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

The Return of Farmer Chris

 Yesterday was all about messing around the house with chores and stuff. Today. Today was about the plants. 

Doug and I headed to Lowes and we picked up our annuals and got everything we wanted. Hilariously, I still have a couple more pots that I could put flowers into. 

I didn't take any during and after shots. And somehow we ended up with 2 flats of yellow pansies (one is more orange and the really yellow ones are the ones with the tiger faces). 

Tomorrow is picture day. 

I am sore from head to toe, I used muscles today that I haven't used. So sore. Ha.

There are a ton of pansies and we got big pretty arrangements for the two front planters, and a pretty yellow thing that I think is going to pour over or I can trellis up. We'll see how she does. 

It was a busy full day. It was fun. 

I realized that I didn't do my mile today around 7:30pm, so I wanted to get a pokemon stop and turned it into a longer walk which was really good and I felt accomplished. Yay. 

Digits below the one picture I took today.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  all movement, all day. Did a walk very late in the day. 1.3 mi/30 min; 13k steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 122
4:45pm: 143
10pm: 188 

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
11:45am: turkey and mayo on an english muffin; met+glip
4:45pm: ramekin mixed nuts
7pm: slice of pizza; 6 buffalo chicken bites; 2 mozz sticks
8pm: met+glip
no alcohol

The Busy Saturday

We had a super busy day today. Lots of work around the house. 

Doug scrubbed up the redwood table last weekend (the one he brought back from his mom's) and today it was tung oil application day. It looks so wonderful. 

He ordered a plastic table cloth/cover for it, and a cushion for the porch swing. 

I swept and rearranged the back porch, until some bees decided they were going to fuck with me. They aren't carpenter bees, but I don't know what kind they are, and they were mean and aggressive while I was sweeping. I looked to see if there was a hive or nest being built up in the porch roof or anything but could not find one. I finished up, and got out of there before I was completely done.. 

All we need now is flowers for all the pots. All. The. Pots. And our veggie garden. We're having a disagreement about raised beds. Doug wants raised beds that are on the ground and I said no - I want raised beds that are table beds, because I don't want the rabbits getting into the garden, I don't want Toffee getting in the garden, and I don't want to be on the ground weeding because even with ground level raised beds you had better believe weeds are gonna find their way in there. 

So. If we end up with Ground Raised, I'm not weeding. Fuck it. He can weed the garden and tend it. I get stuck with this task every year and I fucking HATE it. So. That's the line I'm drawing in the dirt, sand, soil, whatever.

Early in the day, the house down the corner had a yard sale. I went down and the girl running it is the homeowner's niece. Her son and his girlfriend were sitting in lawn chairs being surly. They got dragged there to help and they were being no help. The niece was super friendly, and pointed me to her Aunt so I went over and said hi and introduced myself. I guess they do this often - the niece does not have a yard for yard saleing. So she comes here. The homeowner was nice ish, but a little weird. I met her dog. The dog was also a little weird. 

I had a long chat with one of our next door neighbors. Not the family with the beagles, but the other side. She's a teacher in town, and she saw me out doing back yard work and hollered over that this is great weather we're having. Indeed. So I went over to chat and got her whole life story/download. She told me stories about the kids that used to live here. "They were nice enough..." she said. Ha. 

One of them, the youngest girl, was a screamer. My sister can relate to this because her neighbors behind her house have screamers. The little one would scream like she was being murdered. MURDERED. She would be very patient, because, you know, kids. Just like I'm pretty patient with the beagles (almost). But one day she went out and asked for them to stop the screaming. It had gone on for hours. The dad heard her and came out and didn't apologize to her or say anything but made the kids go inside and said "She don't like your screaming." 

Sir. No? Just come out and talk to the kids, talk to the lady? And then they moved a couple weeks later. I told her I promised we wouldn't scream. She also said how much she loves Toffee because she is so quiet. She's very nice.

I cannot remember her name though. And neither can Doug. 

Doug finished our taxes and paid them. Bless you, 8,000 dollars on your journey to the gubbmints.

We didn't do a Toffee walk, probably should have. She seemed like she wanted a get out and go, but Doug showered and took a nap and I futzed in the kitchen. Geoff did the grilling for dinner and made an excellent marinade for us. 

I thought for sure we'd go somewhere, run errands, do something, but it was late before we knew it. 

Maybe tomorrow?

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours Treadmill, 20 min/1.41 mi; yardwork walking, 19min/.48mi. pokemon walk, 10min/.39 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 103
4:30pm: 154
10pm: 100 

food & meds:

8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
8:30am: 3 girl scout cookies
11:45am: 2 slices of super seeded bread w/pb; met+glip
6:30pm: pork loin and broccoli
7pm: met+glip
8:30pm: popcorn; cheese & crackers
red wine+ginger ale

We made it, Bestie

 My work son is on a very well deserved vacation. I missed him all week. On Fridays, we always message each other with "we made it! WE MADE IT!" 

I said that to Doug this morning and he grumped at me "yeah we still have to make it through today though." 

Wow. Way to take the fun our of a Friday Celebration. Forget I thought of you as my substitute BESTIE!

Can't wait for my boo to come back to work and be on MY wavelength with me. 

I spent the entire day aside from one meeting with a client doing help articles. At the end of the day my manager and I were having a mini-argument over "fake" content vs. "real" content that we have permission to use from one of the clients. 

He thinks I'm going to be silly and write silly fake content, when I know perfectly well how to right serious fake content. Pfffthhhh like I haven't worked here all this time. 

I don't really want to use the client's fake content. 

So my screenshots are in the end perfectly fine and he has no arguments against them. We have one more help article to write and we can't, literally can't, until we have some dev fixes put into place. And then there is this whole new feature that is still to be tested.

By 4:30pm I was basically baked, done, and over it. 

And could then honestly say "We made it, Bestie" to no one but me. 

I chatted with Linda for a bit, did the treadmill, grilled dinner. Talked to my mother for a bit. There's some drama but I'm not going to dredge it. Suffice to say, I thank God for my sister. 

All that said, time to pack it in for the night. I guess it is going to be about 90 on Sunday, tomorrow should be a very nice day but then it's going to turn into the Devil's Bunghole quickly. No spring for us! Just straight into the pit of hot and despair. 

Ugh. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours   Treadmill, 25 min/1.62 mi.; 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 112
4:30pm: 102
10pm: 106 

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
11:45am: small ramekin of mac & cheese w/hamburger
noon: chicken salad in a bowl; met+glip
6:30pm: 2 chicken fajitas, low carb wraps; white wine
8pm: met+glip

Faxing

Jess asked me if I'd share some of my Bonvoy points and hook them up with a room in Boston in a couple weeks. Jess is taking their bestie M for a "girlie's weekend" as a bachelorette party. And it is going to be just the two of them. 

