Quietly Sunday

Wishing I took more time off because I still don't feel like working tomorrow. Dreading it already. I kind of wish that Doug and I went away this weekend for his birthday. It's on Tuesday and during the week birthdays are hard. He's in his usual winter blahs. Today I decided I wanted to go to the market before football time, and he said "are you feeling okay?" kind of making a joke about me going to the gym. I told him I feel great and he could too if he came to the gym with me. It could be fun. And he made some more harumphy noises as I walked out the door to head out. 

I did the treadmill and recumbent bike, and then decided to use the machines. All of the ones in front of the section I was in were upper body ones and I treated myself gently and set everything to 10 or 20 pounds, anything more than that was an outright challenge. I'll build my way up. 

We watched football this afternoon, I made buffalo chicken dip and we ate it early, it was supposed to be a snack but the three of us killed the whole thing and there then was no need for dinner. Doug got a little hungry and I'd bought Geoff some pizza rolls the other day, so he popped those in the oven. I contemplated an apple and peanut butter but. Meh. These were there. 

I talked to Linda for a while this morning too as we're trying to figure out our next visits north. We have Guster concerts in March, and then in April I'm going to go see David Sedaris with my girl C and friends. So we'll dovetail some Shirley time in there. 

That's about it. Here are some pictures. Dinner and Doggo. Good night. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  1 mile on the treadmill (27 min); 4 miles on the recumbent bike (22 min); 6 upper body machines w/10 reps at 10 to 20 lbs depending on the angle of doing. 8700+ steps by bedtime 

blood glucose:

9:30am: 188
3:35pm: 155
10pm: 160

food:
coffee, water
noon: metformin
3:45pm: pbj on 647 bread
4:30pm: buffalo chicken dip w/ celery, tostitos scoops, pita chips; 2 beers
6pm: metformin+jardiance
7:30pm: about 10 pizza rolls, another beer

Get Your Flowers

Recently I've written about how I don't stand in line for anyone, but I did for Mad Science Brewing. And I don't get up early on a Saturday morning for much, but I have and will do it again. 

This morning Henry had his piano recital. In May, it was at 9:30am, but today because he has advanced to the next level it was at 11:45am. Happily, I was up in plenty of time, Doug did snow removal, and I even put on dress pants and a blouse and went to see my buddy play Hall of the Mountain King (or a little bit of it). He did amazing. And to be honest, all the kids were amazing. And I was a little envious because to be honest, I think I'd love to go back to playing music, and taking lessons. I've always wanted to return to third grade and re-learn the violin. Or pick up the flute again. Or do something completely different and start guitar or cello. 

I brought Henry flowers and explained to him that in life a lot of times we say to each other you deserve flowers. You get your flowers. I'm sending you flowers with my words of praise and encouragement. But here he got his flowers. 

He's not my kid, he's not my blood or family, but I'm a huge fan. I admire him and how he thinks and the amazing way he perceives the world. I would give him all the flowers. 

Today was a good day. 

After the recital, we all went to lunch and it was next door to my gym, so I had no excuse. I packed a bag with my change of clothing and tapped out of lunch a little early so I could go and get something in befor the 4:30pm football game. 

I talked to my girl C and her friend on the phone for a half hour while on the treadmill. Then I went to the recumbent bike and did 3 miles while listening to the Avett Brothers and waving my arms around to get "steps" on my fitbit. I know that if I just pedaled it wouldn't measure the exercise. So I have a system for counting steps. 

And um, no. It is not cheating. shut up. 

I went to the store to get bleu cheese crumbles and salad dressing for Buffalo Chicken Dip. When I got home, Doug had already started dinner so I put the ideas of dip aside for tomorrow. No worries there - we'll save my plans for Sunday. It was a very good day all told. 

Here's me and Hen. With Flowers.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  1 mile on the treadmill (32 min) 3 miles on the recumbent bike (16 minutes); dedicated "a lot" 11,000+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 166
5pm: 170
10pm: 176

food:
coffee, water

9:45: english muffin w/pb & apricot bonnie maman's preserves
11am: Metformin
1:30pm: bowl of crab soup, 3 tiny square pizza slices; 2 high noon cherry seltzers
5:15pm: kielbasa, pierogies, sauerkraut, vodka tonic/s; white wine
8pm: big bowl of trail mix (like, more than I shoulda)

Take a Pause

I took a sick day today. I'm not sick-sick, but mental health-wise I'm just flat out tired, exhausted. 

