Hidden Carbs

Yesterday I made a banana bread and ate a big ass slab of it late in the evening because it was hot out of the oven, and perfect. It was so good. I was stunned when I took my blood sugar, considering I was pretty darn low carb for the day. Did the banana bread really rock my world that hard? 

Yiiiiiikes. 

Today, I worked and worked and lots of meetings, and a good hour long chat with my work bestie. And I decided more vodka tonics at 7pm. 

We usually use diet tonic which has zero carbs but Geoff bought regular tonic and I said, yeahhhhhhhh. I'll use the regular tonic. Last night I had 3. 

Tonight I went to make a cocktail and I looked at the back of the bottle, where it says 35 grams of carbs/sugar. 

Jeeeeeesus. Okay, so last night right before bed, I had about 90 grams of carbs. And a slice of banana bread. No wonder my glucose was so high. 

And tonight, yeah. I did use the tonic again but no banana bread and only 2 drinks. Sending Geoff to the market to get freaking diet tonic tomorrow. 

If doug hadn't had all the zero sugar ginger ale I would have finished the wine instead. 

Anyway. 

The unintended consequence of the regular tonic. 

This morning was hard to get started for me. Actually no, it started but early. Doug's office does all staff meetings at 7am so doctors and nurses going off duty and those coming on can all attend. His alarm went off, and I got up to pee. The dog got up too. But did not want to go out and pee because it was raining and super cold. I wondered how long she'd last. 

I fed her, Doug went to work, and it was 6:45am, man. 

I was awake but. The weather. No. Back to bed. Cozy. Cuddles with the dog. Fell asleep and had my alarm set for 8:50. Another two hours of zzzzz and it was worth it. I got up and Toffee was absolutely not wanting to get up. And it was tempting to bypass the rest of the morning but I went. It was a busy day and I made a lot of progress. I wrote a request for my colleague V to get a "spot bonus" for the work he is helping me do. We'll see if he gets it. 

Right then. Bed. With this girl. 

Tuesday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  no walk, 5k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 166
5pm: 145
11pm: 236 *   

food:

coffee/water/tea
10:30am: English muffin w/pb
11:30am: Metformin
2:30pm: tuna melt on 647 bread
6pm: Chicken Parm w/sauce
7pm: Metformin+jardiance
8pm: slab of banana bread
Vodka tonic

Wednesday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours.  no walk; 5500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 198
5pm: 199
10:45pm: 175  

food:

coffee/water/tea
9am: slab of banana bread
11am: turkey+roast beef w/2 slices of cheddar on 647 bread
6:30pm: small bowl of beef stroganoff w/a little bit of noodles; metformin+jardiance
Vodka tonic

Cracked

Doug's mom has given us a lot of glassware over the years, including a really funky cool pitcher that we use all the time for powdered drink mixes and sun tea. 

I usually hand wash it but it looked blah and gross so I put it through the dishwasher. 

Geoff set it on the dining table after unloading the dishwasher this morning, and I saw this giant crack in the glass when the sun hit it just right. 

I'm sad.

I really liked this pitcher! What a bummer. I showed Doug and apologized because I didn't realize it wasn't a dishwasher safe buddy. He said it was okay. His mom probably has more of these, not exactly like this one, but, he's right.

Anyway, today was an incredibly busy day with 4 big project meetings with the clients. 2 were very successful, one was just a chat, and the other was a failure. That's okay though. The client knows what he needs to do and we'll regroup. 

Digits are down below. I don't have a good horizontal pic to separate the digits and the words here.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. no walk, prepping dinner took that time. 5100+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:00am: 188
5pm: 160
10:30pm: 157  

food:

coffee/water/tea
11am: metformin; bowl of Mac & Cheese w/bacon
2pm: turkey sandwich w/mayo on 647 italian
6:15pm: metformin+jardiance; slab of chicken parm w/pasta sauce
vodka tonic w/lemon

Are you ready to rock?

There are things I wish my kids had accessible to them when they were ten. 