A couple months ago, they called me to ask if I'd be interested in going with them to Dollywood for the bachelorette party. "It's just margarita talk so far, but if we were to do it, would you be in?" 

There's been a lot of drama around M's wedding, a lot of unfair family drama. M doesn't have a lot of girlie friends, and Jess is doing their best (Jess is the "best mate," which I think is hilarious) to keep their spirits up. 

Dollywood sounded nice, but it felt like it would be hard to do. "Do you think Auntie Lee Lee would want to come?" Probably. But it's the kind of thing we'd need more planning and lead time to nail down. 

So the margarita talk never got fully realized. And I didn't hear much more about it until this week when they asked me to hook up a hotel. 

I'm short on points, I haven't been hoteling it much and I lost my Gold Elite status in December because I didn't stay 21 nights anywhere Marriott related. I have some that I was going to use for me and Doug heading to Massachusetts in May. So I just footed the bill for it. A gift. And I get points, right? 

Getting a hotel and gifting the stay to someone is not fun. I've done this a couple of times before. Because I will not be there, and the online form to reserve does not have a place to indicate anything, I have to call the hotel to make the arrangement. 

First, they make it incredibly hard to talk to a person. The phone system keeps pushing the "Go to the website and do this, stupid," and yes. Yes I know it is easy to make the reservation online for fuck's sake but you need to let me speak to a human. 

I got a human on the phone, and he was sweet and delightful, and very helpful, and in agreement that this process is flawed. He got us all hooked up, and I'll just say "taxes and fees" were approximately 27% of the overall charge, which was just annoying as fuck. 

"There's one more thing we need to do," he said.

"Yes, I know. I need to send a fax with my signature on it," I replied. 

"You did say you've done this a couple of times before," he said.

"We are still doing this by fax in this the year of our lord 2026, are we?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," he answered. "And you have to send it to us within 48 hours." 

"I'm aware," I sighed. 

He emailed me the form, and I've got it printed out, signed, in my purse. Today I have to go get bloodwork done, so I'll go to Staples or something and send the fax on the way home. 

The fact that I even had ink in the printer is a miracle. Geoff has been printing out copies of his resume, so we've been keeping that fresh for him. Half the battle right there, friends. Last time I had to do this there was no ink, so I had to go to Staples, email the form to a secure printing account, print it, get it from the kid behind the counter, sign it, fax it. 

Bananas. 

In this day and age, of all the tech things that are going on and available, hey Marriott - figure out a way for me to do this online when I make a reservation. Thanks. 

So I got the bloodwork done, and there was a FedEx store in the plaza next door. I got the fax sent, called the front desk to confirm it arrived. Done. 

Back home, the AC guys were here fixing the control panel. They were in and done in no time. Geoff made a good dinner but overcooked the shrimp. I didn't complain, because it was shrimp. and I was hungry. I did 20 min on the treadmill because i had to get the mile but I knew it would cause me to fall short of 10k for the day if I didn't get more. 

I asked Doug after dinner if he wanted to walk the dog and he did. We went to the dog park, no other dogs were there, so we did about 1.4 miles round trip with her, and that was plenty. No fear of falling short! 

So thankful the week is just about over. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours   Treadmill run, 20 min/1.46 mi. dog park walk, 1.41 mi round trip in about 38 min. 13k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 118
4:15pm: 99
10pm: 122 

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
9:30am: 2 girl scout cookies
11:15am: big bowl of plain greek yogurt w/some fruit salad and a crushed granola bar
11:45am: met+glip
2:15pm: bowl of chicken salad, home made w/walnuts, grapes
6:30pm: pasta, peas, shrimp dish a la Geoff
7pm: met+glip
No alcohol

Chuffed

Today we all got email that one of our co-workers gave his notice. 

On this current project, it's the first time in my 11 year/his 15 year tenure with the company that we've gotten to work together. 

I asked my boss if he got the email and he said yeah, he'd known for a while. 

[Side note]: back in the day none of us kept secrets when we had hot goss. But my boss and a lot of other people I work with keep it close to the vest and there's now no pspspspspppsspsssss secret! secret! secret! bomb dropping anymore in our org except for me and my work wife or me and my work son. 

I miss the old days in Boston. 

Anyway.

I told my boss I was mighty chuffed over this.

He messaged me back saying, I .... don't think you mean that? He looked it up and no. 

I do not mean that. 

While laughing at me, after I said "oh indeed, thank you English Literature Degree." we agreed that chuffed sounds like a not happy thing to be. 

I said it has "Big Mad British blowing air through your teeth and making a mad face" energy. 

I am not chuffed to lose this colleague. It's a sad day, indeed. 

He's sticking around to see this project all the way through, and after I'd messaged him that I was (not chuffed) sad and surprised, he let me know how much he appreciated me. It's going to suck losing his big super smart organized brain and his masterfully constructed google sheets, his firm defiance when people in other departments attempt to bulldoze us. His overall kind and gentle demeanor is key. 

Crap. Unchuffed right now. To the Extreme.

Another busy day, I had a good call with a client that I brought my manager to because they wanted to talk high-level strategy, rebranding, that kind of thing and I'm pretty much not that person but I have some thoughts and feelings on their behalf. I want to see everyone succeed. And he had some good thoughts and suggestions. 

More documentation work. More talk about training. We had our weekly check-in and after that Geoff started dinner, Doug took Toffee for a walk, and I hit the treadmill. 

If I knew he was skipping the dog park, I would have gone with them. But I thought he was going there and as much as I do enjoy the dog park I wanted some more straight through non-stop walking. Not a half mile, sit and watch dogs, and a slightly longer walk home. But he went around the far end of the park in a big loop and back. That would have been a good trip together. 

Well. I did get over 2 miles on the treadmill, and was done before they got back. 

Tomorrow I have to go get bloodwork done, so that's in the middle of the day before we have office hours and I want to be back for that. Don't want to miss that. Every other week we do them and it is my favorite meeting we do! 

Oh. When I came home on Sunday the house was exceptionally hot. I opened windows and Doug told me he started the AC up after I left on Saturday. But. 

But. 

