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Happy Monday! Look at me blogging two weeks in a row – we’re so back, baby. This week, I’ve got some Pilates, baking, and hobbies to catch you up on. The Rant of the Week has returned, and it gets a little heavy, so before we get into it, here’s a picture of Penny at a pool party this weekend.

Pilates Review

Sunday: Reformer Flow 2 at Alexandria

I made the journey back to my home studio in Old Town for the first level two I’ve taken in a while. And let’s just say, it showed! I kept up well enough, but I was feeling it for the next two days. It was a good reminder of why it’s important to keep up with a practice.

Tuesday: Reformer Flow 1.5 at Falls Church

This was my first time at the Falls Church location. I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to get there and find parking, but I made it just in time. I liked the studio – it felt bigger and a little more spread out. I’m honestly having a hard time differentiating my Tuesday class from my Thursday class because they were both new studios but I do know that my abs were screaming after Tuesday.

I did have a little bit of a rude interaction with someone after the class, though. At Club Pilates, the classes are 50 minutes, and there are 10 minutes in between until the next class starts for the previous class to wipe down their reformers, put their equipment away, and get out, and for the next class to come in and stretch. So, for example, one class would start at noon and go until 12:50. Then the next class starts at 1:00. Sometimes the instructors go over a little bit on time, so there’s a bit more overlap between the class that just finished and the next class. But today, there was no overlap. We ended exactly at 50 minutes. After I wiped everything down, I went to put my weights away, and when I came back to grab my phone, water bottle, and emergency juice box, one of the girls in the next class pushed past me to get to the reformer that I had been on. Like, literally shoulder checked me. I checked my watch to see if I was lolly gagging, and it was 2 minutes past! She had 8 more minutes! Like, I get having a favorite reformer and wanting to be ready, but come on, girl, be nice. Nothing against that studio, and I will be back, but that was a weird interaction.

Thursday: Reformer Flow 1.5 at Tysons Corner

This class I was actually late for. Of course, it was my fault because I could have left earlier, but I also got lost in the parking garage, so if there were maybe a little more signage, I would’ve made it. But my bad! This was a good class – tough enough that my blood sugar dropped pretty drastically. Because I was late, I didn’t have time to let the instructor know that I’m diabetic, so when my Dexcom alarm went off, she said “What was that?” into the microphone to the whole class. I sheepishly said it was me, to which she replied, “Your phone?” again, still in the microphone. So then I had to explain in front of everyone that I’m diabetic and it’s alerting for my blood sugar. So that was slightly embarrassing. She was perfectly nice about it, but it did feel a little like getting caught on my phone in school.

Baking It Megan

For some reason, I got bitten by the baking bug exactly two weeks before Boyfriend Alex’s bodybuilding show. Sorry, Bubba. But most of the sweet treats were immediately removed from the premises! I started off with a basic white sandwich bread loaf, which turned out well. I have been on the hunt for a new recipe after my favorite mysteriously disappeared from Pinterest. This one was fine, but I’m not sure it’s quite it.

Continuing with the bread, I made a rosemary garlic artisan loaf with fresh garlic and rosemary from the farmer’s market. This loaf was definitely a labor of love as I had to roast the garlic, make the dough, then let it ferment for 18 hours. By the time I got around to shaping it, it had been about 24 hours. I think that’s the reason that the dough was a little too wet to work with and ended up getting probably an extra cup of flour in the kneading process. She turned out a little flat, but Boyfriend Alex said it was the best bread he’s ever had. I kept a slice and turned it into breadcrumbs that I’m going to use sometime this week, maybe on chicken? We’ll see.

I’ve been on a real peach kick lately, and the farmer’s market has been a very well-supplied dealer for me. I’d never baked with peaches before, so I decided to try my hand at some peach cinnamon muffins with one of the farmer’s market peaches. They were so good! One might say, too good, which is why I squirreled two away for myself, hidden in a cabinet, and packed up the rest for a friend to remove the temptation from our home.

Finally, in a speed round synopsis, I made a gift basket for a friend’s birthday, which contained my tried and true, family recipe banana bread, some toasted coconut cookies, homemade noodles, and homemade spaghetti sauce. I also made the classic Magnolia chocolate chip cookies for the party and topped them with some flaky sea salt that my parents brought back from Hawaii.

