The Walnut Game

Over the past couple days, Doug has been cleaning up black walnuts in our yard. Allegedly, these are good to have, and, if you do it right you can yield a lot of walnuts if you carefully harvest them. 

The last people here did not harvest the black walnuts. Doug thinks that there are nuts on the ground that are at least a couple years old. 

To be honest, they did not take good care of the yard overall. With six kids, heck, who can blame them. We are finding toys, broken pieces of toys, all kinds of things in the yard. It's kind of crazy. So black walnuts were probably low on the priority list.

Anyway, the black walnuts have been his project even though, to be honest, I'd rather he help me unpack things but. He's out of my way and not a nuisance if he's out there. Playing the Walnut Game. 

"Come outside and play the walnut game with me!" he says. 

What does that mean?

"Pick up walnuts and throw them in the boxes!" 

Um. No. I'll.... work in here on moving shit around. 

He got Geoff to play the walnut game with him yesterday while I was at Henry's show, they got a lot of walnuts off the ground, the tree is still dropping them, and there are still plenty of walnuts on the ground...

And he so far has filled 8 boxes with walnuts. I shit you not. At least he's doing something with the boxes I was getting ready to flatten for recycling. Photo evidence below. 

This morning I went down to the guest room around 4am, smelled coffee and got up at 8. I was ready to slack my team and say "Good morning" but needed to charge my phone because it had been playing a podcast for hours.... Doug was sitting on the couch with the dog. 

"Did you have your 7am meeting?"

He looked at me and asked "What?"

"You were supposed to have a 7am meeting today," I said.

"It's.... Sunday." He said.

Oh. 

Okay. Glad I didn't slack my team, not sure how I thought only having Saturday was enough weekend for me but hey. I guess it felt like a lot. 

Coffee and then cleaning and stuff while Doug played the Walnut Game by himself. I was holding a canvas bag at one point and he said "Oh Hooray! Come celebrate the harvest with me!"

No, son. Not gonna happen. 

The dining room is almost done. I moved some bookcases around and started thinking about books. First floor or basement. Oh basement - what am I doing with my office. I haven't gone downstairs literally since we moved in so today was the first time. Geoff helped me move some things into permanent storage, and we talked about shelves and stuff that I want for upstairs and downstairs. 

Around 5:30, Doug woke up from a nap and took Toffee for a walk. I skipped on going because I'd literally been walking all day here in the house. I did go out for a short walk to the park and back to do pokemon, and got back while Geoff was making dinner. 

We watched football, I moved more things around. I found yet another box of glassware. Why do we have so many glasses? 

Anyway. Wiped out and I have an alarm set so we can get up, I can get out of bed and he can go to his meeting. His office is right in eye-shot of the bed so I don't want to be in here snoring. Chances are I'll be downstairs anyway since I invariably wake up and go down there. 

Digits below the walnuts. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Pokemon walk, solo, 12 min/.56 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 118
4:30pm: 135
9:30pm: 138

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
10am: english muffin w/pb
11:30am: met+glip
2:30pm: key lime pie zero sugar yogurt w/granola
6:30pm: small bowl of spaghetti w/meatballs, 2 small pieces of garlic bread
7:30pm: met+glip
8pm: candied (not very) nuts
wine & diet ginger ale

Another Auntie at the Rock Show

Today, I went back to the old neighborhood area to see my friend Henry play in his school of rock show. He's been playing for a few years, and compared to my work wife son, he's in a band with much older kids who .... are extremely good. 

Henry knew his stuff and killed it. The theme was Michael Jackson vs. Prince, so all the songs were by those two artists. There were a couple guitarists that were beyond exceptional like the one on Beat It who played the Eddie Van Halen parts flawlessly. 

After the show, I joined the family at Henry's favorite foodrinkery. I was going to come straight home, but. 

Henry's grandparents were there, and they didn't want to go out to eat. Henry said "is everyone coming to the pub?" and his grandmother said "noooo,,,, I don't think so."

I heard Henry's heart break. Right there. I had already told S I was going to head home (since I now live a billion miles away) and when I noticed how sad he was, I said "oh yeah I'm gonna come." 

