Barf

I finished work a little before 5 and Geoff had just fed Toffee. I set my laptop and lil'lap desk on the floor, she was on the couch beside me. 

And she barfed. 

Absolutely puked up the dinner she just ate. And it is so weird, it's just a cup of dog food but it seemed like 8 cups of dog food. And of course it stinks. So gross. 

I try to get her off the couch, but she starts eating her own barf. Naturally. Like dogs do. 

And well. 

I let her. I let her eat her dog barf because it was mostly pretty freshly eaten food. If I just sent her out, without letting her "take seconds" I wasn't about to feed her another cup so she could do it again. 

Geoff was kind of laughing and said "well that's a problem solving itself." 

Note, she has not puked again so I hope none of that will come back to haunt me. Doug told me that the Bible talks about dogs returning to their vomit and I just stared at him. I do not remember any of that in the Bible. 

He said "yeah, like a dog returns to its vomit a fool does the same thing over and over. You should look it up. It is great sermon fodder for someone to make someone feel super guilty about their sins." For the record, I did look it up. 

File that under "Today I Learned" or TIL like the kids say. Here, you can read it too if you want. 

Today was busy. 

First thing, super early, video meeting with one of the devs. They're oversea so by the time we're online, they're basically done for the day. I agreed to meet with this guy because he wsa confused about something. Glad we met. He then asked me two or three other questions, and we figured some stuff out together. 

My boss and I had our weekly 1:1, and he had made a discovery about a function in the product that is not doing what it says it is supposed to do, and, is not doing what the old product used to do, and it is something people are going to notice and freak out over. So he demoed it for me, we made a recording of it to give the devs. We'll skip doing that in our training until it is fixed! 

I went to do a treadmill walk after the aforementioned dog puked, and after I cleaned it up, and after I used the upholstery shampoo machine (which now I need to clean and put away but I don't feel like dealing with that now). 

My ear buds wouldn't connect to my phone, because the laptop would not relinquish control of them and I didn't want to shut her down. I knew I'd becoming back to do more work. Jerk. 

 I was already ON the treadmill so I did not want to start over. I decided to attach to the portable speaker, which was great for part of a song before the speaker died. Doug had used it, and didn't put it back on a charger. 

He may know scripture but I know (in fact, I may be obsessed) to put shit on the charger when you're done using it if you LOOK at the battery level and it is RED.

Harumph. 

...then, I realized I didn't start my fitbit to tracking the walk. I'd been on the treadmill for a few minutes, and didn't want to stop and reset so I just walked until the fitbit said 20 minutes. 

I worked late catching up on tickets, and organizing some complaints to take to the dev team. Work son is going to put those in the dev ticketing board. We had a nice meeting to go over some of the reports and see what the haps were. 

Tomorrow! busy day. We have our first training with actual live human clients. My boss and I will be doing it together. There's 90 minutes on the books and our solo training that we did without human students was 40 minutes. I think we'll need 60 for sure. Not sure they'll be asking 40 minutes worth of questions. 

I'm looking forward to it. Feeling prepared and ready, except for bugs we keep discovering or getting reported to us. It's a good thing our developers are super responsive. They're kicking ass. 

Alright. Bedtime. Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill run, 20 min on the fitbit, 1.2 mi. probably more like 23 min, 1.4 mi.  but who's counting. I don't have to track things accurately anymore now that the challenge is over. 10+ steps by bedtime.

blood glucose:

7:15am: 113
5pm: 108
10:30pm: 167

food & meds:

7:15am: jardiance+phentermine
10:30am: english muffin w/pb and zero sugar j
2pm: greek yogurt+crushed granola bar; met+glip
6pm: pasta fra diavlo w/chicken a la Geoff. met+glip
8:30pm: ramekin mixed nuts
no alcohol

Frosty but a 5k

After I published the entry last night, Doug noted we were under a freeze warning, not a frost advisory, but an actual holy shit ... freeze. 

Oy. Our plants. Farmer Chris' plants. We set to bringing them in. They're all doing so well, he and I were both actually concerned with the possibility of things dying. The pansies are frost tolerant, they would have done okay. But still. We didn't want to lose them. 

He said we didn't make a mistake and go too early with the plants, news about the local weather said this is literally an unheard of thing at this time of year. 

And tomorrow it'll be 80 again. 

So all the plants stayed indoors last night. Geoff was very confused because he had no idea this happened. This is what happens if you go to bed before mom and dad.