My friend Henry is about to turn 10 and he has been taking piano lessons for years, and has recently started up with a rock music program in our city. Today was the big showcase. Some kids played New Wave and 90s grunge (Rio by Duran Duran, Cannonball by the Breeders). Henry's group played 6 songs and he and another little boy traded off on keyboards. 

Henry's songs were Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Come Together by the Beatles, and TNT by AC/DC. He was great. You could really hear him playing, and in these cases the "real" students are the guitar, bass, and drums but. Hen stole the show. If we are fb friends, the video is up there of the end of Paranoid when everyone is just whipping on their instruments, and it is worth the view.

His teacher let him get on the mic at the start, because he wanted to yell "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" to the audience. So he got to do that, and then went to do it again for the second song, which was hilarious. 

Hen, everyone continues to be ready and prepared for ongoing rock. you don't need to ask us. Sara was semi-mortified, his teacher was very caring and loving and pointed him back to his keyboard station. 

It all reminded me a little bit of the Shakespeare camp days when the kids were young. I'm feeling wistful and nostalgic while having TNT bounce around in my head. 

I really wish there had been something like this, especially for Geoff. He would have been great. There are things available to kids now that he didn't have, and things available to kids now that I'm absolutely relieved he didn't have access to. Suffice to say, a rock and roll music school would have been fun.

Doug went with me and I am thankful for that, because it gets dark early, and getting home was complicated. Lots of accidents and the GPS put us on mysterious back roads in areas of DC I've never seen. 

He seemed to have a genuinely good time.  

I had a lot of beer and pizza today, and that's carbtastic, my 9pm blood sugar is astounding. Before I go to bed, I'm trying to counteract that a little with some protein, and I should take myself for another walk. The boys are watching football in the living room, so I can't just do the walk around the house thing. It's too late to drive up to the gym (and I've had some beers) and too dark to go out walking in the neighborhood. Hopefully in an hour or so my blood sugar will come down some. 

I'm happy I didn't book any meetings for the morning. I'll ease into the day. Glad we went out to support our young musician buddy. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 15 min indoor walk, 7100+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:30am: 187
xpm: n/a no reading 
10:30pm: 238  

food:

coffee/water
11am: english muffin w/pb Metformin
2pm: 2 beers, chips & salsa
4pm: 2 beers, pizza w/ sausage (spicy!)
5:30pm: metformin+jardiance
6:30pm: apple & pb
8:30pm: several slices of turkey, protein shake 

Leaving the house adventure weekend

This afternoon Doug and I went to DC to a brewery we've been meaning to visit. Note to self, it is easier to get there on the red line and walk the half mile from the stop... Driving in DC is an absolute nightmare, and it is no wonder I don't go into town often. 

We took the dog, it is a very Dog Friendly brewery. We thought we'd chill in a corner and have a few beers. Soak up the vibe. But. There were 2 kids birthday parties, and a yankee swap for an office. And a million people thinking like us. The place was jam packed. 

We could have found a seat if we didn't have the dog with us, it was just too tight and busy and she was very over stimulated by kids and noise and people. She did pretty well though while we were indoors but we went out on the patio. Disappointingly, all the patio seats and tables were cabled up and locked, so ... we stood out there and had two beers while our dog investigated the area. Thankfully, it was in the low 50s/upper 40s, no wind, and it was not an uncomfortable hang. I wore my winter coat because I thought maybe we were going to go for a walk... but we spent less than an hour there.

I wanted to go ask if they could unlock some patio seats so we could chill, but, because I have mercy and can read a room, I knew the staff was up to their noses in slinging beer. Instead I walked around and bused tables for them. I ended up with a free beer and lots of love from the three people tending the taps. If there was seating there, we would have stayed longer.

We headed home as it was getting dark. Leaving the brewery and looking to the west, the sky was amazing. Cameras don't do this justice, unless you put it through filters, and filters are lies. 

We got home and Doug made dinner. We used the last of the orzo (apologies to my chef friend, but. It was still good), the last of the cranberries, and he put three chicken breasts in a mess of seasoning in the oven. Geoff got home (this is one of his two weekends to work this month) and we relaxed. 