Done. And it was a short week to boot. I just made it shorter. I feel like I could be very happy working a 4 day work week, but when you have to cram 5 days into 4, it makes it more challenging. So 5 works, for managing what I have to do. Maybe 4 sounds nice but, no.

Today would have been a clean-up day. Our team blocks the afternoons off to do "housekeeping" on our tickets but I'm usually naughty and that's when I book meetings with stations when I literally have no time to meet with them otherwise. Today I had nothing booked meetings-wise. So I felt I wouldn't be disappointing anyone by backing out of anything scheduled a week or so ago. Everyone on my team calls out when they're tired, or headachey, or feeling blue. We're very good to each other, and I feel like I never take time. I'd have to be for real sick for me to take time. 

And today, today was the day to pause.

There is work to be done for sure. I have a hoard of tickets from our devs on one of our products that I have to review and check. It is a product that I've complained gets absolutely no developer attention but here we are - it is getting attention, and now I'm the blocker. I'm not paying attention. 

Speaking of housekeeping, I did apply some effort into things today. I bleached the non-slip bath mat and scrubbed the bathtub. I pulled all the laundry together, but no one took it downstairs yet. I swept. Looking around the living room and under the credenza, I noticed how much Toffee Toy Stuffing and body parts of various former animals and stuffies were everywhere. And the poinsettias are shedding leaves and flowers, and those fall on the floor and usually are gently foot-swept under the tables. So sweeping happened, and swiffering happened, and what next needs to happen is a good vacuuming and then I really should mop. 

Vacuuming can happen when Doug heads into the office, since he hates it so much. Unfortunately, he has not gone into the office in several weeks. The holidays, me being away, the new dog, his boss was out so he doesn't go in if she's not there, weather. If the weather turns nicer, I can do it when he takes the dog for a walk again. She hasn't been for a good walk in several days. But at least she has this good good yard to run around in and have a good time. 

I got the mop out and discovered it is broken. It will not pull up or push forward, so you can't wring it out and you can't put on a new freaking mop-head. I do not understand how something like that just stops working or breaks. Even Doug tried to force it to move and it would not cooperate. 

I saw a TV commercial for a swiffer mop, where the woman in the commercial is whining about how much she hates mopping every day. And, she's using the kind of mop you should have a wringer attached to the bucket for, and this dummy is hand-wringing a filthy FILTHY mop. 

First off, if you are mopping every day, lady, hows come your mop is so damn disgustingly dirty? Why aren't you using a good mop wringer? The kind attached to the big giant yellow bucket at the elementary school? Also no one has to mop every day oh my god stop it.

Handwringing a freaking rope mop in skanky water. No wonder you hate mopping. You're ridiculous. 

I took Geoff to work at 12:30 since it was snowing, and very cold, and I didn't want him walking in the snow. Then I went to the gym to find it closed. Doh. Should have called first. Oh well. But look at me, I'm out of the house and I'm doing the things. 

We needed things at Target so I went to the mall and thought ya know... you need some winter boots, stupid. So I started to walk to the opposite end of the building and discovered there was a new shoe store on the main level, as opposed to the other shoe store I was headed to downstairs. 37 bucks later and I got me some basic waterproof Totes.  Victory.

Then, after like 400 bucks of stuff at Target later, I headed home. Doug took the afternoon off and was napping so I schlepped all the groceries in by myself, put everything away by myself, got dinner ready... by myself. 

I hate that Geoff has a job now. ha. 

It wasn't a lost day. Between Target and the long walk in the mall I got steps in. Lots of steps. Like a mall walkin' granny. 

Tomorrow will be a good day. My man Henry has a piano recital, and of course he invited me. I went to his first one, can't remember the date but I'm not sure it has been a year. He's grown and come a long way. I'm super excited to hear him play. I bought him roses to give him after his performance. Sara suggested it, and couldn't get them herself because they'd be in the car with him, and he'd see them. So I'm the secret bouquet deliverer. 

And then there is football. 

Here are a couple pictures, More tomorrow, I'm sure. I will say, Toffee enjoyed that tennis ball that she found in the yard from the Phineas days, for about 12 hours. And this morning, I felt like the alligator.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. 2k by noon; lots of steps in target and the mall but not really a dedicated 10 of any sorts. 8400+ stepsby bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 157
5pm: 140
10:30pm: 143

food:
coffee, water
10am: 4 strips of bacon
noon: metformin
5:45pm: bowl of pasta shells in meat sauce; red wine+no sugar ginger ale
7pm: Metformin+jardiance

It's a French Onion Soup kinda day

When it is cold and dreary I like to make stock or soup. It makes the house smell good and puts moisture into the air. I like that. 