It was indeed very cold last night. Upstairs was chilly, so the blankets I put away were trotted back out. And they'll go back today because now it is hot up there again. 

I woke up around 3am and went downstairs. Big blankets down there. Cozy and curled up with Toffee, I slept incredibly well. So well that I turned off my alarm and slept until almost 9:30am. Oooops. 

After the morning meetings and a website launch that didn't exactly go well, I needed a break. I watered all the plants that were inside and I took them back out, except the giant ones.

 Doug has to lift those up. They are still in the living room. 

Everyone else went back where they belong. 

Work was insanely busy after that, as we are starting to get user feedback from people beyond our initial test clients. I answered more helpdesk tickets today than I have in a year. 

Doug also had a very busy work day. He worked until almost 8 when I finished at 6. I got on the treadmill and decided instead of music I'd watch this video podcast of Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, with him interviewing Griffin McElroy. It was delightful. And I was about 30 or so minutes into it and realized I could just keep going, and do a 5k. 

So I did. 

I probably could have gone faster with music, as was I tried to keep to 14 min or under, and that didn't work, so I just did it. 

I had signed up for a virtual 5k for a fundraiser and the 25th is the deadline, so I'm glad I got this checked off. 

Another fun day tomorrow, I have a 9 am meeting with one of the devs in Europe because that's their 4pm. I have another meeting at 4:30pm with the work son to go over the reports of bugs and things from the clients. 

Wish me luck! 

Here are some plants. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill run, 5k, 3.11 mi/45 min. 12k+ steps by bedtime 

blood glucose:

9:30am: 154
4:45pm: 80
10:30pm: 124

food & meds:

9:30am: jardiance+phentermine
protein shake mixed with coffee through the morning
1:15pm: ramekin of tuna salad w/celery; Met+glip
4:45pm: ritz crackers and pb 
7pm: chicken parm
8pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Videos

We had a lot of meetings today. Our first official in person training is Thursday. After my boss and I made a full training video Friday, I decided I'd start in on making individual step videos like "how to do this thing," "how to do it if you're pulling stuff in from others," "how to import and export in bulk..." etc. Stuff. 5 - 10 min. max for each training instead of the hour presentation we made that covers almost everything. 

I made two of them, went to make a third and got an error message letting me know I had insufficient privileges to do the thing.  Ohhhhhhhhh no. No I do not. And that can't happen when we do our in person training on Thursday.  

Sigh. 

Well 2 done so far is pretty good. Waiting for some feedback from my boss and my work son. Thing is, we do not have the ability to edit the videos, so if I flub or I don't do something perfectly, I either just have to deal with it or re-record it. 

My boss told me not to be so self critical because when doing things in person, we always say something not quite perfectly and we survive, and our trainees survive, and they get it. Just feel the same is happening with the video and we'll be okay. 

I really have to get my office set up downstairs but I want it to be full of all my cool shit and posters set up. Not just concrete walls behind me. 

Anyway. 

It was so cold today. Temp was about 40 but the wind was brutal. Doug thought about taking Toffee for a walk while I was doing my recordings, but he changed his mind and went to the treadmill. Geoff took her for a short one around the block after dinner. 

I did get to the treadmill and thought about going longer than the 20 minutes I did, but I wanted to get back to doing more work. 

Have to say, there are times I feel like I have nothing to do, or I could be doing more, and then there are times where I literally am doing it all because I absolutely want to. Those are the times I feel best about my job. 

No picture today. Just busy! so busy. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  treadmill run, 20 min/1.5 mi; another treadmill trip for just steps, 18 min/.75 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7am: 126
5pm: 134
11pm: 140

food & meds:

7am: jardiance+phentermine
12:30pm: roast beef+cheddar on 647 italian bread; met+glip
4pm: protein shake
7:30pm: homemade lo mein with shrimp & beef
8pm: met+glip
9:15pm: small ramekin of mixed nuts
no alcohol

Passporting and Officeing

I mentioned yesterday that Doug realized our passport cards expire soon, and he wanted for us to renew them. We got passport cards 10 years ago when we went to Canada for our 25th anniversary. We didn't want to pay for full passport books at the time, since all we were planning to do was go across the border by car to visit Canada at any given time. 

Now we're getting the full books. Why not. 

One of the things I noted was the 10 years ago photo of me doesn't look like me anymore, and in 10 years when I'm about to be 70, I'll look even more different still. Funny that. There's a whole lot less face anymore. Also...bangs.

Part of the application instructions were to blah blah blah do this do that and staple this thing to that thing. 

