Banana Pudding

 

There's 294824 different banana pudding recipes on the internet, so I took 2 and made a Megan version because I was worried that one would be too sweet for Teh German (and it also contained Cool Whip, which I don't eat) and the other wouldn't be sweet enough for me.  Soooo I fixed it!

Fret not, I was supervised.

Ingredients

Pudding, step 1:

2 cups cold milk

1 (5 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Pudding, step 2:

1 pint heavy whipping cream

4 tablespoons confectioners/powdered sugar

Assembly:

1(+) box vanilla wafers

10+ bananas

Directions

1. Mix sweetened condensed milk and milk together.  Adding pudding packet and continue mixing for 2-3 minutes.  Mash 1 banana and mix into pudding.  Cover and refrigerate for 3+ hours.
2. When ready to assemble pudding, after pudding has set: beat heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar (and vanilla extract, if using) together until stiff peaks form.
3. Mix pudding and whipped cream together until there are no streaks left.
4. Slice bananas (I did one banana at a time because I wasn't sure how much I needed).
5. In a container of your choice (I used a 9x13 dish), place a layer of vanilla wafer on the bottom of the dish.  Then add a layer of banana on top of the wafers.  Add a layer of pudding mix.  Repeat this step until dish/container is full/ingredients are used/you are satisfied.  You could also make this in individual portioned containers.
6. Cover and refrigerate 4-8 hours.
7. Serve!

Megan Tips

• Mixing a mashed banana into the pudding mix was a delight.
• I used ripe but barely bananas to avoid them turning brown.  I don't like green bananas, so not green, but definitely no spots.  Also, my recipes called for 14 bananas and I bought that many and didn't end up using them all.
• I don't use Cool Whip.  I'd much rather make my own whipped topping and it's super simple if you have a mixer (it's quite tedious by hand, but doable with enough dedication (yes, I have hand mixed whipped cream before because there weren't mixers in 1792).
• I was worried the whipped topping wouldn't be sweet enough for me so I added powdered sugar.  I would consider skipping this next time to see what a difference it makes.
• I sliced my bananas as I layered them in the dish because I didn't want them to turn brown.  There are ways to help slow oxidation (which causes the bananas to turn brown), but I was too lazy for all that.  I just made sure to quickly add the pudding on top of the layer.  My slices were not too thin (I didn't want them to just fall apart) and not to thick (I wanted to be able to recognize a chunk of banana in my bite).
• I like A LOT of bananas and A LOT of vanilla wafers.  Obviously, you can use how ever much you want.
• Crush up some vanilla wafers (less than you would expect) and write on your pudding!  Just place some wafers in a ziplock bag, crush the wafters so there are minimal chunks, then cut the tip of the bag off and use like an icing piping bag.  This was the most fun part!
• I made the pudding mix the day prior to serving and let the mixture set overnight because I didn't want runny banana pudding.
• I assembled my banana pudding at 9am on the day of serving it, knowing I was going to be serving it after 7pm. I wanted to give it time for the flavors to mingle and the wafers to soften.  I'm sure that you could prob serve it immediately, but would recommend at least a few hours of flavor melding.
• Make sure to let your dogs help with clean up, since they've probably been fastidiously supervising, by letting them do the dishes.  Pax and Meri were both super dedicated to cleaning the pudding and whipped topping bowls.

Chili Mac and Cheese

I've been attempting to mix up the menu on occasion and I was looking for crockpot recipes (because I'm still as lazy as always) and found a recipe for chili mac and cheese that I decided to cook on the stove.  Would recommend.

Megan's version:

Ingredients:
-1.5# ground bison

-onion

-red/yellow/orange peppers

-garlic

-1/2 box of pasta (I used cavatappi instead of macaroni)

-16oz fire-roasted tomatoes,drained or 1 16oz can rotel tomatoes, drained (next time I'll use the fire-roasted tomatoes I bought specifically for this purpose that I forgot about until after I'd opened the rotel, sigh)

-2 (8oz) bags "macaroni and cheese" blend cheese (1 bag was insufficient, if mac and cheese blend isn't available, cheddar is recommended)

-1 cup broth

-1-2 cans of beans, drained (I forgot this, but will add it next time)

-1-3 tablespoons chili powder

-1 teaspoon-ish oregano

-1 teaspoon cumin

-Cayenne pepper (if you want heat spice, I omitted this)

Directions:

-Start water to cook pasta, cook pasta while cooking meat.

-Dice vegetables

-Start cooking meat, add chili powder, when meat is almost cooked, add onion, peppers, and garlic. 

-Drain.

-Add seasoning.

-Add broth.  Simmer until pasta is cooked.

-Drain pasta, then mix with meat/veggies.

-Add 1 bag of cheese.  Slowly add the 2nd bag until your heart feels full (I'd probably use half the 2nd bag, we added mexican cheese because 1 bag wasn't enough for my cheese loving heart).

Megan Notes:
-I don't like ground beef so we use ground bison as a substitute, you can use whatever ground meat you prefer.  I think this recipe is versatile enough for most proteins or even as a vegetarian meal.

-I made sure to add enough chili powder and cumin that the food was well seasoned, especially since I wasn't using the cayenne pepper and I'm slightly scared of chili powder.  Teh German approved of the spices.  I explicitly asked him.  

-We didn't actually miss the beans, but the beans make it more like chili than hamburger helper, so I will fix that error next time.

-I will always pick the most fun pasta. 