She wasn't working. So we decided we'd call a heating/AC dude. Life made it easy for us, there was a refrigerator magnet on the furnace in the basement. I called that guy and he and his apprentice came today. The control panel in our AC Unit is shot and needs to be replaced. Of course it does. Gonna cost a chunk of change. But it is worth it, and we joked around "better this week when it is 40 degrees than Next Tuesday when it is supposed to be in the mid to upper 80s!" Yes sir. 

We actually have the heat on now because it is 41 but heading straight down to 29 overnight. Glad we didn't put our garden in yet. 

If you're keeping score at home:

1. AC control panel
2. Electrical panel (tripping breakers etc)
3. New Dishwasher 
4. New Microwave
5. New Light Fixture in the bathroom

Unless I'm missing something. That's the running home improvement list thus far.  

In addition to the things that need done, the little things. Like, how Doug replaced the toilet seat, the caulk in the tub, the fact we have to repaint the bathroom because it is a shit paint job. And there are cracks all in our back patio concrete so Doug wants to seal them, paint it, make it so ... no more big ass cracks. 

Okay! off to bed. I'm so beat. digits! below the cheesecake and fruit salad. MMMMMMMM. 

 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours  Treadmill. 2.18 mil./31 min. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:30am: 111
4pm: 193 and 5:45pm: 112
10:15pm: 149 (thanks, cheesecake and froot salad. but you were so tasty...)

food & meds:

7:30am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30: bowl of mac & cheese w/bacon
12: met+glip
4:15pm: protein shake (before the treadmill)
6pm: chili, no fritos (we didn't have any) ground beef, tomatoes, corn, onions, shredded cheese; last small slice of cheesecake w/fruit salad on top
7pm: Met+glip
no alcohol

Surprise Fruit Salad

Last night I was going to do my blog entry before bed but started looking at the first pass on the training information, the "syllabus" outline as it were, and started a slide deck to plot out the training content. It got to be 11pm before I knew it and my brain hurt. You get a twofer again today.

Doug was on the phone with his mom and it was a long discussion, so I felt okay just headphones on and working. He did ask me "Can A.I. get past those Are You A Robot tests on webpages? what are they even there for?"

The answer is yes, they can. And those Are You A Robot things were designed to stop site-scrapers from accessing things you don't want them to steal. It "captcha"s your active involvement and I guess that proves you are human. I think now they are useless. 

Robots can fucking do anything. We are doomed. And no one seems to care. Anyway. 

So I forgot to do my 100 miles in 100 day tracker entry, and my blog post. Both getting handled today. 

Last night Doug asked me if I ate any of the grapes he bought. Awww shit, you bought grapes? We have a big ass bag of grapes in the fridge that no one is eating. Also, since when do you buy grapes? 

"They looked so big and plump, I couldn't resist!" 

This morning I whipped up a little bit of a fruit salad. I wish we had a melon of some sort, but, we had bananas, kiwi, pineapple, black raspberries, and grapes. Sufficient! Normally I wouldn't be having so much fruit, but I'll probably mix some in with some plain greek yogurt and enjoy later. It looks really nice. 

As long as Doug and Geoff don't eat all of it before I get a chance. 

It was a good day today. I met with my boss for 90 min about the training plan, going over the workflow of the presentation. We found some big bugs in the product and are reporting them to the devs. I hope they can fix them. We start training next Thursday. Or, at least we do a dry run/dress rehearsal for my colleagues on the team so they can watch, catch things, ask questions. 

He's going to work on the outline further and I'm going to do more help articles. I should have done some of those tonight but I was feeling wiped and didn't. Better efforts tomorrow! 

Digits below.

 

Monday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill, 1.94 mi/30 min (misjudged distance, wanted 2 mi). 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:30am: 160
4:15pm: 107
10:15pm: 123

food & meds:

7:30am: jardiance+phentermine
12:30pm: large bowl of left over salad, more tomatoes, avocado, bacon w/mayo
1pm: met+glip
6pm: jambalaya rice w/spicy chicken
8pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Tuesday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours treadmill 2.09 mi/30 min; 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 148
4:30pm: 142
10pm: 133

food & meds:

8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
12:15: pb& low sugar j on 647 multigrain; met+glip
2:15pm: king's hawaiian slider w/turkey and mayo
6:30pm: small bowl of pasta w/sausage sauce and mushrooms
7:30pm: met+glip
no alcohol

"I think I'm ready for my Interstellar Ride"

Saturday and Sunday round trip to Arlington Va for Safety Not Guaranteed

 A couple of weeks ago Sara asked if Guster fans in the DC area wanted to go see the indie-rock musical with songs by Ryan Miller called Safety Not Guaranteed. She bought the tickets, got a group and educator discount. Sweet.

Initially, I passed because we're trying to be a little bit more careful with money now that it is Tax Time. But she had an extra and begged me to come. 

So I did. And I'm glad for it.

Plan was that I was going to stay at their house Saturday night, but due to a comedy of errors we ended up needing a hotel. 

My original plan anyway was that I was going to book a room in Arlington before we settled on me staying with them, so there we were going to my plan after all. 

This is cool and fine. I'm down for a good hotel stay.  

We shared a suite, which is hilarious because they are night owls, and at 11:30pm ordered food from Door Dash. 

Seeing as I had dinner at like 5:30pm, I was actually hungry. So I did eat super late. No regrets but. I'm so usually not a midnight muncher. And because they are super night owls, I ended up going to bed in the bedroom and H came and slept in the bed with me. 

We talked about "is this weird? Are we okay with this?" and H said "as long as we sleep good there are NO problems with this. And I promise not to fart." 

God, I love that kid. I think we fell asleep after 2am, S&S were still up until after 3am, they were hiding eggs for H to find in the morning since, you know, Easter and whatnot.

Hen and I were both awake at 7:30 but when he realized the time, he said "It is WAY too early to be up." I love when kids learn this truth. 

Since we didn't bring our swimsuits, both of us... hilariously, because in years past I'd be the auntie up early taking the kid to the pool so mom and dad can sleep in... we just both laid back down and fell asleep. 

Until 10:30! 

I have not slept that late in forever. When everyone was all sort of more awake, I packed up, and headed home. S&S went back to sleep  in the big bed and H watched tv. I had to remind him to look for Easter Eggs around the room. It was very funny. 

It was a lot of fun being with. Here's our little group, and I so very love these peeps and look forward to spending time with them again.

So for the play, the musical, the indie rock spectacle, it was great. I've seen it twice now, and it was different both times. They cut a couple songs out in this version, and one of them I feel is absolutely mandatory to the story/action so I'm tempted to email Ryan and ask "dude. why? Put it back!" 