Oh. 

Right. 

Stapler. 

Somewhere in a box, somewhere in the basement where I'm supposed to be setting up my office. sigh. Okay. I've dragged my feet on this because I'm nothing if not perfectly comfortable sitting on the couch, with the dog tucked in under my lap desk, and I can get all my work done on one screen. I don't need the Air Traffic Controller setup with multi screens and a rising standing desk. 

This is fine. 

I went downstairs and started rifling through boxes. Carefully, not like a feral animal looking for a snack. If I didn't find the stapler, I closed the box up, set it aside, moved onto the next. 

Doug found one in a box marked "mom office - unpack. downstairs" which was perfectly accurate. And he stapled things and did what needed done. 

But then I went down and continued to move boxes around and look at things. 

I do have to get things set up, because I'm going to be doing this product training, and want a good quiet away from everyone space. I hope the internet reaches down here, or it may be a problem. 

Toffee is going to be confused when I am down there because she won't be able to tuck in and snore. When I sit at the dining table for a change of scenery, she gets sad and sits on my feet sighing. 

I need to get an office chair (Doug needs one too) so we found a used office furniture store over by the mall. I also want to get more bookcases to put my office knickknacks on. I am going to get some Guster stuff framed. I have a table that needs to be brought downstairs and set up. 

It's time. Time to get myself a grown up professional looking office space after 5 years+ on the couch. Gonna be a truly badass sweet space for your girl. 

Aside from that, today was about doing a treadmill trip. Just because the 100 mile challenge ended doesn't mean I've ended things. That was my count as of last night's official last day. 520 miles according to their tool. 

Which is interesting. The app connects to the user's fitbit. And most days 10k+ steps is just under 5 miles. I pretty much always hit 11k steps, sometimes 12, 13, 14 (tracked at the bottom of every entry in the Digits section). 

So. I think that the tool tracked my overall steps every day, but, you were supposed to track/check your actual "exercise" miles and I also set the fitbit to measure walks and runs, and would total between 1-2 or so miles a day. 

I'm feeling like this is off-ish? to count the overall steps of a day isn't really logging your mile/s. 

Anyway, no matter what, I know I beat the 100 miles in 100 days with the measured exercise miles, and this 520 is reasonable for the steps for the period. I'm not complaining. My one big complaint about this challenge is people who did biking and/or walking. Their measurements are in the thousands because you can super easily bike 10 to 20 miles a damn day if you want on an exercise bike, vs. people who walked/ran. I feel like it woul be more honest to put those in 2 different counters. 

Who cares, really. It isn't like I got paid for this or won something big/impressive. I did it just to do it. And continue to do it. 

I'm also on like day 200 of 10k+ steps on the fitbit. I noticed in September when we were packing/moving/cleaning etc that I was consistently hitting the 10k mark, so I decided to just stick with it and do it. I kind of feel like I'll be mad at myself if I drop under 10k... when did I get so self-competitive? ha. 

I talked to my sister for two whole freakin' hours tonight and it felt like zoom ,,,,, time just flew. I made a really good potato salad to go with Geoff's burger grillings. Doug took Toffee for a walk but I was busy doing food things. I ended up still going out even though I did the treadmill because I needed a pokemon walk. 

So tired now. Digits below what my current office situation looks like!

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill, 30 min/1.5 mi; pokemon outside walk, 15 min/.6 mi. 13k+ steps by bedtime. 

blood glucose:

8am: 93
4:15pm: 105
10:30pm: 121

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
10:15am: slice of multigrain seeded bread w/ pb
1pm: turkey sandwich on italian 647 bread; met+glip
5:30pm: one cheeseburger and a bunch of potato salad (w/bacon and hard boiled egg!) 
6pm: met+glip
9pm: popcorn
wine+diet ginger ale 

Thousand Miles from Nowhere

Today was a busy day for team us. 

This morning, I went to the gathering of the 100 mile challenge folks with the Parks & Rec. Got to meet my online friend, who it turns out is literally friends with everyone. She knows EVERYone in town. And her 5 year old son is the cutest, sweetest, most lovely thing.  

I met a guy who has a crepe food truck. There were whole groups of people from churches that did the challenge together. 

We all got raffle tickets for a prize drawing. I never win these things but it was fun to see a really small girl who had her ticket pulled and she got tickets for 4 people to go tubing in Harpers Ferry. Her older sister was extra thrilled. And, my ticket was 602. She wsa 601. So close! 