It's some work to do this, and I enjoy it when I'm not frazzled by work. I started the onions at about noon, and let them simmer down, put the wine atop them and then let that go for a while. I had a call at 1, 2, and 3, but was able to just let it all sit there on low heat and do magical things. 

A long time ago I did a post on how to do Bread Bowls for the FOS but since have been using crocks that I got on super deep sale from sur la table, since I don't eat as much bread these days. But re-reading that post made me long for some bread bowl action.

I had a lot of meetings today, and I was going to go to the gym but Geoff took forever to get back and by then I'd had wine.

Before and After pictures. Apologies for the shadow. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  dedicated 10 during a meeting; 5500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 188
4:30pm: 165
10pm: 197

food:
coffee, water
10:15am: pb&j on 647 italian w/bonnie maman's black raspberry preserves (we're out of the low sugar stuff).
4:30pm: small piece of french bread w/butter (makin' croutons for FOS)
white wine
6pm: bowl of french onion soup w/melted havarti
8pm: ramekin of mixed nuts

So So busy

I had such a busy day that all i've got is this picture of my dog going to bed last night. That's it. That's the post.

More tomorrow. digits below.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.   no dedicated 10. 4500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 147
5pm: 156
10pm: 225

food:
coffee, water
10:30am: english muffin w/pb & bonnie maman's preserves
12 noon: metformin
2pm: 2 good yogurt; several pretzels w/hummus 
7pm: 3 slices of pizza; metformin+jardiance; white wine

A Right Proper Little Snowstorm

Yesterday during the day we got snow.
Then, overnight we got more snow.
Then this morning, even more snow.
Magically it has only accumulated to about 2-3 inches for the amount of time it has been snowing. Which cracks me right up.

It's very pretty out. All the tree branches are covered with the slight powdering, contrasting against the dark steel sky.  The evergreens are bent, holding up the snowdrops on their boughs. 

It's not a lot of snow. It is kind of just the right amount. In Boston this would just be a "Tuesday" but in these parts it is an emergency situation. School is closed and probably will be closed again tomorrow. Which is outright insanity to me. It is kind of amusing and annoying all at once. People measure the snow and post pictures of it for the local weather on TV. 1 inch in Bethesda! 1/2 inch and coming down in Rockville! Dudes. C'mon. 

I drove Geoff to work today and the sloppy plowing done on some streets is ridiculous, compared to our street, which is plowed perfectly because it has a school on it. A benefit I guess, but they didn't have to go over our street 8 times compared to the 1 time they went down the street to the hospital. 

But it is pretty, and Toffee is enjoying it very much. She can't catch so you can't throw a snowball to her and have her chomp it in the air. She likes for you to throw one, and she'll find it and eat it. Or you can just be nice and hand it to her. She's fast. I tried to take pictures and video of her playing but she really is too speedy. So cute.  Here's one picture I got of her that looks like.... fun. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  no gym visit due to work schedule, sadly. 6000+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 153
4pm: 230
10pm: 166

food:
coffee, water
11:30am: bowl of Mac&cheese with bacon, metformin
12:30: roast beef, colby jack, mayo, 647 italian bread
1:30: the last 2 big christmas sugar cookies 
4pm: protein shake
5:45pm: chicken cordon bleu (chicken breast w/ 2 slices of havarti, sliced ham); carrots & potatoes left over from last night
6pm: Metformin+jardiance
white wine

Swept Away - Arena Stage, Washington DC

(image from a Reddit post about the show, I wanted the playlist)

My friend Chrissy had two tickets for the closing night, end run of a musical called "Swept Away," but had a family emergency and could not use them. She offered them to me. Not knowing much about this musical, except that it is framed around songs by the Avett Brothers, I gladly took her up on the offer and brought Sara with me. I mean, I like the Avett Brothers. 

To say this production was a surprise, and wonderful beyond imagination, is an understatement and disservice to the company and the entire world surrounding this play. 

I went in knowing only that it was about a shipwreck. I didn't know much else, and I don't want to write too much and give away the story because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who may want to see it, but, if you want to go read about it, NPR did a great writeup of the show, spoiler alerts ahead. 

 But I'll share a little taste of the story for you here. A whaling vessel departs from New Bedford, MA with a seasoned crew and a very young hayseed farmer boy who wants to have adventures (Little Brother), his sibling (Big Brother) tracks him down and tries to get him off the boat ("It's a ship, actually" is the line that follows to everyone's mirth). But the ship pushes off from the dock and is off, with both brothers aboard. 