He was thrilled that I was coming, because his grandparents never come to things. They'll come to the show, do the bare minimum, and leave. They won't spend the whole day. They always have something to do. Something ... better to do.  Better than spend the day celebrating with their grandson. 

I know in life people are busy but. Block your day. This is family, this is your grandson. 

I drove to the pub with Sara and she unloaded on me how frustrating this is for her, and Henry is starting to notice their absence in his life. I told her I could see it, because when he gets upset his eyes flutter as he's blinking back tears. I know when something is hitting him hard, and because I knew this hurt him, I had to step up and be Auntie. 

This isn't the first time I've seen them do this. Grandpa gets a bunch of pictures, posts them to Facebook with "oh I'm so proud of the young man he's becoming" but. It's more than that. You gotta show up.

We had a fantastic time at the pub. I'm glad I went. 

I got home and Doug and Geoff had spent the afternoon cleaning up the black walnuts from the yard. It's become a landmine out there of ankle twisting opportunities and Doug's thinking hey - I can maybe ... shell these puppies and do something with them. He's been reading up on them (don't handle them without gloves on, they'll stain your skin!) He was napping, Geoff made dinner  and he and I ate. And I took a walk to try and make up for the lack of steps in the day.

When Doug woke up he said he wanted to go to Dairy Queen. He earned it. There are eight entire boxes of black walnuts out there. Jesus. 

So I had ice cream. Haven't had ice cream in forever. 

It was a busy day. Details below. Enjoy the pic of me and Hen sporting our Boston themed shirts. He had to wear purple for the Prince band, and this is his only purple shirt. Naturally. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 23 min. walk around the neighborhood. 1.09 miles. fell short of 10k though, 7900+ steps by bedtime and too tired to go out for the last good measure.

blood glucose:

9am: 92
5pm: 156
10:30pm: 158

food & meds:

9am: jardiance+phentermine (last phentermine until the prescription refill shows up)
12:30pm: cheese, salami, cucumber, tomatoes (snack at Henry's gig) 
3:30pm: met+glip. 5 buffalo chicken strips, a few french fries
6:30pm: chicken, melted cheese, sour cream (fajita without a wrap
8pm: chocolate/vanilla swirl soft serve ice cream
8:30pm: met+glip
wine

Happy Friday

Today was planning for the tech team so I sat in on a couple meetings that were very informative and helpful. Having a roadmap for the next couple months is nice. 

I had a few 1:1 meetings with colleagues, and one of them told me her husband just got laid off. Feeling super bad for them. And I had to do a peer review on one of my teammates so I basically asked her to tell me what to say for the "what can this person do to be better at their job, and stuff." 

I asked her what she wanted to do to get better at her job and it was very helpful. 

Managed to write all my other peer reviews, my review of my manager, and my own self-evaluation by end of day. Didn't get to do my helpdesk documentation reviews done but maybe I'll hit those over the weekend.

I also unpacked a lot of boxes between meetings. I put fancy glasses in the corner hutch, got some things ready for recycling, unpacked two boxes of books and put them on the shelves in the guest room.

Today was gorgeous. I sat out on the patio for most of the day, and Toffee soaked in the sun.

After work, Doug took Toffee for a walk and I thought about going with, but opted not to. Instead I did more futzing around the house and then took myself out for some Pokemon stuff. Almost a mile walk around the neighborhood.

Geoff made dinner for us, a soup recipe he found that he should have put more stock in because it wasn't super soupy. It was really tasty, just not enough. Thankful he got a nice crusty loaf of bread to go with. Doug made a little bit of a snack for us after dinner of apple, crackers, and a fancy cheese he bought at the farm stand last week. 

Tomorrow I'm going to see Henry and his school of rock band. Last week was my work wife's son, and this week is Henry. Gotta get the two of them together. They could be a band. 