It was all very sweet. 

When I got home, Doug was filling out his passport renewal because our passport cards expire any minute now. We've been talking about doing this, so he suddenly remembered that we should. So he was doing his and I went to start mine and the travel dot gov website crashed. 

Nice. 

We still went to get our passport photos taken. And then we went for a drive. 

We ended up heading north towards Greencastle, where we turned right previously. This time we turned left. We were just cruising along listening to music, Dwight Yoakam was singing about being a thousand miles from nowhere, and it felt like it. 

There was a garage sale on one of the roads and Doug was curious enough to turn around and go back. Not a lot of stuff, but we did buy a tiered table for plants for the porch and a wacky metal sun to go with his wacky metal salamander that he got a couple years ago. The man had a ton of concrete garden dog figurines. Ton. Like 30 of them, mostly in epic bad condition. I thought about this one little black one, it looked like iron, and was missing an eye. 

This little 3 legged guy looks like he just needs a paint job. 

The man doing the garage sale was big, and old, and was missing two fingers. 

I didn't ask, but I bet there is a hell of a story. 

His neighbors have cows, and the cows come over to his fence in the afternoon for the shade and the fact he gives them treats. So I got to say hi to some cows. 

We left the treasures but he told us we should be sure to visit the Mason Dixon Flea Market. He used to go there. It's hard to get all his stuff loaded up and set up. His wife used to do it with him, and she's not able to walk anymore. 

He told me their life story and situation. It made me sad, so I'm happy we bought things from him. Ten bucks total. Back in the car, we drove more, and tried to drive to Whitetail Ski Resort, thinking there may be a road up there, but, we were on the wrong side of the mountain approach. We now know how to get there by going the wrong route. Kind of fun. The mountains were gorgeous, the trees are coming to life. This will be a lovely thing to come see in October. I got home and did some reading and the resort is on Two Top Mountain in the Bear Pond Range, which is part of the Appalachian range straddling Maryland and Pennsylvania. 

We started heading south, and were hungry and thirsty. We ended up at a foodrinkery we love in downtown, had a great meal and some beers. 

Both of us got home with ambitions which were thwarted by naps. I have not taken an actual nap in the middle of the day in forever. Felt good. 

Geoff made some sort of chicken dish with a buerre blanc sauce "ish" except no shallots were involved. He got a nice reduction on it, and the chicken was pretty good. He made way too much of it though, could feed a party of 10. But sauce enough for 2. 

That's it. That's the day. I think it is going to pour all day tomorrow. We need it. We went by a creek, almost bone dry. 

Digits below! Moo.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Last mile with the 100 mile challenge (really worked out to 1.17 miles so now I question my fitbit distance). 11k+ steps by bed

blood glucose:

7am: 126
4:15pm: 137
11pm: 117

food & meds:

7am: jardiance+phentermine
11:15: english muffin w/pb. Met+glip
2:30pm: 8 buffalo wings, 3 beers
7pm: chicken dish from geoff
9pm: met+glip (forgot to take closer to dinner. oops)

The Last Cookie

The other day I baked the oatmeal cookies, and they were a big hit. Geoff normally doesn't eat oatmeal cookies, but I saw him chowing down on a couple. This made me happy.

Invariably, when I bake cookies or muffins, no one eats the last one. It is hilarious. Kind of like a "I shouldn't because what if someone wants that last one..." 

So today I ate the last cookie. And I'm proud of it. 

The same thing used to happen when I worked at "Awesome," remember that place? There would be 5-10 people on a shift, Mama Jo would put out snacks and treats and always, always, there would just be one left. Because kindness. 

Eating the last cookie today meant that I could put away the cooling racks and all that, and tidy up the counter. So I did myself a favor. 

It was a great day at work, after 2 weeks of obstacles my boss and I recorded the first training video for the new product we're rolling out. Our action plan is to offer help documentation, this video (which will probably be re-recorded once a couple back-end bugs get worked out, and small videos on each topic. 60-90 second illustrations of how to do the thing. I'll probably just whip those out maybe even this weekend while the experience of what we need is fresh on my mind. 

After the epic monstross of a day yesterday, today felt great. 

I put myself on the treadmill at 5 and a run for about 2 miles. Then after dinner, Doug suggested a walk. So we took the dog, and it was a leisurely walk, but 2 miles! 

While I was doing the run, I remembered I signed up for a virtual 5k that I have until the 25th to complete. I should have just done it today and kept going but then I would not have wanted (I don't think) to take the after dinner walk. 