I have put myself in baking jail until Alex’s show is over, but will be back full force after that.

Entertainment Weekly

Movie(s): Together, The Naked Gun

We hit two movies this week and both of them were disappointing. We were really excited for Together, as it got a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was not that great. It was fine, but not 100%. The premise was okay and the acting was good, but like another body horror movie, The Substance, it felt really phoned in at the end. Like they were reviewing the movie and said, “hmm, we have not hit our “gross” quota, let’s mash it all into one scene at the end.” Boo.

I don’t think we were the intended audience for The Naked Gun. I don’t know who the intended audience was, but it wasn’t us. There were some funny parts, but, all-in-all it was bleh. We went to see this in one of those really nice theaters that serves food in Falls Church. The chairs were so comfortable (and heated), but the food was also meh. A nice experience, but I think we’ll stick to our AMC roots from now on.

Book(s): Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood

Sarah J. Maas loyalists, don’t come for me, but I’m having a really hard time getting into this book. I don’t know what it is. Maybe because I’m used to my fantasy books being set in ancient times, where the only way to communicate is through letters or mind-to-mind down the mating bond. In Crescent City, they are emailing and texting each other and watching TV. There are also a lot of characters and a lot of backstory that is being thrown at me all at once. I’m hoping that if I keep pushing through, I will get into it, but right now, I’m about 150 pages in, and I don’t really care about anyone. I won’t give up, though!

Also, in reading news, Boyfriend Alex surprised me with the gift of e-reader glasses. Basically a Kindle, but on my face. They’re great for lying down and reading, and I’m excited to be able to read my faerie smut books on a plane without scandalizing my seatmate if they happen to look over at what I’m reading. I love them! They do make me a little seasick at the moment, but I’m working through it.

Hobby Lobby

Baking has been the main hobby this week, but I’m still working on my cross-stitch as well. I got all the yarn that I need to make the two baby blankets that are on my to-do list, and I’m only slightly nervous about getting those done. I love making things for other people, especially baby blankets, but I think I have crocheted myself into a corner with associating other people’s pregnancies with homework for myself. Yesterday, someone I had literally just met that day told me that they were pregnant, and I went into fight or flight mode, thinking, “Oh, no, I don’t have time to make another blanket”. I had to remind myself that I did not know this person, and it would actually be kind of weird of me to make her a baby blanket.

Rant of The Week

Rant of the Week is back, baby. I have a few rants to choose from, but I’m going to save “the scam and grossness of luxury brands” for next week. This week is a lot less fun but it really affected me this week.

The other night I was on TikTok and came across a video that this woman, Jestene LeRoy, had posted of her two-year-old son riding his tricycle around a little plane, and the caption was “Imagine growing up riding your bike around your dad’s plane before your dad flies you and your mom wherever you want.” Tragically, Jestene, her husband, Brandon, and their son, Paxton, all died when their plane crashed the day after that video was posted. That is heartbreaking enough, but what really disturbed me were the comments on the video.

People found a picture of Jestene wearing a MAGA hat and started commenting horrific things like “she was a Trump supporter so the only person I feel bad for is the baby”, “Damn I felt bad then realized they voted for Trump (laughing emoji, peace sign emoji)”, “Karma” “(shrug emoji) May she rest in her political beliefs. At some point you all have to answer to God for your deep rooted hate. Hopefully she’s looking up at us remorseful”.

It actually made me sick to see that people in the party of “love and tolerance” would be celebrating the death of an entire young family just because of who they voted for. They are the party of “love and tolerance” as long as you believe what they believe, and if not, you and your family deserve to die? It’s absolutely disgusting to know that people like that exist. The people who comment those things are pushing people away from the democratic party. It’s what’s pushing me away. I would by no means call myself a republican, but I’m getting pushed further and further right because of extreme liberals.

Honestly, my political affiliations don’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think I’ll look back on my life and say, “ah, damn, I really should have spent more time talking about my opinions on politics.” And I’m really happy that I don’t have enough hate in my heart to celebrate the death of a young, American family, simply because they had a different opinion than me.

In’s and Out’s

In:

Being kind

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Until next week, ILYSM,