because it was kind of drizzly and damp out by the time we got there. Tons of people came over to pat her and tell her how wonderful she is. Like she doesn't know. She was exceptionally well behaved, compared to two summers ago when we first got her and she was an absolute nightmare out in public. 

And there were no other dogs there, which was helpful. 

Home, and a nap. Only I didn't sleep. Geoff made supper and I was in the guest room trying to rest. I wasn't bothered because honestly I couldn't imagine making dinner. We would have had toast for dinner if I was in charge. 

He made a nice baked ziti with meat sauce and garlic bread. I had a small bowl. 

All told, at the time of this writing I still feel sick but I had some alka seltzer and I'm ready for bed. Happy to have done something with 2/3 days of the weekend. 

Digits below my dog and the cool art on the recycling bin at the pizza parlor. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. a leisurely walk along the C&O canal and aqueduct, 32 min/1.34 miles. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 126
5pm: 144
10pm: 122

food & meds:
8:30am: jaridance + phentermine
11am: english muffin w/pb & zero sugar preserves
2pm:met+glip
3pm: slice of Detroit style pizza, 2 beers
6:30pm: baked ziti and a piece of garlic bread
9:15pm: met+glip