Tomorrow is the last day for the 100 miles in 100 days challenge. There is a gathering in the morning for people who participated to come together and do that last mile together. How cute. 

I believe I will get to meet the woman I became friends with in the "accountability" group that 1000 people were in, and only like 5 people actively participated in it. She and I were 2 of the actives. Baby's first "friend" in town! 

Doug and I thought of going to Richmond this weekend, and he though of going to New Jersey for some RV show to look at vehicles and trailers and such. 

He then realized that would be a more than 4 hour trip, which would probably be a 5+ hour trip with how traffic works. He gave himself permission to call an "audible meh" on both ideas. I kind of feel like we should go see my cousin, but maybe we can make that happen next weekend. It isn't a day trip - you gotta stay overnight to make it worth the going. 

We'll see. 

No pictures today. I realized I've been taking a LOT of pictures in the form of screenshots for the product. I can't share those though. 

Digits below! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Two perambulations. One on the treadmill, 30 min/2.09 mi; then walk with the dog and the doug, 45 min/2 miles. 14k+ steps by bedtime 

blood glucose:

6:30am: 112
4:15pm: 123
10pm: 194

food & meds:

6:30am: jardiance+phentermine
7:30am: oikos zero yogurt (mixed berry) w/crushed granola bar
noon: met+glip, BLT salad
1:45pm: the last oatmeal cookie
6pm: bowl of baked ziti w/hamburger and mushrooms, a la Geoff
7pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Linda on the Metro

As promised, I went to the office. Please be proud of me. 

I set an alarm for 5:30, but woke up right before the alarm went off. Lately, that's been my superpower. I was up, showered, dressed, and out the door by 6:15. Yeti full of coffee, tank of gas is all set, Waze running, and here we go. 

Sunrise was lovely ("sun's up, mmm hmmm, looks okay. world survives into another day." That's a call back to the post from the other day about songs that take you places). 

Traffic was pretty merciful until I got almost 2/3 of the way to the Shady Grove metro station. Then the GPS brought me into the kiss & ride and not to the actual parking place so I was a little discombobulated. I figured my way out and around and into the actual parking lot. 

Whew. 

I managed to arrive at the office by 8:30am, which is probably record time from this location. Just over 2 hours. Wow. 

Walking from the metro to the office, there were so many dogs. So. Many. Dogs. And I absolutely loved seeing them. I miss that aspect of my office trips.

We had scrum, and there were issues with the roll for the access to the test version of the new product. Tons of tickets were flowing in, my colleagues who do first tier support were short a person so I was willing to step in. 

Except.

My work wife and her new bae were coming to the office. And I didn't want to have my visit with them ruined by, I don't know... work. They arrived a little after 10, and I did slip away for coffee and socialization. Mandatory.

Oh and on top of it all, a part of this product and the product it is replacing relies on iTunes, and well, it was down. Completely. 

Lots of helpdesk tickets continued to flow in, on many fronts. 

But I was so happy that I got to have some time with the New Bae while the work wife went and picked up her new laptop and all. I like them! Work wife texted me tonight to ask what I thought, and I approved, and told her I look forward to our next visit. Which makes her very happy.

At about 4pm, I left the office. Walking back to the metro there were more dogs. I miss all the dogs. I took the long route to the station, just to see more dogs. 

If I wasn't so tired, I would have slipped into my very favorite brewery to have a pint and get some take away but ugh. I just wanted to go home after all the chaos and the tickets and everything. 

On the metro, I had an empty seat beside me and a sharply dressed older woman with a shopping bag and her cane slipped right in and saw it. I gestured to it for her and her smile brightened. 

"I saved this seat for you," I told her.

"So thankful!" she replied, and gently tapped me on the thigh a few times. "I slipped into town just to go to the Phillips today, and of course, I couldn't resist buying something!" 

"Well, you gotta treat yourself sometimes." 

She asked me how far I was going and I told her to the end. She told me she was headed to the Strathmore in Bethesda to see the Baltimore Symphony tonight. She loves to go there and see shows. I told her how I saw Black Violin and Amythyst Kiah there. She was very interested in both, and got her phone out to take notes. I typed out Amythyst's name, and Rhiannon Giddens and "our native daughters" for her and she said she would look into them and keep an eye out for DC dates. 

She told me she was 87, and that she feels like she's in far better cognitive and physical health than our current president. She looked at me and said "oh I hope I'm not offending you by saying that." 

