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You guys. I’m sorry, okay? What can I say? I am a very busy woman with a lot of things to do and a blog post just wasn’t in the cards for me last week. So, here I am, yet again, asking for your forgiveness and your continued support even though I have once again let you down. I cannot promise perfection going forward, but I can promise that I’m gonna try my darndest to do my best. Okay, enough groveling, let’s get into it.

Pilates Review

Sunday (May 11) : Reformer Flow 2 with Maesy

This update is jam-packed with Maesy classes, as I have decided that I’m going to be sticking with what I know for the most part moving forward. Obviously, because Maesy is my favorite, but I also know what level of workout I’ll be getting in her classes, which is needed for regulating my blood sugar. I have finally cracked the code of how to keep my blood sugar from spiking and/or plummeting during Pilates – starting with my blood sugar around 150, I’ll have a protein bar that also has carbs, not bolus for it, and put my pump on exercise mode. If I do this and have a pretty tough class, my levels stay pretty steady, and I don’t have to pause for a juice break or insulin break in the middle of class.

However, if the class is not difficult, my blood sugar will just spike. So, medically, I need to take Maesy classes or Maesy-level classes. I don’t make the rules! Regarding this class, I took it a week ago and can’t remember anything so it must have been good!

Tuesday (May 13): Suspend 1.5 with Maesy

I took a step out of my reformer comfort zone to swing around in Maesy’s suspend class. I still have that damn mental block about falling into the well (of the reformer, I’m not hanging out by water wells regularly enough to fear them), and I think that part of my problem is that I don’t trust my arm strength. I’ve gotten the best arm workout in one of the previous suspend classes that I’ve taken, so I decided to pop on over to Pentagon City for another go at it. I’ve also been craving that back bend using the straps to get a nice stretch, and Maesy was happy to oblige.

Not going to lie, the vibe was a little off in this class. We were trying some new things, and some people didn’t like that. As someone who was once told that I’m “a pleasure to have in class” and is constantly striving to be an adequate level of pleasant, I cannot imagine audibly complaining. Yes, I’ll cuss instructors out in my head, but on the outside, the most I will do is try to communicate through intense eye contact that I am dying, please have mercy. I don’t know, could never be me.

Thursday (May 15): Reformer Flow 1.5 with Cristina

This was my first class at the Seven Corners location. With our imminent move, this studio is going to be the closest one to me, so I figured I’d start getting used to it now. This was a smaller class, which was nice because this was one of the hardest classes I have taken thus far. I honestly think I blacked out for most of it, because I can’t remember what was so hard about it, but I was supposed to go to the gym after with Alex, but instead took a nice restorative bubble bath. I like this location and the class so I’m looking forward to taking more classes there.

Monday (May 19): Reformer Flow 2 with Maesy

At this point in my Pilates schedule, I am trying to stick to every other day, but I may adjust that so that I can take Maesy’s Monday class every week. It’s a level 2 at Pentagon City, so it’s probably the toughest out of the week, but it’s so good. I also really like the other women who go to this class – it’s like they’re all friends, and when we do a particularly tricky move, they’ll encourage each other or sometimes lightly make fun of each other. It’s a cool dynamic, and I always leave feeling positive and like I’ve just done an intense workout.

Wednesday (May 21): Reformer Flow 1.5 with Maesy

Wednesday’s class was pretty standard, so tough but fun, except for the fact that we used the chair quite a bit. Club Pilates will sometimes do challenges for the instructors to incorporate certain things into their classes, and this challenge was to use the chair. Ever since I learned how to do a pike on the chair, I now love that thing and am always excited to try something new on it. I think I like the chair so much because it’s not necessarily all about strength – you have to have control and really think about what you’re doing, or the step is going to fly up and crash and be super embarrassing. Every time I get through a move on the chair without making a spectacle of myself, I feel very proud. It’s kind of like a workout for your brain as well as your body.