The performances were fantastic, I just absolutely loved it. And with the group of us there as Guster fans, we caught a couple inside jokes (grocery store muzak version of "All The Way Up To Heaven," perfectly done and placed. 

The entire time since, more than the first time I saw it, because I had time alone to be in the car and think, Ryan Miller has a quote in the playbill about the show where he says "How we process, understand, hand hopefully forgive our past selves is a crucial stop on our journey through life."

There's a wonderful song, Chocolate Milk, where the character Darius talks about how she asked her mom to stop at the market and bring her home chocolate milk. She was like, 13. Mom got shot in a robbery at the store, and was killed. 

You make the domino fall, the butterfly wing.... 

There is an excerpt of the song here if you want to see it. 

And the premise of the musical is if you can go back, and fix something. Right a wrong, change the past and make things the way you want them to be for you now in the present, would you? 

Would you?

It's all very poignant, and executed beautifully with precision, humor, rock and roll, some romance (gay and straight!) flashing lights and heart pounding thrills. And two Guster songs (different ones than the first time we saw it). 

I'd see it again. 

It was funny because today being Easter, and with the drama S had to deal with on Friday and Saturday, H didn't have much of an Easter Basket. 

Last year we had an Easter Egg hunt at the Verb Hotel for the kids, like Hen, confused about being away from home on Easter. And this year we did the same. 

"Isn't it funny that this is the second year we had a Guster thing, with Christine, at Easter, at a hotel?" S asked H. 

"Well, it has happened twice so it is now a Tradition!" Hen answered. Let's see what 2027 has in store for us. 

I left the hotel, as mentioned, and drove straight home. My initial plan for this morning was to get my mile walk in either at the hotel gym, or somewhere along the road, like  the C&O canal at Cabin John or Sugarloaf. But the weather was atrocious. And I was not leaving until after 11am, so dedicating time to doing the steps was less important than my desire to get home.

Traffic was pretty merciful except for the aforementioned bad weather (such pouring rain) and my inability to see the lines on the road, so I just hung out in the far right lane, avoiding everyone going 20 mph above the speed limit. 

When I got home, Doug was getting ready to make dinner but wanted to nap first. I did the treadmill, it was still pouring so unfun to do anything outside. He made a lovely ham dinner with scalloped potatoes and a big salad, and got marscapone cheesecake as a treat. 

A good day overall, a nice weekend, and while there was some chaos, you know what, in the end we just make things work out. 

Doug has to go to his office tomorrow for a quarterly meeting, so it'll be an early up for us. I'll hopefully just get up and maybe do the treadmill and shower early rather than later. Let's see if I can hold myself to that, friends.

Here are some pictures. Digits below.

A proper "half and half" and on the menu it says half and half, and I'll be back to Samuel Beckett's Irish Gastro Pub again in the future because they know how to do it. 

Maybe a 2/3 and 1/2 is more of what the pour was. But it was great.

Because H loves cats, I got him this kitty cat "unicorn" beanie baby. When he found his basket, the look on his face was hilarious. "I have to tell you, Christine," he said, "I ALREADY HAVE THIS CAT!!!"  Awww crap. Well now you have two. Can they be best friends and have adventures? The answer was YES!. 

Saturday digits

exercise: 10/12 hours, (missed 2 hours, one in the car and one in the theater) Treadmill run, 3.02 miles, 42 min (trying for a 5k measure, wanted to do it under 45 min. Success!) ; 13k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 141
3:45pm: 122
11:45pm: 111

food & meds:

8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
5pm: 2 half & half beers, large goat cheese salad w/salmon; met+glip
11:45pm: patty melt from silver diner via door dash. Mostly skipped the bread, and the onion rings were gross.

Sunday digits

exercise: x/12 hours, missed 9am due to sleeping. missed 11am in the car; Treadmill run, 2.19 mi/32 min. 

blood glucose:

10:30am: 137
5pm: 73
10:30pm: 168

food & meds:

10:30am: jardiance+phentermine
2:30pm: roast beef slices 1/2 an avocado; met+glip
5pm: mixed nuts w/a little chocolate chips thrown in
6pm: ham, salad, scalloped potatoes, 2 kings hawaiian rolls; slice of marscapone cheesecake w/ some cherry topping
7pm: met+glip
9pm: mixed nuts, Red Wine & diet ginger ale

A Good Friday

Usually on Friday mornings I have a check in with a co-worker, mostly for her sanity and mostly because we greatly miss one another. She has a baby who is about 15 months old now, and this is his first passover that he's awake, aware, alive, attentive. 

She canceled our meeting because she was off for the holiday, and she messaged me pictures of the babe on slack, and said he really had a lot of fun at the passover seder.

I told her that was delightful and beautiful, and that I love when passover and easter coincide. 

She asked if we have any special plans for easter, and I said no. Not really. 

Life and things are so different than they were when we had someone in our lives her baby's age. I look back on this blog of all the dyeing easter eggs and church events, the family dinners, the traditions we worked to establish. The easter baskets, the candy, the nice clothing. 

One could say we "did it for the kids" but we did it for us. My heart is always full when I listen to hymns like "O Sacred Head," and "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." These are my faith anthems, celebrating our Jesus.

I told my friend I feel completely detached from "the church" anymore, but not from God Himself. Not from what I have grown to love and believe about Jesus and His love for us all. I pray every day, I notice the little things, I ask him to take fears and burdens. I pray a lot for C and her business, for Jess, and for Geoff that he'll get a job soon. Sometimes I feel like there isn't a lot of traction on the issues I lift up, but I continue to do so. I continue to do that.

I told her that ... I just have grown incredibly disappointed in the Church In America. But I am never, ever disappointed with God.

I miss the traditions and the fun, and in fact when I get home on Sunday I think I'll set up some egg dyeing shenanigans for us and if I do it by myself I'm okay with that. I've asked Doug to go to the market and get a ham or something that we can enjoy. I'll happily make scalloped potatoes. And maybe something green to go with it too. 

I told my friend that as of late, in my "faith journey," I ponder things deeply and quietly in my heart. Part of me misses a church family like the one we had in Massachusetts but honestly, I feel alright with where I am in all this. 

What's lovely is having a really religious jewish friend that is open to talking about both of our faiths, and supporting each other in our walks. Together, side by side. 

After our unofficial check in, the work day went fast. I enjoyed a couple meetings with clients, one of which is coming onboard our CMS in late July. So they have plenty of time, and we had a fun training together. 