"No, for sure, you are way more spry and on the ball. I believe that!" 

She told me next month she and a friend are going to Venice for a week. She's been there several times over the last 20 years, and she rents this lovely little apartment for them with a balcony and a water view. There's a museum or two they love to slip into and visit, "but we don't overdo it, the tourist thing. I get tired." 

I told her that it sounded lovely, and I bet there's a good cafe close by this apartment for ... tea or coffee.

"Or..." she looked at me through her eyebrows, "wine?" 

"I wasn't going to assume, we just met, but yes. Wine." 

And she laughed heartily. 

Wine indeed. 

I noticed when I was helping her with her phone that her name is Linda. That made me smile. 87 year old Linda, slipping into the city to a museum and a gifty poo for herself, off to the symphony, living her best life and looking forward to her wine in Venice. 

And I'll probably never see her again. And she made me think of my Linda and her wine. And our mom who doesn't leave the house and travel and go anywhere. May we be like Linda on the Metro, and be our adventurous selves in 28 years.

The drive home took longer. There was an accident on the highway heading south, which had traffic backed up for 10 miles by my estimation, and I was exceptionally thankful it wasn't on my side. But, everyone was rubbernecking the 6 cars, the ambulances and fire trucks, so we were at a snail's pace heading north. 

I hope everyone is okay. 

Once I got home, Geoff had dinner basically made, more carbs than I wanted but I didn't have to cook so I was thankful for that. I watered the plants, so Farmer Chris had some time to stretch and walk about and dead head pansies and enjoy the porch for a bit. 

I didn't take any pictures today, dogs or otherwise, work wife and bae. Just very happy that I went in, and made it home. 

My work wife and I talked about being there, in the building, and "do you believe we used to do this every day? Come in here? All the way from our houses?" Well, my old house was so much closer to the office but, I can't imagine going in there even one day a week. I'd have to stay with my friend S the night before on the regular if I had to do it. 

Foof. 

Can't wait to go to bed. Digits. Below. 

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours. Missed 5pm for being in the car.  Walking around DC, 1.18 miles/22 min total combined. 12k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

5:30am: 151
7pm: 90
11pm: 120

food & meds:

5:30am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30am: oatmeal cookie w/raisins that my bestie made
1pm: lunch at the office! wonderful piece of peruvian grilled chicken thigh, arugula salad w/strawberries; met+glip
5:30pm: Protein shake
7:15pm: bowl of dirty rice & grilled chicken. Met+glip
9pm: 2 oatmeal cookies
vodka tonics (3?) 

Cookie Day

I woke up around 4:30am and had to pee, so I did the usual. 

Went downstairs, did my thing, and got in the guest bed. I saw I had email and my friend Matt who asked me to proofread his latest book draft, so I was thrilled and said yes. Emailed him back at 4:30am, like you do. 

He emailed me back about 1/2 hour later. Which I guess is what people in their 50s do. They wake up in the middle of the night and get business done. 

So I have a fresh manuscript to read, fit that in between all the other things. The help documentation, the training, the product release. And I'm happy to do that to be honest because I have to do something different with my brain once in a while. 

Toffee came downstairs and found me around 7. We snuggled for a bit, I like that she isn't all "hey get up, hey get up lady, hey. hey. hey lady..." and is willing to have some half awake snuggling. Of course I did have to pee, so we did get up and we did our things. 

It was gorgeous out this morning, but a little wet from the rain that actually did come through last night. My patio furniture was sopping wet, so I couldn't sit out back, and the benches for the redwood table weren't pushed under the table, so they were wet too. Had to retreat back inside. 

I decided I wanted to make oatmeal cookies. For some reason, we have two giant containers and we don't need two giant containers. I should really make some granola, but, cookies sounded nice.

We had a webinar at 10am, so I put my laptop on top of the coffeemaker, and set to mixing. One of the things I like to so is add some milk in with the oatmeal and leave it soak for about an hour before mixing in the rest of things. So I did that around 9:30, and then during the webinar I finished up the full mixing, and got things in the oven. By the time that happened, I realized it was after 11 and I'd missed my 10am steps. Oops. But that's okay, I knew I'd make it up. Some hours are like that. I got over 600 in the 9am hour, it's all balance.

I paid my mom's taxes for her online, and let her know yesterday I was going to. She called today to make sure I did. Of course. I'm so untrustworthy. C'mon lady. Who are we talking about here!

Then I had two good meetings about the training sessions we're doing tomorrow and the documentation we just published. We have to go back and adjust a few things but overall, things are looking splendid. 

