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Sorry for the late post, but I simply had to take a nap today! I have also made some updates to Making It Megan that needed to be completed before I could post this update and of course, I procrastinated that until today. Read more about the new Baking section in Baking it Megan below. Book Reviews has also gotten it’s own designated section, organized by monthly reviews as well as genre, so if you’re looking for a new read, check that out. If you’re here to hear about me, you’re my favorite, keep on reading.

Pilates Review

Monday: Reformer Flow 1.5 with (Redacted)

I have decided to not put the instructor’s name when my review is less than glowing. I have taken a class with this instructor before and was left disappointed. This time, I was hoping it might be different because it was a level 1.5 rather than a level 1. Unfortunately, that was not the case. My problem with her classes is that we are moving around too much, and not in a working-out type of way. We are moving from the reformer to the springboard to the chair, then back to the reformer, and repeat. The location changes just give too much downtime and I don’t feel like I get an hour’s worth of Pilates in my one-hour Pilates class.

Although I did not get a good workout in, we did do a fun new move on the chair. We stood with our feet on the pedal, holding it to the ground, and our hands on the chair. We used our abs to shift our weight into our hands and bent our knees, bringing our hips up and the pedal off the floor. It was NOT a pike – the instructor warned us about five times to not do a pike because that’s a level 2 move. As soon as she let us try, the girl right next to her immediately did a pike which brought on a few more stern warnings to NOT DO A PIKE. We had to have our knees bent, otherwise it was a pike and illegal! Anyway, here’s a video of a pike. (Don’t you dare try it.)

Wednesday: Suspend 1.5 with Jasmin

This was my first level 1.5 with Jasmin. When I came in, another woman was telling Jasmin that she was upset because she didn’t have time to put her hair in “war braids” before class. Jasmin asked if she was preparing for war and the woman said that her classes are like war. So that scared me a little. But she was not exaggerating.

I have only taken one other suspend class, which was with Maesy, and that was tough but doable. This class was next to impossible. At one point we had both feet in the TRX straps doing a side plank and sweat dripped off my forehead and into my eye. Also, while doing an arms-in-straps sequence in which we were kneeling, facing the back of the reformer, I did something funky, causing me to almost fall face-first off of the reformer. The carriage slammed back which would have gotten everyone’s attention on it’s own, but just to be sure everyone witnessed my close call, I also involuntarily let out a little scream. Truly mortifying. I would like to try this class again when I am a little less sore and really push myself. This is not the end!

Friday: Reformer Flow 1.5 with Wade

I was feeling great going into Wade’s class. I thought my soreness had finally dissipated and as I was walking to the CVS across the street for my in-case-of-emergency-low-blood-sugar orange juice, I was marveling at how strong my legs felt. Most of the class went well, although before class started, I did have to tell the woman next to me that she was stretching on my mat and her mat was the one on the other side of her reformer. And for some reason, I apologized after I told her that? I said, “Excuse me, sorry, your mat is actually on the other side, I’m sorry.” ???

Anyway. The class was great. We were doing a lot of shoulder work and after class, I told Wade that when we were doing one move with the Pilates ring held over our heads, it hurt for me to breathe. He said that was not supposed to happen and asked if I had strained a muscle in my back. I immediately realized it was from TopGolf. So I now have an excuse to get out of any offer to go golfing. “Sorry, I can’t go golfing, it’ll mess with my Pilates practice.” I’ll drive the golf cart for you, though!

Sunday: Restore 1.5 with Maesy

This was my first time taking a restore class so I had no idea what to expect. The class was basically a guided self-massage, using foam rollers, a trigger point ball, and the reformer. The lights were turned off and the music was relaxing – It was heavenly. And I really do feel restored, which is perfect timing because tomorrow is my first level 2 class! Updates on that to come next week.

Health Queen

I had another session with my diabetic coach, Katarina, on Friday. We looked at the charts of my blood sugars over the last two weeks and made some changes to my pump settings based on the patterns we found. I am so happy with my experience so far and I’m improving! Before I started coaching, my blood sugars were in range 65% of the time. After the first week of coaching, I was up to 69% in range. Over the last two weeks, I was in range 71%! My Dexcom estimates my A1C is sitting at a 7.0 but I’m hoping to get it down to a 6.0 this year. Let’s goooooo.

A new addition to the Health Queen regiment this week, is the Gut Health Tonic^TM. Boyfriend Alex has been drinking this tonic every morning for around five months and has been trying to get me to try it for approximately four months and 29 days. I finally caved and started it this week. The tonic recipe is as follows:
2oz. lemon juice
2oz. aloe vera filet
15g glutamine
Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
8oz. water

I’m not going to lie, it kind of tastes like throw-up, but I also can’t deny that I feel way less bloated after drinking it every morning on an empty stomach for a week. So, unfortunately, I must admit that Boyfriend Alex was right and I will continue to drink my throw-up tonic every morning.