Before that meeting, I did the treadmill. I messed up the timing of things, I thought I had an extra half hour after the treadmill and before the meeting but. Oooops. All was well I just didn't get to take a shower, but they didn't notice, we were on Zoom. Geoff had made a marinade for some steak so I set up some potatoes and onions and put them in the oven in olive oil and herbs. He grilled at about 6pm, and everything came out delicious. I hope he makes this one again. 

After dinner Doug and I decided to take Toffee for a walk, so I did my 2 miles on the treadmill and we took her for a more than a mile stroll. It was an absolutely beautiful night, the perfect temperature, no bugs, no rain, lovely sunset. 

And in my heart of hearts as we walked I thought about Good Friday, and the weight of love and sacrifice. My own easter vigil as it were. 

Tomorrow I am happy to go to Sara's and I'm going to stop and get a little gift for H. He's not too old for an easter basket, so I can touch that part of my heart and memories by being a good Auntie. 

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Run on the treadmill for 2.14 miles in 30 min. Then Doug and I took Toffee for a walk, longer than I expected he wanted to go. 1.34 miles in 30 min. 13k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 119
4:45pm: 134
11pm: 86

food & meds:

9am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30am: bowl of mac & cheese w/hamburger
12:15pm: met+glip
2pm: 4 celery sticks & pb
5pm: 3 girl scout cookies
5:45pm: red wine & diet ginger ale
6:30pm: marinated steak a la geoff, and roasted onions & potatoes
7:15: met+glip; more wine+ginger ale
9pm: mixed nuts

The big presentation

A lot of things were leading up to today. We had well over 100 people registered for our demo of the new product we are rolling out in May. The presentation went really well, and I think all the clients are going to be very happy once we get them trained and into the platform.

My boss and I set up our training schedule. It is aggressive. I am working on the help articles and the "syllabus" for training. How long should the training be? is it an hour, 90 minutes, two hours? I want to do some dress rehearsals and see. 

I also want to make a bunch of short videos and not record a whole 90 minute training and expect people to sit though it even with an indexed table of contents. 

We've got a lot to work out. But we're getting there. 

After the presentation, I basically shut my brain down for the rest of the day. I answered a couple helpdesk tickets, talked to my girl R about her spring break with the kiddo and their plans. We may try and get together after Easter somewhere between her house and my house. Something to look forward to. 

I was working on something a bit that I'd left undone yesterday, and realized it was well after 5 and I hadn't done the treadmill, and it was cooooollllllld and windy, so no outside walk. Geoff decided to grill, which was nice. So I hit the treadmill and decompressed my brain. I was only going to walk just to get the mile for the challenge, but, sometimes the playlist gives you a good song by Coheed and Cambria and your pace picks up, then Red Barchetta by Rush and you go even faster. In the end, I managed a little more than 2 miles when I thought it would be a lot less. 

I'm tired. Very tired. I couldn't sleep last night because it was so very hot, so I went to the guest room almost immediately, opened the window, put the ceiling fan on, and aaaahhhhhh. Started to feel cooler and better. 

The trash truck came at 5am, thank you very much, and with the window open it was so extra loud. This was the recycling truck, so all the barrels with glass getting dumped into the machine. I think they spilled my barrel because I heard glass shatter, and then they were out there for a while, perhaps cleaning it up. 

To be honest, I didn't feel like going out today and looking for whatever mess was there. I'll head out tomorrow. I have a fairly light meeting schedule tomorrow, but I kind of screwed myself by putting a 4pm ET meeting on the calendar with a west coast station. She wanted to meet this week and she's only free until 3pm her time, and her morning was booked. Well, it could be worse. 

No pictures today, just so much work. And now bed. Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill. 33 min/2.20 mi. odd amount of time, but I wanted to get past the top of the hour and get those hour's steps counted. 11k+ steps by bedtime 

blood glucose:

8am: 149
4:45pm: 94
10pm: 109

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
noon: Turkey & mild cheddar on english muffin; met+glip
6:15pm: 2 grilled sausages, one bun (gave 1/2 of it to the dog when it fell apart)
7pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Activate Cool Zone

I love our house. I really do. There are a number of cosmetic things we need to do, and I cannot wait to paint the bathroom, to be honest. They did such a shitty job in there. grey paint on the white ceiling, white trim paint on the grey walls. Gross. 

Another house thing that needs some help is our windows. Several windows do not have a screen on them (above the sink, in the dining room, at the top of our stairs in our bedroom, next to our bed). Some windows don't even open. One window in the living room opens but doesn't stay up, it tricks you into thinking things are cool and then crashes down and scares the piss out of you. 

Today it was about 80 degrees out. This morning it was very cool, too cool to sit out at the patio and drink coffee, but by noon it was delightful. I opened all the windows that had screens on them. The house got very warm but we have a ceiling fan in the living room and that has done a very good job of keeping things in here comfy. 

We had an argument about turning on the AC. I think it is cold enough at night that we do not need. He turned it on. 

His cousin called and asked to come over. So that was another layer of weird. The AC didn't do a good job, so at bed time, we opened all the windows and went back to what I had set up. I worked on my slide deck and none of us talked about anything, but Doug tried his best to engage. 

It was a weird scene.

Not sure if we need our AC looked at just yet. But. This is the time of year. 

Oh! Send me some mojo. Tomorrow we have a presentation for this new product launch and yeah, your girl is in the hot seat of it all. 

I forgot there was a moon launch and everything happening today because I am so focused on this slide deck. 

Thinkin' bout you, Artemis II crew. 

Digits below this kick ass video of one of my favorite things. Public Service Broadcasting's GO! 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill, 20 min/1.42 mi; another treadmill walk during the thunderstorm just to get miles, .96 mi./18 min; 11k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

6:30am: 94
4pm: 100
11pm: 135

food & meds:

6:30am: jardiance+phentermine; Atkins high protein snack bar
11:30am: english muffin w/pb & low sugar j
1pm: met+glip
2:15pm: 6 celery stalks w/pb
6pm: bowtie pasta w/chicken and shrimp and cheese a la Geoff
7:30pm: met+glip
vodka and zero sugar ice tea mix
10pm: several slices of roast beef

Every Single Year

It is March 31, and every year, every stinking year, I forget to submit my flexible spending account receipts and information. 

One of my friends said her FSA accepted her submission for her treadmill and exercise equipment with a letter of medical necessity for her A1c, blood sugar, and weight loss. I thought hell yes this is a GREAT idea and the argument is if we pay for this equipment, in the future we don't have to pay for equipment like a wheelchair.

A month ago I wrote my doctors office and asked for one as well, to submit for my treadmill. I checked with the company and they said Hell Yeah that qualifies. 