Tomorrow is a big day. My friend Hen is playing in a rock band (age 9!!!) at a BAR in Arlington VA. There are several other bands playing, I think his band plays three songs. But we're going to brave the traffic and head over the river to see him. He's very excited that we are coming. 

I feel like Monday is going to come too soon though. 

Oh, and in chatting with Jess, they're coming down here 12/20 and staying overnight with us. Then over to house sit for one of my colleagues until the 28th. I'm super excited. It is not as long as the last time but I absolutely love having them nearby! 

Jess complained I had not taken any pictures of Toffee recently, so I took some. Here are pics for today. Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. No dedicated 10. 6200+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 146
5:45pm: 156
10pm: 196  

food:

coffee/water
11:30am: 2 breakfast burritos w/bacon, scrambled egg, shredded cheese, salsa, on low carb wraps; metformin
3pm: 2 beers
6:30pm: Butternut Orzo mix, chicken breast w/cheddar and parmesan covered in spices, cranberry sauce
7pm: metformin+jardiance ; 2 more beers

Leftovers

A friend of mine who is a professional TV chef posted on his socials today "If you have any thanksgiving leftovers in your fridge, today is the day you throw them out."

Leftovers. 

I was suddenly very sad about leftovers. We have some mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, I'm thinking those are still good? We have the orzo and butternut squash. A little too high in carbs for me to be honest but I was thinking they'd be really good in a baked stuffed chicken breast or something. 

But thinking about what Tom said, now I'm thinking everything goes out. 

The one thing we have that I guess is not a week and a day old is the turkey soup. So for lunch, I had a nice big bowl of that with a grilled cheese on 647 bread. 

And it was lovely. 

Not much else to say except your girl may be doing a fridge clean tomorrow, maybe. Digits below this blurry picture of lunch.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. no indoor walk. too busy. 5k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 178
5pm: 154
11pm: 126  (tested 3x to make sure it was true)

food:

coffee/water
10:15am: english muffin w/pb
11am: metformin
1pm
6pm: cheesesteak meat w/mushrooms onions peppers in a bowl (no roll)
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance
white wine

Reduction Sauce

I LOVE when Geoff cooks dinner for us. He picked a recipe with a pan seared pork loin and a maple rum reduction sauce with pecans. 

He bought 2 packs of pork loin, and inside each pack, there were 2 pork loins. For a total of 4. Instead of putting 2 back in the fridge for another meal, he cooked all 4 of them. 

Like pork loin for DAYS, man. I kind of couldn't believe he did that but. It's cooked and we can do things with it for dinner tomorrow I guess.

He reduced the reduction sauce to a caramel, candy consistency - thick, and threaddy like if you were making a fancy maple rum dessert. Doug scraped it all onto parchment and we're thinking it is going to solidify fully overnight. Not quite peanut brittle consistency but I told doug he should have added the rest of the pecans to the mess, because then .... it'd be more awesome.

It was delicious but.  I mean. that was a lot.

Also, here's a note: do not serve a cheese based broccoli side dish with a sweet maple rum reduction sauce. not a good mix. 

Still. He did a great job, everything tasted great. He knows what to do for next time. 

I'm never sad that he makes dinner. Even if it is gross. There is no better way for anyone to learn how to do something than to make mistakes, and he has not killed us yet. There's that. 

Today there were so many meetings. I found out one of the clients sent my big boss an email about how excited he is to move onto our platform, after 2 solid days of training by me and my buddy B this week. It felt good because he's been a little difficult (the client) to sway in some ways so we had a great days of training and an open office hours "Ask Me Anything" session today. All good and fun. Great 1:1 with my boss, we did my annual review last week and a few things were still sitting with me. I brought them up, he heard me, I don't think things will change but I know I'm heard. Sometimes that is relief in and of itself.

Had a good long chat with Jess about housing, they're looking for a change. We've been trying to figure out a trip north and I think it won't be by Christmas but maybe ... after Geoff's birthday and before Doug's? Not sure yet. 