Baking it Megan

When I started Making It Megan, I pictured a blog full of all sorts of things like book reviews, crafts, recipes, and life updates. The life updates have taken up most of my time but this week, I finally got around to adding a Baking section to Making It Megan. So far, I’ve got one recipe up on the Classic Cookies Collection page and it is the recipe I made this week: Magnolia Table Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I am posting these recipes to share my favorites with others, of course, but mostly so I have a collection of my favorites, written how I like to read recipes. I am picky when it comes to deeming something as a well-written recipe. I don’t really want to scroll through pages upon pages about how you made these cookies for your cousin’s niece’s dog’s birthday party and they were a big hit. I also don’t want to have to keep scrolling up through ads to get to the ingredients list to see the measurements. And I’m lazy and would prefer to weigh out my ingredients while adding them to the bowl rather than dirty up every measuring cup I own. And finally, as a diabetic, figuring out the carb count in a single homemade cookie has often been a guessing game. So, the recipes on Making It Megan will have little to no introduction, include the measurements (both in cups and grams) in the instructions, and provide basic nutritional information.

If you have a recipe you want in this format and want me to try, suggest a recipe on the baking page!

JFK Live

This weekend the cherry blossoms officially peaked (photo below), which meant DC was absolutely bursting at the seams with people. We avoided the city until 11:30PM on Saturday, thinking that the population of tourists would be back in their surge-priced hotel rooms by that time. Wrong. We made it into DC fine, however, once we were in, it was bumper-to-bumper everywhere you looked. We were stuck in traffic on one block, looking for parking for 15 minutes.

We finally parked and made it to our destination: Soundcheck to see the one… the only… DJ James Kennedy of Vanderpump Rules fame. We mostly went for the bit and because Alex’s friend got us on the guest list so we were able to get in for free. It felt a little bit like a middle school dance. Most of the few men in the crowd stood in the back while their Vanderpump fangirl girlfriends were up at the front, screaming, dancing, and getting Martinelli’s sparkling grape juice poured in their mouths by James while he screamed, “Who wants a Pumptini?!”

I kind of felt bad for him, as there were maybe 30 people there total. But then I remembered that he just recently got arrested for domestic violence and felt good that we got in for free and he didn’t get any of our money. It was fun, though, and I’m glad we went, even if just for the bit of seeing JFK (James F***ing Kennedy) in person.

Entertainment Weekly

This week, Boyfriend Alex and I needed a show to watch while we ate dinner one night and played the first thing that popped up on Netflix: Adolescence. This was a four-episode British series that follows Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy accused of stabbing one of his classmates to death. I looked it up to read more about it and apparently, the subject matter is causing a lot of debate over teen access to social media. The plot is horrifying and heartbreaking and very interesting but what really captivated me was the way this show was filmed: each episode is one shot and there is rarely background music. It sometimes felt more like a play than a TV show. No spoilers, but the last episode made me cry, and the way it was shot really amped up the emotions. I was also amazed by the actors – to do an entire hour-long episode in one shot is incredible. This show was definitely 10/10.

For Wednesday Movie Date Night, we saw The Assessment, a film set in a time where humans have had to abandon “the old world” and live inside a giant dome, seemingly without aging. Because of this extended life-span, resources are scarce and children aren’t only not needed to grow the population, but are literally just another mouth to feed. Children are still wanted though, so the government sends an assessor to live with and test would-be parents on their fitness to be parents. The film follows Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aryan as they are assessed by Virginia. And shit gets crazy. I really loved this movie. Elizabeth Olsen was amazing and I will be surprised if she doesn’t get nominated for at least one major award for this movie.

Yellowjackets season 3 episode 8. I refuse to let any nay-sayers who dislike this season (Boyfriend Alex) get in my head about this being my favorite show, but even I, a Yellowjackets loyalist, must admit that I fear we are losing the plot. Shauna, both past and present, is officially off the rails. Adult Shauna has tracked down Alex, the daughter of Hannah, the frog biologist who didn’t make it out of the Wilderness, and she’s married with children to Melissa, who, surprise! is not dead. We learn that Melissa made it out of The Wilderness but faked her own death upon returning. We also learn that the tape is, in fact, from Melissa, but we don’t learn much else because Shauna literally bites a chunk of skin out of her shoulder and makes Melissa eat it. WTF, Shauna?! Tai is also losing it, as she almost murders a man in palliative care to try to convince The Wilderness to cure Van’s cancer. Instead of suffocating him with a pillow, she screams in his face out of frustration, causing the man’s heart to stop, to which Tai says, “does that count?” Tai, you nut.