The other main characters are the Captain and the Mate. Noting that they do not have names it kind of makes them universal in the world, and they could be anyone. 

The crew is a jolly bunch of hard workers, and the Mate leads everyone in song. Little Brother is totally down for this, Big Brother hates it. Too much frivolity, dancing, we have to get back to the land, to the earth, to the FARM where we belong! Little Brother is torn between the two worlds. He wants more than just the acres they live on, but he does miss his sweet girl Melody Anne. 

The narrative weaves around Avett Brothers songs like Hard Worker and Ain't No Man. Big Brother asks for the Captain to do church service on a Sunday morning and he refuses, so he takes it upon himself to worship, singing "Lord Lay Your Hand On My Shoulder." The crew thinks it is hilarious, but Little Brother joins him, and it is a very touching moment between them. 

Then, to steal from not The Avett Brothers but Frank Turner, "worse things happen at sea." And boy do they ever. 

There are four survivors of the shipwreck (the storm sequence was amazing, almost seizure triggering, I'm sure, for some). And the story that unfolds is heartbreaking. I'll leave that at that. 

Today I pulled up the Spotify playlist from the show, and there are two songs I was already familiar with that I simply will never be able to hear the same again. 

I want to see this again, and hope it gets to Broadway or Boston or somewhere. I hope the cast is the same. I really loved it. 

If you hear any buzz out in the world about Swept Away coming to your city, or a city you can get your face to, please go see it. 

Here are a couple videos from the cast performing some of the songs in the production, outside of the production. First is the Mate and below is Big Brother and Little Brother. They are simply perfect together. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. 30min on the treadmill, and 2 miles (not sure of the time) on the recumbent bike  8700+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 186
4:30pm: 163
10:30pm: 153

food:
coffee, water
10am: 2 good yogurt
11am: English muffin w/pb & bonnie maman's cherry preserves; Metformin
6pm: roasted chicken, roasted potatoes and carrots. 
gin & tonic

post on hold

Got home late from going to see a musical in DC tonight. i want to write about it but it is late and I'm tired. Went to the gym, talked to Linda about her new puppy (yay!) and had a pretty rockin' day. 

So thankful tomorrow is a day off/holiday. I am not in the mood to work. ha.

The musical we went to see is called Swept Away, and it hopefully is destined for Broadway. Here's a pic of me and sara to hold you over until tomorrow. 

Digits below.

digits 

exercise: 9/12 hours of 250 steps. 22 minutes on the treadmill; missed 3 hours because of dinner and at the theater 7900+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 208
4:30pm: 163
11pm: 178

food:
coffee, water
noon: metformin; ramekin of mac&cheese w/hamburger, left over flank steak dinner from the other night
5:45pm: french onion soup; 3 small pieces of fried fish, french fries, coleslaw, 2 glasses of wine; metformin+jardiance
7pm: cocktail at the theater

Today I did a thing

I had procrastinated the hell out of an important task and decided to grab it by the short hairs today and do the thing.

Backstory: I had reserved a hotel in Toronto for Jess as a christmas gift, and when I reserved it, the confirmation said that they needed to present my credit card. So no. They most certainly would not be able to do that. 

I called the hotel and they emailed me a PDF to fill out and fax back to them. 

I thought to myself there is no fucking way this is the best way to do this. I downloaded and printed the form and said alright, okay. They're checking in on the 19th of January so I just have to get my shit together and find a fax machine. 

Find.
A.
Fax.
Machine.

Freakin' Heck. So I knew I could go to staples to send a fax, and there is one about 3 miles north of me so around 5pm, I put on clothes, I filled out the form, I got my sneakers. And I went. 

I had to call first to tell them I was faxing the form, and that in and of itself was shit. The AI automated attendant, that fakes how humans speak with pauses and questionny tones, made me irate and I kept saying I need to speak to the office, the manager, "but okay what are you trying to fax? Is it a resume? Are you applying for a job?"

No you robot bitch it is a picture of my fucking foot that I'm about to shove down the throat of whoever decided to put you in charge of GATEKEEPING me from getting to the solution I need.

Eventually I got a human and she told me that they've switched from this PDF Fax form process, and she'd email me a secure and safe form to fill out. 

Well for happiness' sake fuck yes, thank you. So I now have to fill this shit out. I'll do that later tonight. After football. 

While I was at it at Staples, in the plaza next door there is a fresh, brand new Planet Fitness. Waiting for me. 

I'd been hoping they'd put one down in this area. The one Geoff goes to is a bitch to get to, but he loves it there and it is open 24 hours, so, if he wanted to go at 2am well, have at it, bro. 