But we'll get it figured out. 

Put more holiday lights up. Feeling cozy and sweet around here right now. I'll get some pictures tomorrow of the more things. Noticed my tree picture had the little angels at the bottom cropped out of it, my bad. They deserve some love.

 This dog decided that I'm the coziest thing in the house. It's freezing cold, and she's not having any part of outside. She'll hopefully go out in the morning. Again, I wonder about the time she was a stray. Where she was in the winter, as she was rescued in October but had lived through a winter before that. What was her life like?  I know what it is like now. And she is a blessed beast. digits below.

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours. no walk. Missed 2pm because of a really excellent meeting and I couldn't bring myself to stop participating. 4600+ steps by bedtime. An off day, I'd say.

blood glucose:

8:15am: 188
4:30pm: 186
10:30pm: 150 (another finger gave me 138 and I didn't believe that. Too huge a difference. Going with 150)

food:
coffee/water
11am: Bacon Turkey low carb fajita wrap w/mayo; Metformin
1pm: some more bacon I left for Doug that he didn't eat
6pm: porkloin w/ a very over carmelized reduction sauce w/rum and maple syrup and pecans. Broccoli and cheese 
7pm: metformin+jardiance
8pm:ramekin of pretzels and more pretzels, even more pretzels
white wine

Getting in the mood

This morning the leaf vacuum cleaner machine is going around our neighborhood. It is a very Dr. Seuss-ian contraption. We didn't get our leaves raked to the side of the road. Geoff started but our rake broke and somehow we didn't get over to buy a new one. 

All our neighbors have completely leaf-free yards right now. Ours is covered. Doug will go out and mow over them at some point, it's better for the soil and the pollinators to not completely remove your leaves and make it a spotless carpet of grass. At least, that's what we tell ourselves. We're very New England about this, and in Maryland, everyone 'scapes. 

I turned on the christmas lights I haven't taken down for the past couple years and added more. I went to the basement and found the little table top tree. I put the wee angels around the base, and started to organize the other lights to bring up and stick around. 

Geoff has tomorrow off so he went to the market to get stuff to make for dinner tomorrow. I'll also use his tallness on things I want to put up higher. 

A couple pictures from today so far. Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 15 min indoor walk, 6k steps by bedtime (seems low, even with the walk but. Hmm)

blood glucose:

8:15am: 186
5:30pm: 155
10:30pm: 220

food:
coffee/water
10:30am: mac & cheese w/ground beef and extra queso
11am: metformin
12:30pm: english muffin w/pb and low sugar jelly
6:30pm: 4 pork chops (small, thin) with about 8 pierogi
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance 
white wine

One Year of the Toffinator

Today Facebook reminded me that I got a dog. And my blog post from last year reminded me that we got a dog. 

This year feels like it has flown by so fast. And every day has been Toffee. I didn't anticipate I would have a dog like this. Big. Super Big. My little goofy tank. My happiest bean. 

And I'm all the better for having her around. Digits below.

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours. Missed 2pm because I thought I got it, but didn't. Oops. 2 walks inside 9 min/.41 miles and 16 min/.53 miles. 7200+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

7:45am: 200
5pm: 158
10pm: 154

food:
coffee/water
10am: large bowl of plain yogurt w/ blueberries & splenda
11am: metformin
12noon: english muffin w/ bacon and mayo (was going to make cheese/egg for a whole mcmuffin but but felt lazy
6pm: Nachos w/ ground beef, avocado, salsa, sour cream; vodka tonic; metforin+jardiance
7-8pm candied nuts

Planning

My sister was at mom's for a while for Thanksgiving and left this morning. I had expressed to Doug that I thought I ought to go up and visit her before the end of the year. Should I fly solo, should I take the train, take one of our cars? And he felt like he should come too. 

We started planning. 

We could take the dog, but, she can't stay at the hotel because she's too big. But also, Doug thinks we should stay at my mom's but I'm all against that nonsense because smoking and it is 90 degrees in the trailer AND the bed is a full sized bed. So two of us and/or three of us with the dog would be ridiculous.