Also, back in The Wilderness, Kodi is starting to lead Travis and Akilah to the rescue point, but Akilah gets cold feet, leaving a trail for the other Yellowjackets to find them. Once all reunited, the girls start to pack up their huts and get their asses back to New Jersey. Unfortunately, head nut, Lottie, decides she will be staying in The Wilderness – New Jersey be damned. This inspires others to decide to stay as well. And when Nat says the logical response of, “you’re all insane, but we will be going now,” Shauna says, “you’re not going anywhere.” GIRLS!

None of my predictions from last week came true, at least not yet, so I will be recycling some of them: Hannah becomes part of the group, maybe using news from civilization to ingratiate herself with the girls who are starving for gossip; The DNA found under Lottie’s fingernails is Callie’s, not Shauna’s; Melissa’s arrow wound gets infected and Hannah and Kodi help her; Adult Shauna takes Melissa prisoner.

I was a busy little bee this week and finished the remaining two books in the Bill Hodges trilogy by Stephen King: Finders Keepers and End of Watch. Last week I talked about how I was worried that I had already read one of them because the character Holly Gibney from the first book, Mr. Mercedes, seemed familiar to me. Well, I am happy to report that I have not read either of these books, but I have met Holly before as she was a main character in The Outsider. After about 15 minutes of asking ChatGPT to compare the book to the TV show, which I know I’ve seen, I have come to the tentative conclusion that I have read The Outsider as well as seen the show.

Finders Keepers was probably my favorite out of the trilogy. The story starts with the murder of a retired famous writer perpetrated by Morris Belamy, an angry fan who is obsessed with one of the author’s characters and doesn’t approve of how the author left the character before his retirement. This fan murders him, partly for revenge for ruining this character, but also to rob him of cash and a trove of handwritten notebooks of unpublished writing. Morris hides the cash and notebooks away and before he can read any of them, he’s arrested and jailed for a different crime. Decades later, Pete Saubers, whose father was severely injured in Brady Hartsfield’s mass killing and happens to live in Morris’s old house, finds the treasure just around the time that Morris is unexpectedly released from prison. Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney now have a PI firm called Finders Keepers and are tasked with saving Pete and his family from the deranged Morris.

I loved this book because I can relate to most of the characters to some degree. Have I ever been outraged by a favorite character’s choices in a book and been pissed at the author? Yes. Have I been so outraged that I hatched a plan to murder the author over it? …Not seriously. Kidding. I have not. But, I get that feeling of “whhhhhhhy would you write that?!” And if I found out that there was a sixth ACOTAR book out there, with no plans for it to ever be published, I’m not saying I wouldn’t attempt a robbery. So, Morris, you’re extreme, but I kind of get it. And Pete is faced with such an impossible decision. A lot of times, I’ll read stories of crazy situations and be comforted by the thought of “I would never be so stupid as to do that.” But with Pete, he got himself into a crazy situation and I definitely would’ve done the exact same things that got him into that crazy situation. This book ended in a heartbreaking way but it ended well.

I talked last week about how I liked that Mr. Mercedes was all set in the natural versus the supernatural because sometimes Stephen King’s supernatural books seem to go off the rails a little bit. Well, End of Watch brings the supernatural to the Mr. Mercedes story and honestly, I’m not mad about it. It’s a few years after Mr. Mercedes, Brady Hartsfield, is finally apprehended for purposefully driving a stolen Mercedes through a crowd of people at a job fair. Although he’s not in jail, he’s in a hospital, basically brain-dead after Holly got in a few good whacks at him. At least, he seems brain-dead. But once surviving victims of the job fair tragedy begin committing suicide after receiving free handheld gaming systems from a mystery man, Bill and Holly start to wonder if Brady isn’t faking it. Although Brady’s body is basically useless, the blows to his head not only didn’t mentally handicap him, but he seems to be mentally enhanced.

My issue with some of Stephen King’s supernatural books is that he tries to explain the supernatural logically and that just doesn’t work sometimes. But this supernatural aspect did not seem that far-fetched. In fact, it actually made me a little wary of the things on my phone that I am addicted to and I will probably never look at Candy Crush the same again (I’ll still play of course). I loved how this book brought back a lot of characters from Mr. Mercedes, but I kind of wish that characters from Finders Keepers, like Pete, would’ve been brought in too. It feels like this was the sequel to Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers was the spin-off series. All three were great books. And honestly, I think the best way to rectify the fact that Finders Keepers seems to be very loosely tied to this series would be to have more Bill Hodges stories. Stephen, don’t make me pull a Morris Bellamy on you! (For legal reasons, this is a joke, I am not threatening the life of Stephen King)

In’s and Out’s

In:

Doing it for the bit

Boba tea

Foam rollers

Out:

Work nemeses

James Kennedy

Cherry Blossom Festival

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I hope you have a wonderful week! The next Weekend Update will come a little late, as we are heading to Nashville this weekend and won’t be landing back in DC until 11:00PM on Sunday. So, I will see you back here on Monday!