Friday (May 23): Reformer Flow 1.5 with Raye

For Raye’s class, we were challenged to use the gliders and the box. During the first few moves of the class, I was afraid that it wasn’t going to be challenging, but then we got into planking. We were planking on the floor, with our forearms on the box and our feet on the gliders. It felt a little unsteady, but it was easy enough until we actually started gliding. We glided one leg up then switched, to do mountain climbers, we pushed our legs out sideways, then pulled back in to center, and the absolute killer: we pulled our legs forward and put our butts in the air for a pike.

It was a tough class, and I also really liked the way Raye taught it – there were only five of us in the class, so she saw every time I started to get close to bailing and would encourage me to keep going.

Penny’slvania and More: Penny’s Road Trip Adventures

Penny has been a little adventure dog these last few weekends. Last weekend, we loaded up the Mustang and headed to Pennsylvania for a night, for Alex’s sister’s graduation from a nursing program. Lucky for Penny, she got to come with. Unlucky for Penny, she has sharp little knives attached to her toes, and the Mustang has leather seats, so she was confined to her car seat for the journey. We attempted to put her little booties on so she could roam freely, but she yeeted those off before we even made it to the car.

We all had a great time at Alex’s nephew’s soccer game and at lunch after. That night, Penny got to practice being a big, brave girl in her crate while Alex and I went to the graduation and then to make our millions at the casino. We left Pennsylvania around 9:30 that night, with an extra $100 in our pockets and a pissed off Jack Russel in her car seat, getting back to Alexandria around 2:00AM.

This weekend, Penny had another chance to travel, this time a little closer to home, which she appreciated. On Friday, Penny and I drove to Ruckersville to spend the night with Lauren and Betsy, and of course, Penny’s boyfriend, Betsy’s corgi, Tater. Penny was a little stressed about driving on the beltway (like mother, like daughter), but she finally relaxed enough to slyly fall asleep while sitting up like the good co-pilot she is.

It was such a great trip and Penny even secured her big, brave girl status by standing on the front of the kayak while Lauren and I paddled around the lake.

Entertainment Weekly

Movie(s): Final Destination Bloodlines

One thing about me? I love the Final Destination franchise. One year, I spent my birthday in bed with my laptop watching every single Final Destination movie. I don’t know why I love it so much; maybe it validates the OCD part of my brain that is constantly assessing for threats and assuming that any little thing could set off a catastrophic series of events. You might think it a stretch that a kid throwing a penny off the sky deck of the restaurant would cause the whole thing to implode and fall from the sky, killing everyone, but that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

It doesn’t matter why, but I do love a Final Destination and this might be my favorite yet. It pulled from a lot of the previous movies and had one of the best jump scares that I’ve seen so far this year. And even though I knew that everyone would eventually die (it is a Final Destination movie, after all), the deaths weren’t all predictable which really kept me on my toes. However, Grandma Megan is back to once again ask that we keep some of the gore for the imagination.

Also, nothing to do with the actual movie, but when we walked into the theater, there was a family with literal toddlers sitting in our row. At Final Destination! Shame on those parents, but honestly, I felt a little honored to be witnessing a canon event for them. Every child needs to be scarred for life by seeing a scary movie far too young. For me, it was accidentally catching the porridge girl scene of The Sixth Sense. For them, it will be watching a woman’s face get melted off or someone’s finger getting degloved before they fall hundreds of feet to be impaled through the face. I just know those parents were up all night trying to soothe some pretty intense nightmares.

Book(s): Before We Were Innocent

This week’s book was Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman. The story starts when, after 10 years, Joni shows up on Bess’s doorstep asking for an alibi. Joni and Bess haven’t talked since their lives were upended when a summer trip to Greece ends with the death of their friend, Evangeline. Joni and Bess were scrutinized in the media and were suspected of being involved in the death. Joni went on to turn this trauma into a career as a motivational speaker and author, while Bess hid herself away from the world. Now Joni’s fiance is missing and she needs Bess’s help.