Digits below this rando picture I took of a drawing on my neighbor's driveway. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Pokemon walk solo (doug took Toffee on a very long one) 22 min/.98 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:15am: 124
5pm: 162
10:30pm: 125

food & meds:

8:15am: jardiance+phentermine
12:45pm: bowl of mac & cheese w/bacon
2pm: Met+glip
6pm: bowl of sausage and black bean soup w/nice slice of rosemary bread
7pm: apple, cheddar, and crackers snack
7:30pm: met+glip
white wine

Guest Bed

Last night I woke up around 1am, unable to fall back asleep. Doug has a timer set on podcasts so when the podcast is over, it's over. I don't usually like to start one up again, lest I disturb him, and make it so he can't fall back to sleep. 

I don't mind when he starts a podcast up again, it never bothers me. But I've woken him up by starting one, and he goes to the guest room. 

I opted to go downstairs to the guest room. 

Here's the thing though, the guest bed wasn't made up yet. There were piles of things on top of the bed to sift and sort through. Blankets, sheets of an indeterminate size, are they queen? are they full? Hmmm. More blankets. Mystery pillow that should be tossed. The folded up dog kennel. Freaking Dog KENNEL on the bed.

Jeesh, I realized earlier this week it would need to be done and should have tackled this because I knew the day would come when one of us woke up and wanted to go in the other room. I stood in the doorway with the light on, and just looked at it. 

Well, better get workin' kid. 

I got everything off of the bed and found the sheets I wanted. The flannel sheets I use for cold nights on this bed were folded up and put away. Mystery sheets were just dumped on the floor. Dog kennel, leaning against the wall. 

It all came together quickly and I will note that with the bed not pushed up against the wall the way it has been in the last two houses, the fitted sheet is so much easier to put on. 

Fuzzy blanket thrown on for good measure, even though I sleep hot. And there we are. A bed. 

I laid down and noticed my neighbors' second floor bedroom window. They had a tv on (it is 2am at this point) and lights and changes were flashing above me. I was too lazy to get up and pull the shade down so I just rolled over.

I wondered about how many people up and down this street in the incorporated and unincorporated parts of town were awake at that moment. A car drove down the street, perhaps someone needing to go to work at a bakery. 

Maybe even the Krispy Kreme. Or someone who works in DC who wants to avoid the traffic! 

I played games on my phone but not the one I save for the morning, temping as that was. I settled on the new episode of Lore, and eventually found sleep. 

The dog found me somewhere after 4am. And curled up behind my butt in her little (large) croissant shape. The trash guys hadn't come yet so it was easy to fall back asleep. In fact, the trash guys didn't come until 10:30am today.

Geoff found the kitchen at 7:30, and I heard noise and dishwasher unloading as he got the coffee going. He was surprised to see me come out of the bedroom rather than come downstairs. Having the upstairs bedroom is good because it is away from the kitchen so this cacophony of noises won't wake me up like it did, for 7 years. 8 years? Lord. 

I needed to get up, early meeting at 9 and I needed a shower. Dog fed, outside, shower taken, work. 

Today ended up being very busy, even though that 9am meeting was my only meeting for the day. Every three weeks my team has to QA code updates for the product team, an my colleague T usually carries the lion's share of the testing. But he was tied up most of the day with other things. We have 3 workdays to do this and today was the last day. 

So I started QA at about 11. Finished around 4. It was a lot. T ended up doing one of the more gnarly test cases while I did the other 7. A couple of them were easy peasy in and out yup this works but two of them were rough. Luckily our QA manager is a doll and she jumped on zoom with me to walk me through where the instructions did not meet reality. 

Then, tomorrow is the deadline for our reviews. Self evaluation, review your manager, and peer reviews. This year I had two peer reviews to write and finished those. I spent a good hour trying to think of what to say on my self evaluation. Struggled through it and got it done. 

We took the dog to the dog park, which was a lot of fun. There were a lot of dogs there, and Toffee was really good! I felt very proud of her. 

Home, football, pizza, wine, bed. So thankful tomorrow is Friday, 

No pictures. Tried at the dog park but they were all blurry from fast running doggos! Digits below! 

 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Walk to dog park, 12 min/.58 mi; walk home from dog park, 14 min/.63 mi; walk after dinner to finish steps, 16 min/.8 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 111
5:30pm: 117
10:30pm: 124

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
10:30am: double sausage egg mcmuffin (about 1/3 of the muffin given to toffee because the whole thing slid apart weirdly)
1:30pm: met+glip
3pm: very large apple w/pb
7:30pm: 2 slices of buffalo chicken pizza, met+glip, glass of white wine+diet ginger ale

Where the Sidewallk Ends

Today was a busy day and I was lucky to hit each of the hour marks on the fitbit. Almost missed two but hustled to get in under the wire. 