He's not hearing me out that if we go together, the bed is small and close. Let that just stand. 

And dude is now such a big fan of Amtrak so the train together to Providence, rent a car, and spend like 3, 4 days. It could be a thing.

And probably the weekend before Christmas. If everything isn't sold out all the way. 

I'm happy he wants to go with me and figure out the best options. I just want to be not stressed, and comfortable and .... happy. I don't want to pay to travel, and be stressed for 3 or 4 days while there. 

I love my mom, I truly do, but for sure I just want to go visit her and have a nice visit and not be stressed out. 

More to come on that. He went to bed grumbling that the train would be 300 bucks each for us, and then renting a car, maybe we should drive, maybe this maybe that. I just need to know if it is too late to ask my boss for time off. Because I bet 4 other people on my team are taking the time off. And in theory, I could work while I'm up there, depending on the days we're up there. 

Sigh. 

Tomorrow, Doug gets to go into DC with his office team and go to the White House, and lookie lou at the Christmas Decorations... and then Wednesday he goes to a big holiday luncheon with his office people. Twice in one week, people. Work people. 

I don't envy him but I kind of would love a field trip. 

Hopefully he'll take a couple pictures for me of the trees and shit. 

On that note. Bed. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 20 min indoor walk / .75 miles; 7500+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 166
4:15pm: 168
10:30pm: 166

food:
coffee/water
10:30am: english muffin w/pb & cherry preserves
11am: Metformin
12:30pm: bowl of left over pot roast
4pm: candied nuts
6pm: 2 cluck pucks on one bun, some waffle fries
6:30pm: metformin+jardiance
white wine+ginger ale

With Quiet

We didn't do anything at all this weekend. We talked about doing things, like, today is the first Sunday of the month and it is plant swap day at a favorite brewery. I wanted to go since it was the last one of the year. 

"There will be one next year," Doug said to me. He's right. Hard to believe next year is in 31 days.

He did take Toffee for a walk yesterday which was an accomplishment. It was 37 degrees and your girl wasn't leaving the house. I think we're back into the official no leaving the house because too [weathery out there] philosophy of yours truly. Over 80? no. Under 50? mmmmm, no. 

I did play D&D tonight and we broke our DM's brain. That was a lot of fun. We are playing with two players who are VERY advanced, my friend Cori and I played another campaign together in 2020, so we're, as the kids say "Mid." And Courtney is new to this. She doesn't know what to do or what her character is allowed to do. So Matt has to coach her. And he lets her say "I defer to the team for .... suggestions?" 

I gave her such a good suggestion tonight that Matt was tickled. You could see it in his face. "That's a perfectly viable option." 

I love it when he says something is perfectly viable. 

He had to go off his own script for the game tonight because one of our fellow questers came in swinging in a situation he did not anticipate a fight would happen right off the bat. And then my character ran away from the situation. We split the party, essentially, so I knew I had to go back and figured out a good way. 

It was a lot of fun. I look forward to playing with this group. We don't play weekly, it is more like once a month at this point. We're all incredibly busy. But when we do play I feel like it clicks really well. 

So doing nothing, it was pretty nice. And I liked it.  Making the soup for dinner was really the only exciting thing that happened. 

Anyway. Digits below.  

Saturday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. 30 min indoor walk about 1.36 miles; 8k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:30am: 189
4pm: 181
11pm: 183

food:
coffee/water
forgot all the food i ate, mostly had a lot of turkey and some pie, and candied cashews. Meds taken at normal times

Sunday digits

exercise: 12/12 hours. no walk, tried to get one but got distracted by kitchen work... 5k by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:30am: 173
4pm: 159
11pm: 230

food:
coffee/water
12pm: english muffin w/pb & low sugar jelly; metformin
5pm: ramekin of pretzels; several slices of pepperoni
6:30pm: homemade turkey soup w/chinese white rice, shredded carrots, onion, celery, 3 kings hawaiian rolls. More pretzels through the evening while watching football.
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance
red wine+zero sugar ginger ale