My doctor's office has not responded. She was on vacation, and someone filling in for her emailed me and said she'd send that along once she was back from vacation. on May 20th. Almost 2 weeks later, no letter. I submitted the receipts and all, and noted that I'll send the letter along soon.

But, in case we don't get that, I opted to pull up the website to get all our copays and our prescription payments. over 300 dollars each. 

I built PDFs of those, and there are no actual receipts, because it is all online. The website kept asking for receipts, so I just added the PDF files a second time. I tried calling customer service but their system didn't recognize me saying words or numbers, and also didn't detect my fingers pressing numbers on the keypad or anything. 

Jeeeesh. 

I swear if they reject those I'll flip. 

the receipts are backup if the treadmill is rejected; the treadmill is backup if the copays and prescription documentation is rejected. 

I have to do a better job with this. I always used to, and would put in way early and usually one pair of glasses from Doug or Geoff would cover what we put into the account. Easy Peasy. 

Today was complicated and busy. We did two client site launches and both failed. Well, they both worked and now they are not working. Both of them. Weirdly. And so my work son is on the horn to the Emergency Devs at the company that builds the website platform. 

When we thought everything was working right, around 6pm, and after I'd fought with phones and websites to submit the files and whatnot, I hit the treadmill. Boredom and hunger got the best of me and I lasted 23 minutes. I figured Geoff had just made dinner, I was pretty hungry, so I wanted to do the mile and eat. 

After dinner, Doug was watching the news and I didn't want to watch or hear it so I got Toffee leashed up and we went out. I should have taken her further but we had almost a mile, and that was nice. And she was so happy to be out on a walk.

She's been horrible for me on the leash lately, but tonight she did pretty well, almost a joy to take for a walk. 

And then tonight Work Son and I have been working with the emergency team at the developers' and we're hoping for a resolution to the problem for these two sites tonight. 

Anyway. 

Dog. Digits. Bed. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill Run, 23 min/1.63 mi; took Toffee for a stroll once I finished up with work fully, 18 min/.80 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 83
4:45pm: 132
11pm: 84

food & meds:

9am: jardiance+phentermine; donut
1pm: left over chicken satay, peanut sauce and a tiny bit of rice; met+glip
6:45pm: piece of chicken parm
9pm: met+glip 
no alcohol 

Outside Runner

Today. I figured today was the day. I've been waiting for it to not be freezing. Or raining. It's a little warmer than I like, and for sure it was windy. 

But today I decided I'd try to run outside. I've been doing so well on the treadmill, and everyone told me it would be better and easier running outside. 

Those people are dopes. 

Fuck this outside bullshit. 

Like I said, warmer and windier indeed. I left my house and turned left and that's an incline. It's not a hill, it is a very gentle slope of an incline. 

It kicked my ass. 

I stopped after about 90 seconds or 2 minutes. I paused the fitbit and changed from Run to Walk for the setting. This is not going to be a run. 

I got to the top of the road and turned left, trotted a little but not a lot. The road has no sidewalk here, so I usually play it very carefully. Cars come rather fast through the area. Just a couple blocks ahead there's a sidewalk, and it is tree lined and lovely. I ran a little through there too. 

My goal was the park at the end of that block, it's a big park and there's a trail that goes to the Fairgrounds, the really big park where the dog park is. Initially, my goal was to get to the fairgrounds, turn right, walk back along the main building until I got to a road that literally comes back to my house, but I was already wiped. 

I opted to walk past the hockey arena and over to another road the heads over to my street. No shame in cutting this short. 

I felt like it was over two miles but no, this was only 1.83 miles. Felt like so much more. I made it to my porch at exactly a half hour, slow pace of 16+ min mile. Headwinds both ways. That kind of a vibe. 

Will try again. I'm not going to let outside conquer me. Yet. 

Work was incredibly busy today, and I usually try to hit 2k steps by noon, which I did, but then I didn't pass 3k steps by 3pm. Which should tell you how busy things were. 

I had some fun chats with Linda who is at mom's, and I'm a little jelly that she's there not so much that ya know,,, I want to hang out with my mother or anything but because we could be at a hotel with a pool cranking out Ghost songs until some family comes in and we have to turn off the Satan music. 

Doug and I watched a really interesting series called The Night Manager, with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, and the delightful Olivia Coleman. 

I've decided that I do not like when Hugh Laurie is a baddie. Nope. 

Anyway, I wasn't into it at the start, but eventually it grew on me. I do like that Olivia Coleman is so lovely even when she's a British Foreign Office director being bad ass. It makes me like her more, in fact. 

Alright. Bed. No picture. Just know. Your girl will do better tomorrow. Maybe. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Outdoors walk, 30 min/1.83 mi. ugh. 11k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 156
4:30pm: 135
10pm: 121

food & meds:

9am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30am: english muffin w/pb and low sugar j
1pm: met and glip
6pm: chicken enchilada slow cooker thing by Geoff
8pm: met+glip; ramekin of mixed nuts
white wine+diet ginger ale

Shepardstown and Williamsport

Yesterday I said I'd post the picture of the light fixture once I cleaned the mirror. With three lightbulbs, the bathroom is painfully bright and overwhelming. I guess I'll get used to it? 

This morning, I made a marinade and got things ready for dinner. Doug needed to go over to the farm store and pick some things up. I needed a shower desperately so I told him to go without me, I'd treadmill and shower and maybe afterwards we can go on a joyride. 

I got into a really good pace on the treadmill, almost broke a 13 min. mile, sustained pace, for the half hour. So close. I started a little slowly and that unfortunately cost me a few seconds on the pace. It's okay though because honestly, who knew a year ago I could run a regular 12-13 min mile pace anyway. 

Doug had suggested we go to a brewery near Cumberland MD, but that's like 30 miles away. I wasn't thinking of going that far afield at 3pm. So we ended up cruising down the backroads to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. We had driven through there a month or so ago and it looked cool so he thought we should check it out. 

And it was a great little town! There's a college there, and tons of students were just out and about, chilling on lawns and hanging out at the coffee shop or ice cream store. It was a vibe. 

On the way there we drove through the Antietam Battlefield area in Sharpsburg (or, if you are a confederate, it's just Sharpsburg and not Antietam. We know not to fight about that with some relatives. ahem.)

We took Toffee and even Geoff came (he never wants to come) and we had a great time. We were looking for this Wildlife Viewing Area that signs kept touting, only we drove all over and couldn't find it. So we kept heading west-ish and eventually got to the highway. 

And then over to Cushwa Brewing. Geoff hadn't been there, so we figured we'd take him to a place he had not been yet. 