I took a break at 4:45, and went to the treadmill. It was pretty brutally hot out so I was happy to do my walk/run inside. Doug took Toffee for a walk and he was not out there very long. I was surprised he came back so fast, but not really.

And I am indeed going to the office tomorrow. 

If my brain and body do weird things to me like they did this morning, I should be leaving so early it's not funny. I was wide awake around 5, and thought "jeeesh, if this was tomorrow I could get in the shower right now and be gone by 6." Let's see how things go. 

No picture today but I did water all the flowers and everyone is feeling the heat! I'll have Doug take care of things tomorrow in my absence. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 10/12 hours. Missed 10am by a few steps because I was mixing cookie dough. Missed 8pm by 5 steps because i was not paying attention to the time. Treadmill 30 min/2 miles. Initially planned on 15 but the playlist was a bop. 10k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:30am: 122
5pm: 116
10:30pm: 192* (one finger stick was 192, another was 130. because they are so wildly different, I'll record the high one here and see what is happening in the morning) 

food & meds:

7:30am: jardiance+phentermine
9:45am: 2 cookies from Aldi, protein shake (mixed in the coffee)
12:15pm: last of the fajita chicken salad
1pm: oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, met+glip
5pm: oatmeal cookie w/o chocolate chips (I made an assortment)
6pm: pork loin w/peas and some pierogis. 
7pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Bees

When I was out on the patio a few times this last week some bees started harassing me. I looked everywhere for a nest starting, up in the rafters of the porch, out around the exterior edges. We have a lot of carpenter bees, but mostly they are hanging out around the carport. 

This morning I was out having coffee and enjoying porch life with my new plants and my dog, and I watched a bee go up under the patio table, and into a wee little hole under one of the legs. 

I watched another bee go up under one of the seats, and do the same thing. 

You little jerks. 

Tiny little holes in the bottoms of metal furniture is not a smart place to go building your nests, friends. 

So now, well. I don't think these are honey bees in any way, and they are smaller than yellow jackets, but they gotta go. They're getting evicted. 

I believe we'll have to wage some war. 

It was hot today. I've been comfortable just hanging in the living room with the ceiling fan going but upstairs has gotten untenable. Doug and I need to put the AC in our bedroom window. There is only one very small vent up here, thankfully it is in the area. that our bed is in, so the winter was comfortable. I prefer it cold anyway... and the window AC unit is just to help this overall area, reach over to where Doug's desk is. Having 4 kids up here as the last family did, that window unit was essential. I'm glad they left it behind. 

Doug came downstairs and invoked Cool Zone, closed all the windows, fired up the AC. It was downright chilly downstairs in the afternoon, I must say. 

I had a late meeting with my boss, and then we had a 3pm Team check-in which was good. After that my brain was a little fried. I needed to work on more help articles but did one and opted to regroup tomorrow. 

Toffee had her dinner and Doug was still working a project so I took her on a solo walk. It was hot as balls out there, humid, high 80s. Feh. We did our mile and a skootch more and I brought her back. 

Because I haven't been doing a lot of extra steps per hour, I took myself out for a second walk a couple hours later. The 100 miles in 100 days challenge comes to an end this weekend, and I realized today I'll surpass 500 miles. There are some people who are way up into 1000+ but they are also cycling, so I feel like that shouldn't count. But. Good on them. 

And good on me. 

The neighbor I met who is also doing this is at 775 miles and she thinks she can hit 800. If she runs in the morning and the afternoon. She also realized how it's hot and that sucks. So she isn't sure she'll accomplish it. I told her that I believe in her. Come use my treadmill if you want!

Today's two walks got me to almost 2.5, not quite. If it hadn't started storming on walk number 2 I would have kept going. 

This has been a fun challenge, I've enjoyed it. I also didn't push myself so hard that it was no fun as a result. I'll miss logging the tracker. My fitbit counts the steps for the day, so I usually end up with 4-5 miles a day but this challenge is to measure actual exercise, not the overall steps. So I may have 11k steps which is about 5 miles, but we measure the timed walk/run and not the whole day. That's why I put down the overall steps plus the walks/distance/times. 

Maybe I'll do that on a google sheet for myself or something. 

Like I need another hobby.

We had our first big huge thunderstorm tonight. It started up when I was walking Toffee and looking to the south, it was super stormy. No real lightning but a ton of thunder. Then when I did walk 2, I went up by the ballpark, the field lights looked so cool against the black sky, and the way they lit up the trees was just amazing. Then the lightning came, the low clouds to the north beyond the field were etched and edged with the flashes. I turned to head home to beat it back to the house. 