I was going to go out for a walk by myself after dinner but Doug decided to join me with the dog. I'm glad he did because we walked longer and further than I usually do. I pretty much was going to walk to the baseball field, hit the pokegym, maybe walk up to the end of the block and back? Meh? 

He likes to go on excursions when he goes.

We crossed a main road into another neighborhood and the county senior center is there. They have outdoor exercise equipment and a cute walking course with footie prints. There's a golf course in the neighborhood and you can look across it to the major big road (4 lanes, split down the middle) which has the Dairy Queen and the Krispy Kreme on it. I could see the "HOT" sign was on at the Krispy Kreme. Good thing there's a golf course in the way. 

That and neither of us had our wallets. 

We walked by the baseball field, which was hopping. Big game happening and Doug said "this isn't baseball noise. Why's that one kid screaming like that? Make baseball noises!" I have no idea why the kid was screaming "like that" but. Kids are gonna kid. 

Once we got back, we watched some TV and I played my phone games that I didn't play all day. It was a busy day. 

I realized I was about 2,000 steps shy of 10k, and it was 9:30. Hell. I can do this, I just can't do 2k steps walking around the house. 

Strapping on the sandals, I headed out. 

I walked up to the end of our road, turned around, came back. Fun thing about our road, about 4 houses up the street, the "city" ends and the unincorporated part of town begins. 

The sidewalk ends. 

The road that comes off our street is "Division Road," where the demarkation is for ... "us and them." 

Once you get on the other side, where there is no sidewalk, the houses all change. Mostly duplexes, and a LOT of cars for some reason. Each side of each duplex seems to have 4 cars. 

And there are no street lights. Down my end of the street, we have street lights. Everything is bright and visible. In Unincorporated Town, not everyone has on their porch or outside lights. When I walk up the street it triggers the light sensors, and lights come on, but they turn off quickly. 

It's a little spooky. 

Behind us, on the other block, the city is putting in new and improved sidewalks. I've never lived in a place where the sidewalks were all so shitty. On our walk tonight with the dog, there were places where walking in the street was better. 

All the sidewalks around the senior center are nice. They keep those nice so the shufflin' feet don't trip up on the cracked ass cracky sidewalks. 

I also wanted to go out because tomorrow is trash day, and I think there are rules about which direction you're supposed to "face" your barrels. Handle out or handle in? I wanted to see how my neighbors had it. 

Mixed results. Some were handle out, some in, some were 3 or 4 feet apart, some flush up against each other. The city actually has the big ass trucks with the power arms that lift the barrels up, so that's why I wanted to make sure we do it right. I think if you don't, the lid doesn't open right and your trash all sticks in the barrel or falls out onto the street. 

Last week they came at 4:30am. Which was bollocks. The week before we didn't hear them, because the AC was on. So I will probably be disturbed again by the big scary noisy truck with the monster arm and the sound of barrels crashing and thrashing. 

We don't have to pay for trash removal, that's part of our taxes, but up beyond where the sidewalk ends, they do. They have different barrels, with phone numbers and company names on them. I guess you pay the company and they come get your trash. Something like that. But the fact there are different company names on the barrels makes me wonder how the hell that works. One truck? Four different trucks? I have no idea. 

Anyway. 

I'm off to bed. No picture today but I did try to take one of Toffee sunbathing and enjoying the yard. But she caught me and got up and came over to see me. 

Digits, below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 2 walks. One with Doug and Dog 32 min/1.45mi, one solo just to make the steps, 15 min/.8 miles; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:15am: 108
4:30pm: 104
10:30pm: 142

food & meds:

8:15am: jardiance+phentermine
12noon: BLT Salad
2pm: met+glip
6pm: pork tenderloin, 8 pierogi 
8pm: last chunk of the pork tenderloin
9pm: met+glip
no wine/beer anything