We didn't get any pizza, although we could have and saved the marinading chicken for tomorrow. But Doug said we should go home and eat. 

I grilled it up - it was very good but the peanut sauce was super salty. Possibly the fault of the soy sauce. Still, I love me some peanut sauce so I was NOT complaining. 

Linda is up visiting mom, only mom doesn't know she's there just yet. She checked into the hotel, so she could have a night of peace and alone-ness, and she's going to work there all morning and THEN show up at mom's as if she just drove up. "Pretty sneaky, sis." 

Alright. Tomorrow. More busy work stuff. I'm proud of myself for not touching the computer all weekend to do work things but it's all looming in my head what needs done. 

Some pictures! and digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill, 30 min/2.29 mi; walk in shepherstown, 18 min/.62 mi. 13k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 132
n/apm: x
10pm: 167 

food & meds:

9am: jardiance+phentermine
1pm: english muffin w/pb & low sugar j; met+glip
5:30pm: 2 beers at the brewery
7:30pm: chicken satay, peanut sauce, white rice, grilled asparagus; 2 beers
8:30pm: met+glip; entenmann's chocolate donut

Very Very Busy Day

 

Started out normal like we do, phones, music, couch, coffee. Doug got up and started puttering around. A few weeks ago he had ordered a new light fixture for the bathroom. 2 of the 3 light dealies weren't working. I thought we should check with an electrician - they all worked when we had the house inspected and when we moved in. He changed the bulbs to no solution. 

The previous owner was an electrician by trade, but I think he did sloppy work? He certainly wasn't a painter, that's for sure. The paint job in most of the rooms in this house is absolutely crappy. That's another project. 

Anyway. We had two bathroom things needed done. The light fixture and recaulking the tub. He started with the tub, and we can't use it until tomorrow. I had a bit of a disagreement with him because I wanted to bleach clean the area after he scraped the old caulk out, but he said then we'd have to wait a couple hours to do this next part and he didn't want to wait. 

It is done, it .... still looks like it needs to be clean so I am going to wait and apply toilet bowl cleaner to the area to see if it penetrates the caulk. I'll do that tomorrow. 

Then he started on the light fixture. Jess sent me this a couple weeks back and they thought it was hilarious and on point. I agree. But yeah, not this bad. I hope this shows up, If not - just click on the view this post on Instagram. or hey. Click here?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cruz Salgado / Personal Trainer (@electricluchador)

There was some swearing, mostly because he dropped things or something didn't quite fit. He wanted the lights to point upward, and they wouldn't ... cooperate.  So he pointed the shades downward. I agree with him on the point upward part... Maybe he'll get to putting them that way, maybe we can have our handyman fix it or help him fix it sometime. 

Now it is so incredibly bright in the bathroom that I feel like I need to toothbrush and toothpick scrape clean every nook and cranny. Just so bright compared to the one bulb that was there before.

He ended up needing little wire cap things that were bigger than the ones in the wall and on the old fixture, so he went to Lowes. While he was gone, I vacuumed. As you all know, he hates the vacuum. So that got knocked out the park. Done. 

He took a nap, I hit the treadmill. Under my right kneecap started to hurt, so I stopped running at about 15 minutes in, and slowed down to a walk. Then I called it at 20 minutes. Just. Ouch. No. Okay. Please don't be like this, knee. We've been doing so well. 

I made homemade meatballs and Geoff made the spaghetti and sauce. I didn't want pasta again, but I had a marinade for chicken that was missing a couple crucial ingredients, so we opted for that for dinner. Tomorrow, different options! 

As for tomorrow, not sure what we've got planned if it is more stuff like this, cloud talk about paint, something outdoors-ish. It didn't get above 42 today and was super windy. Tomorrow might be 60? Fingers crossed for something nice. 

Here's a picture of where the light goes. Tomorrow I'll post the installed victorious light! (Note what I said about the paint job, look at that ceiling meets wall nastiness!) 

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  Treadmill 20 min/1.44 mi run. Fitbit tracked me while cleaning/vacuuming, 29 min/.35mi walk. ha. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:45am: 113
4:15pm: 165
9:15pm: 180 

food & meds:

8:45am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30am: bowl of mac & cheese w/bacon
1pm: met & glip
5:30pm: spaghetti and home made meatballs
6pm: entenmann's chocolate donut
7:45pm: met+glip
no alcohol

Last Friday of the Month

I manage all our payments for things, some I mail checks in for (our electric and water bills because I can't figure out how to set up online payments for the city, and Doug's student loan because they have blocked him from accessing his account online. Don't ask why). 

So today is the day I put a lot of things in for payments. I set everything up at the beginning of the month so I can pick the date things clear. I am not a fan of autopay, I like checking the balances, looking at what's going on with the checking account, how much money do we have. 

First thing I do is pay mom's lot rent. Her online payment portal accepts auto pay setup but it doesn't let you pay until the first, which is the due date. She gets very anxious about that, because the website says it can take up to 48 hours for the payment to process. She always used to mail it in 10 days in advance of the first, so she wants it paid before the first. I manually do that every month on the 27th usually. I use her bank account, and she will sometimes go to the bank to check her balances two or three days later and say "you didn't pay my rent, did you." 

Um. 

Yes.

On the 27th. I paid it. I did.

"Well it hasn't cleared yet." 

"Well that's not my fault." Today is a Friday, which then means it isn't going to clear until like Monday or Tuesday so I bet money I hear from her. 

Then, I check my bank balance. I get paid every other Thursday and Doug gets paid every other Friday and it is never the same week. This week was my pay week. So our balance is nice. 

What has cleared? The utilities that I pay by check, Doug's student loan, our mortgage, which I schedule for whatever the last Friday of the month is (today).  I pay the Capital one, it's almost fully paid off but this month I paid less than I usually do but still way more than the minimum amount due. I wanted to throw the usual gianter amount at it but.

Taxes are due. And we've got a big huge ass payment to make to the feds. Doh. 

So I'm spending a lil'less and not throwing as much around as I want to. 

Doug gets paid next week, I get paid the week after, we'll have a substantial pile of cash in the account and can pay the piper, as it were. 

Doug also got a raise, and it'll be retro to the beginning of the year which is nice. 

And then after the 15th of April I can go back to paying my debts but also... spending money. 

I bought 8 tickets for 2 nights each for Guster at Wolf Trap in September. People will reimburse me, for sure, but I'm not asking anyone for money yet. 