This book did a great job at capturing what teenage girl friendships can be like: the rollercoaster of someone being your best friend and then your worst enemy and then back to your best friend. And sometimes, that cycle can happen in just a few days or even a few hours. It was exhausting to read because it was so relatable, and I was really feeling the emotions of being so desperate for a person to love you while also kind of hating them. I liked this story a lot – the ending left a little to be desired for me, but if you want to relive some teenage trauma or understand what it’s like for a teenage girl, I’d definitely recommend Before We Were Innocent.

“Hold on,” I hear you saying, “This Weekend Update is covering two weeks. Where is the second book review?” Well, dear reader, it has finally happened. I did not finish a book this week. I’m doing everything in my power to not fall into a reading slump, but let me just tell you how I got here.

I finished Before We Were Innocent by Tuesday of last week and thought, “since I have so much time, maybe I’ll tackle something a little heavier.” So, I started on a non-fiction covering the Salem Witch Trials. Right up my alley, you would think. I. Was. So. BORED. I actually couldn’t stay awake to read it – the content was interesting, but the author wrote it in such a convoluted way, that I would have to read to the end of the run-on sentence to even figure out who they were talking about. And speaking of “who they were talking about”, they didn’t introduce the characters in the context of the story. Instead, there was a four-page-long list of characters in the beginning with their descriptions, relationships, and why they were important. So, suddenly we’d be talking about someone brand new as if I should know who that is. I finally got so annoyed that I gave up and turned to my tried and true: historical non-fiction about World War II.

That should get me going again, right? Wrong! I’ll save my review for next week because I am determined to get through it, but The City of Women, I have some words for you.

TV: The Valley and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

The shitshow that is The Valley continues in Santa Barbara: Jesse ruins a lovely day at the winery by doubling down and calling Michelle a hooker then they have a “who’s happier” competition. Zack falls asleep with a container of Dean’s chip dip. Danny is taking secret shots of tequila in the pantry. Michelle throws a drink in Jesse’s face which he deserved, but I think if one more drop of alcohol enters his system, even transdermally, he may combust. Kristen is actually a voice of reason when everyone waits for Nia to get up before they start talking shit on Danny for being drunk… what can I say? It’s a trainwreck and I can’t look away. I have to catch up on the latest episode, so no spoilers, please!

While I was at Lauren and Betsy’s, we started watching season two of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. My God, how I have missed this show. We got three episodes in and I am planning on spending my Memorial Day binging the rest of it. I know I have a lot ahead of me, but my main takeaway three episodes in is that Jessi and Demi are actually the meanest girls on the planet. And it makes it worse because they are mean in a way that makes it seem like they’re doing something for you. Oh, and they hate Jen. She seems to be getting the brunt of their spite, but they are definitely equal opportunity mean girls, with enough hatred to go around. They are my villains this season, but they pale in comparison to Taylor’s mom, who doesn’t even deserve my Google to see what her name is.

Apartment Steading

I have recently become hyperfixated on watching homesteading videos on TikTok. If you don’t know what homesteading is, Google says it’s a “lifestyle focused on self-sufficiency, where individuals cultivate their own food, raise animals, and engage in other skills to create a more independent and sustainable life. It encompasses both rural and urban practices, with a common thread of resourcefulness and a desire to connect with nature.”

I have decided that someday, we are going to live on a farm, and every morning I am going to wake up and go collect the eggs that our chickens have hatched and then I’ll head over to the garden and pick some fruits and vegetables, then stop by the barn to milk the cow. Then I’ll bake bread all day and sell it at our micro-bakery. But until that day, I am apartment-steading. So far, I am starting with bread. I am a bread baby and eat toast for at least one meal a day so this is actually going to save us money in the long run. It’s also just fun to pretend I’m like in the Little House on the Prairie, over here, just baking my bread.

I have a whole list of homestead-y things I want to try, so Rant of the Week is being replaced with Apartment Steading updates henceforth.

In’s and Out’s

In:

Homesteading

Kayaking

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

Out:

The beltway

Being able to hear out of both of your ears

Finishing books you don’t like

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Until next week, ILYSM,