The back porch was lovely, sitting and watching the lightning, and then there were fireworks at the ballpark. I was thinking to myself I'd get the hell out of there instead of shoot off fireworks! 

Linda and I were chatting and the storm just came barrel assing in. I had to go chase my watering can. 

I hope all the plant babies are okay from the wind! 

We got a decent chunk of rain but not a lot. The lightning and thunder was the main attraction. 

Tomorrow is also going to be super hot, close to 90. I think it'll be a treadmill kind of day. 

Thursday I was planning on going to the office, and we have two trainings to do for the new product. One is a test run and the second one, we're going to record and just have my boss and me running it, no audience, no questions. But I'm super bummed because my work wife and their new love interest are coming to the office (tbh, this is the only reason why I'm going in. To see her and meet the new squeeze).  I'll get a lot of steps in because commuting in is always a big step day. 

Here's a picture from this morning's coffee time. Before the bees found me and I retreated inside. Digits below!

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Two outside walks, one with Toffee 23 min/1.15 mi; one solo to talk to Linda (came home instead of continuing due to the thunderstorm) 25 min/1.17mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:45am: 132
4pm: 123
10pm: 134 

food & meds:

8:45am: jardiance+phentermine
12:15pm: leftover fajita chicken & veg turned into chicken salad. 2 low carb wraps. 
12:30pm: met+glip
4pm: 2 big celery stalks w/pb
6:30pm: a geoff creation - left over ham in a noodle casserole with swiss cheese and peppers. Not bad! 
7pm: met+glip
no alcohol 

Some kind of ecstacy's got a hold on me

Over the weekend, Doug and I were chilling in the morning, and he grabbed the JBL speaker and said "okay ear worm..." and put on some tunes. To purge your brain of an ear worm, it is said .... play that damn song. And sometimes Doug's ear worms are very amusing.  The other day, it was a Bruce Cockburn song, Wondering Where The Lions Are.

I put in the video to the studio album here, 1979's fantastic Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws, here's the link to the full album. 

Kind of amazing but it transported me back to college, hanging out with friends listening to this masterwork. Some of the most beautiful lyrics, some of Cockburn's most religious/spiritual/mystical writings like Hills of Morning, and Creation Dream. The joy of listening to the French language "Badlands Flashback," and everyone singing one word.... de coquille. 

Wondering Where The Lions Are is seminal to my foundational memories. On face, a sweet little up beat ditty, but when you peel back the layers it sure is a song about waiting for the next shoe to drop. Everything looks beautiful, everything looks perfect, but where are the lions that are gonna devour me shortly? Dance and play in the meantime, I guess, while we're thinking about eternity. Let that some kind of ecstasy get ahold on you. Sing harmonies with Chrispy and Kevin, whatever it is we're doing and working on in the lobby of the dorm or somewhere out in the campus. 

Everyone get into Northern Lights and imagined what they may be to look at someday. 

I still haven't seen them but this song, this 40+ year old song. This is my vision.

The sky full of rippling cliffs, and chasms that shine like the sign on the road to heaven.
I've been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains, and cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God.

The man is a genius, and I should listen to his older stuff more often because it is just so beautiful.  

It put me in just such the best mood, and I started my workday today putting my heart into that same state and listened to the whole album. 

I sometimes tell people that my faith was written by the music of Bruce Cockburn and U2. What a time to be a young Christian, to have the first 3 U2 albums and that early Bruce stuff, along with some other things, to write onto your heart and soul what love is, what God means, the absolute joy, the tears and the praise. 

To me, it feels nothing like what I watch on TV of what the young Christians of today have. They are truly missing out, and honestly, I don't get what they're getting sucked into. None of it feels good and pure and magical. I hear none of it in the clanging gongs and screaming singers, nothing. Nothing.

Here are more flowers. And more to come I think. Digits below!

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Outside walk with Toffee, 30 min/1.56 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:30am: 112
4:45pm: 94
10pm: 114 

food & meds:

7:30am: jardiance+phentermine
11:45am: one left over chicken satay piece w/peanut sauce, peas & broccoli left over from other dinners
noon: met+glip
4:45pm: ramekin of trail mix
6:30pm: cheeseburger over salad w/french fries and bleu cheese dressing (like a steak salad only, not). 
7pm: met+glip 
no alcohol