In the 25 years (holy shit) that I've kept this blog it is nice to be in a position where alright, okay. Alright okay. We're good. We're fine. I don't have to pay my taxes on my credit card. 

So the last friday of this month, we're good.

Today was a good day. I had a 1:1 with my department head and she is delightful. Last one we had was in September and she reminded me that I really should get on her schedule more often, just for fun, because it is delightful to talk to me. The thing that I was working on last night is still not resolved and no one touched it today but we'll revisit that Monday. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Toffee Walk. Went to the dog park, 28 minutes round trip, 1.38 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 125
4:15pm: 142
10:30pm: 119 

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
11:30am: grilled cheese and turkey on 647 
1pm: met+glip
4:15pm: 2 good yogurt
6pm: kielbasa and pierogis
8:15pm: met+glip
8:30pm: ramekin mixed nuts
red wine+diet ginger ala

It's for Science

At work today, someone at HQ was trying to solve for a problem where content she was publishing was not going out to our clients' website. We couldn't even search and find the content in our network. A huge discussion unfolded about what to do and how to approach this, when finally she did something and asked me to pull it in to my test site "for science!" 

I thought that was hilarious. Just, do this "for science!" 

It worked but did not work. The expected results were not met. So more work would need to be done, and a lot of other people got involved talking about business practices and strategy decisions and why this kinda content doesn't "work" through the network. Which frustrated her, because her assignment was/is to put it out there for clients. 

At some point tomorrow we will probably have a strategy discussion.

I was able to use the term in another meeting only the developer was not in a good mood and he was not amused when I told him I wanted to give the thing a try, "for science!" 

I'm usually very good at reading the room and missed that this guy has no sense of humor. 

Later, he slacked me and said "I am not mad at you, I am mad that it is 7pm and I have other things to do, and I asked about this first thing in the morning today and no one got back to me, but then at 5:30 everyone starts telling me what to do and how fast to do it." 

I told him that I completely understand, and I'm here to help him with anything he needs just tell me. Tell me to grab a client and have him jump into the thing and test the log in process. I have three guys at the ready, and they'll do anything we ask, even late. I have their personal cel phone numbers. 

They know this is important and they're here to help too. Just yell when you're ready to go. 

The thing failed. Another thing for science, and it failed. And he started suggesting "well we can try it with another profile." But I told him no - he did great, we'll revisit tomorrow and try again. We're fine for tonight. Amazing thank you so much.

Science can wait until tomorrow for sure. 

I spent the evening writing help articles for the new app we're rolling out in May. I got a few done but I want to do screenshots for the next batch and I think I need my second monitor set up. Dragging my feet in setting up the office, well. It's my own fault isn't it. 

Maybe the dining table. Maybe. We'll see. Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill 30 min/2.20 miles. Broke 14 min and held steady at 13.30 pace. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 140
4:45pm: 91
11pm: 112 

food & meds:

8am: jardiance+phentermine
12:15pm: turkey and 2 pieces of muenster on 647 multigrain bread
12:30pm: met+glip
4:45pm: small ramekin of mixed nuts
6:30pm: rigatoni w/spicy sauce, pancetta, mushrooms, geoff style. Extra leftover sausage from the other night's dinner.
8pm: met+glip

Work Dreams and Dresses

It's been a long time since I've had a dream about work and co-workers. Last night I worked very late on some things and had a lot going through my mind about the big project. 

So of course, it all leaks into my dreams. 

One of our contractors in Europe was working for a chop shop that was located next to a bar where I was going to meet my friends Ben & Amy. It was very dark, and the parking area for the bar was incredibly full. I was riding a Vespa style scooter, and parked up in the grass between the bar and the garage. 

My co-worker, R we'll call him, came out of the garage and demanded my scooter. He was covered in grease and smelled horrible. Looked like he hadn't bathed in years, and I said no, get away from me and I tried to steer the scooter away to somewhere better lit, somewhere maybe safer. 

He kept trying to pull the handlebars away from me, but his hands were greasy. He tried to wipe them with a nasty rag, but nothing was helping him. 

Then he pulled a knife on me, and I left the scooter and ran into the bar to my friends. 

Of course. 

So the funny thing is, this guy is one of my favorite colleagues on the contracting team. He bathes! It's true!  He is nice, and sweet and funny. Not at all someone trying to murder me, or steal something from me, or give me a hard time about anything. 

Dreams are fucked up, yo. 

Last night Doug and I were talking about this wedding we are going to in NH in May. It's an evening wedding, "semi formal attire, black tie optional." So I wanted him to be aware. Evening wedding, semi formal, he has nothing. So he's a little chuffed about having to go buy a suit. He has sports coats and blazers and ties and dress shirts and all, but nothing that is a suit. 

And I'm in a similar boat. No I don't need a suit but I need a something. 

For Friday night, I think there's a cocktail thing so I have a cool blouse that I got for the Kennedy Center Guster show when we all did dress-up. 

And the only like, actual factual fancy dress I have is the dress I wore to Aaron's wedding in 2014 when I was his best man. 

2014, friends. Feels like forever ago. 

I've worn this dress repeatedly over the past decade. Doug's office party in 2018, Kennedy Center, another wedding. It's a solid go-to. 

But it is time for a new dress, I think. 

Where do people go to buy dresses? I am serious. I basically shop at Kohl's... I wear yoga pants and t-shirts (sometimes from one band, a lot). I spend most of my time barefoot. 

I bought this dress at Macy's, so I'm thinking I just go back there. I think Molly wants people to wear floral print to the wedding according to Jess, maybe? I have to double check that truth of that so I know what to buy.

Also shoes. 

Shoes. 

I had a pair of sweet kitten heeled sandals for Linda's wedding way back when, God only knows where they have ended up. 

I also have a comfortable pair of silver lamé sandals that I got for Aaron's wedding to match that dress, I still have those but they're looking a little worn. They can do, and Lord Knows they're the most comfortable things on the planet. 

That and a good pedicure the week before, my feet could be all set. 

Here's that silver dress in action again and yeah, you can see how it no longer fits me compared to the Aaron Wedding shot up there. 

Also. Maybe a haircut. I don't want bangs again but maybe layers. For fun curly fun. Or something. 

Also. Me and my sister are super cute. 

Digits below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. Treadmill, 30 min/2.06 mi. 11k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 109
4:30pm: 83
10pm: 160 

food & meds:

8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
12:15pm: english muffin w/pb and low sugar j
1pm: met+glip
6pm: shrimp and rice with onions and bell peppers (a Geoff recipe) very good! 
8pm: met+glip, last big piece of bread that Geoff made the other night.
vodka tonics