For me, I hate going places. I hate driving around here. I hate anything further than a mile away. I'd wanted them to put a PF in the plaza right by Target and where we grocery shop, There is one in downtown but you have to pay to park, and even if I took the metro one stop, I'd have to pay for that and then walk like a half mile to the gym so why bother. I could just walk around here and sweat my ass off.

Getting this one 3 miles from the house is acceptable. And they just opened last week. 

And I went. I did the thing. I went to send a fax that it turned out I didn't have to, but without having to do that, I wouldn't have done this. 

Hello Dedicated 10 plus whatever. 

The thing is about me, is if it is too cold, or too hot around here, I won't be going out for a walk. Doug walks the dog almost every day. He doesn't care if it is hot or cold, he goes. But your Princess Chrissie, well she don't. She don't. 

A return to the dedicated 10 and then some. Here we go. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.   Dedicated 15 at planet fitness treadmill 7000+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 208
6pm: 211
10pm: 206*

food:
coffee, water
11am: scrambled eggs, shredded cheddar, 4 pieces of bacon, onions, red pepper. "Cheesy Scramble," as it were (I made breakfast burritos for the boys and the wraps were not low carb so I skipped a wrap for me).
12: metformin
6pm: bowl of left over pork and bean soup; 2 pieces of cornbread, red wine
*10pm: metformin+jardiance (forgot to take with dinner!)
10pm: trail mix and slices of a brick of swiss cheese

The Earlier Birds

I could hear men yelling to each other in Spanish outside this morning a little before 7am. The road construction crew that has been working with the water department over the past couple months was back, and it was the "put the truck here, unload the backhoe there and move the trailer over there" conversation. 

I know just enough Spanish. 

Well, I needed to pee anyway so I got up. And Toffee got up because the sun is shining and it's morning and brekkie time. There would be no convincing her back to bed for another hour. Declaring myself officially up, I let her out and got the coffee going. I closed the bedroom door so Doug could keep sleeping. finished loading and started the dishwasher and put the frying pan and pyrex dish in the sink to soak. Tasks I neglected last night. Geoff sometimes does it if I go to bed and he's up watching TV but I don't think he stayed up last night. So there were things to take care of. 

The trucks arrived and workers arrived and noise began, so I was just 15 or 20 minutes ahead of the gang. They've been at this project for weeks and I have no clue what the deal is that they keep coming, tearing up the same spot, closing it up, and coming back. 

Doug woke up around 8. I had already answered two very unhappy client emails, and felt like I should just take the rest of the day off when I remembered I made a meeting for a California team at 4pm ET to accommodate the time difference. On a Friday. Before a holiday weekend. Why did I do that. 

By 10am I was ready for bed again. But I got the laundry organized and downstairs. The day went on.

We had a client do a very dumb thing and make a change to their website host configurations, and boy did that mess everything up. Their website went offline, and, there's something called TTL or Time To Live, and that was set to 2 hours. She should have consulted us first, I would have told her to change the TTL to 5 minutes, and wait 24 hours to make the change, AND do it with one of us. But she didn't know. She didn't realize the implications. She had to wait 2 hours for the site to come back up after we helped her reverse the things she did. 

Our sysadmin is one of the GREATEST people I've ever worked with, and he jumped on a call while he was at Target shopping with his mom at 5pm yesterday. I mean. It puts wind in my sails to have a co-worker willing to take a "sounds like a you problem" and jump in to help and advise. I ended the day yesterday feeling hopeful and inspired whereas I went into the call thinking "I do not need any of this at 5pm." 

I realize sometimes that I need to extend grace if I ever want it extended to me. And yesterday was a good example of that. 

Today was a very busy day and we had a couple of emergencies late, including an emergency page at 7pm that I am still working on. Part of it is time and patience and waiting for something to resolve, but I poured myself a giant glass of wine while waiting. 

An early day, a late night. some days are like that.

Here's some Toffee for you.

digits 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps.  Missed 9am because i was focused on work, and realized at 9:59 i was short by 100 steps. boo. 5500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7am: 188
5pm: 168
10pm: 183

food:
coffee, water
9:30am: 2 egg omelet w/ spinach, left over chorizo mix from the peppers last night. Cheddar cheese. English muffin w/butter
1:45pm: Giant bowl of plain yogurt w/blueberries and a splash of splenda 
6:30pm: chicken parm and sauce, tiny bit of spaghetti; metformin+jardiance; white wine
8pm: ramekin of mixed nuts; handful of m&ms