Not Lasagna

So recently I accidentally merged 2 different recipes and the concoction turned out delicious, so I'm gonna share it here so I can reference it later.

Favorite Skillet Lasagna + Baked Gnocchi

These recipes are very similar, so it wasn't a far reach to mix them up.

It might not look like much, but it tastes delicious!

Ingredients (I used):

-1 roll sage sausage

-enough mushrooms, thin sliced

-half an onion, diced

-enough garlic

-1 (yellow) squash

-1 zucchini (/green squash)

-1 package baby gnocchi

-fennel seeds (enough)

-16ish oz spaghetti sauce

-enough ricotta cheese

-enough mozzarella cheese

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 400°F.

-In a dutch oven (or some oven safe-stove cooking container), begin cooking sausage. 

-When sausage is almost done, throw in mushrooms, onion, and garlic.

-Drain

-Mix in squash, gnocchi, and spaghetti sauce.

-Cover and put in oven until squash and gnocchi are tender (i.e. you can stab them with a fork without too much resistance).

-Remove from oven.  Top/fold in the mozz cheese (you're welcome for that reference).  

-Drop dollops of ricotta cheese on top, as desired.

-Serve.

Weekend Review {8/24}

FRIDAY

It was a miserable workout since it was just about to start raining when we started.. Then it started raining as we were doing our 400m laps.  See also: reasons I can't fucking breathe: 100% humidity.  Oh and the rain did NOT bring the temp down.  It just got wet and more miserable.  I did hard mode for my workout and, since it was raining, the dogs didn't get walks, but they were appeased with bully sticks instead.  /praisehands.

After a shower, it was time for productive things.. which mostly meant me sitting at the computer doing random work things.  I did my last tech writer task, which was bittersweet. 

After work, it was couch time.

He was eating his foot/scratching his face.
Mostly I was worried I was going to get stabbed in the eye with a paw.

This cutey-patooty. <3 

We had a Friday evening argument, leftovers for dinner, and watched Community until bedtime.

SATURDAY

Teh German got up with the beasts on Saturday morning, while I stayed in the bed and scrolled and drifted in/out of sleep.  I did eventually get up and put on clothes and went out to pick up the grocery order and the few items that weren't from Sam's, Octoberfest beer for Teh German, Halloween Oreos for myself. #YOLO

When I got home, we discussed the afternoon plans.  We had dinner reservations at Myles and Jun Yakitori with Twin Mom and Dad and another coworker and his wife at 6 and we were originally supposed to go to a gathering at one of Teh German's coworkers, but that ended up being cancelled because of the weather, which actually worked out...

Because around 1230ish, Teh German got a call asking if he could bring our trailer to fetch a crashed motorcycle.  It was a very bad situation, the rider was taken away in an ambulance and had several surgeries within 12 hours of being at the hospital.  And here's how/why this applies to me.  This person was riding with a group that I've ridden with before.  A group that I wasn't overly comfortable with because of how fast they'd go or stupid stunts they'd do.  This accident validated the way I feel about riding with certain groups and how vehemently opposed I am, the majority of the time.

That said, I'm also ~10 years older than the person that went down and I'm not shy about when I'm uncomfortable.  I've straight up said, "If this shit keeps happening, I will go home."  This person's inexperience, coupled with the pressure to ride at a higher level than their actual skill level, plus a bike that was too powerful/large for them made it a recipe for disaster and... to be completely honest, I was part of a large group of people that expected something like this to eventually happen, and that feels horrible and is completely unfair to the individual that went down, but is true, since they refused any guidance about the situation.

While Teh German was being a tow truck, I played WoW.

By the time Teh German came home, I was showered and ready for dinner so that way he could get ready and then we'd both be ready when it was eventually time to leave.

Dinner was fucking fabulous.  I tried to drink an entire pitcher of the sangria but couldn't because I was sooooo full.  I had warned Teh German that dinner was my job celebration since he had refused to celebrate any other time that it was appropriate, so I ordered the whole pitcher of sangria (should have gotten half, didn't think), beef tongue yakitori, and the wagyu beef entree.. and had ZERO RAGRATS.  Twin Dad ordered half the yakitori menu and he shared some of the stuff with the table so I also tried beef heart and some type of mushroom.

After dinner, we went over to Twin Mom/Dad house and hung out for a few hours before finally heading home to feed the beasts the rest of their dinner, sit outside for some scrolling time, then it was finally bedtime.

SUNDAY

Sunday was my day to get up with the beasts, so I did that, then went back to bed for scrolling and naps.  I, eventually, got up and went downstairs to talk to Teh Bestie about dinner plans while I'm there next week.  Teh German came downstairs and decided to make breakfast instead of having cereal.  I got off the phone and helped him by dicing the potatoes for the potato skillet he wanted to make.

Teh German is the one who has to cook fried potatoes because I can never get them to properly fry.  He just does it so much better.  So he did sage sausage, fried potatoes, and eggs in the skilled, topped with cheese, and he also made bacon, just because.

After breakfast was 2nd coffee time, then Teh German decided to go out to the garage to do garage things.  I gamed.  Meri was confused at extra voices in the garage when Teh PT Kid came by to chat with Teh German.

In the evening, we had totchos (tater tots + taco chicken dip) for dinner.  After cleanup and doggy dinner, we watched Community until bedtime.

______________________________________________

Despite a Friday evening tiff, the weekend actually went well.  Sometimes, I feel super lazy not being crazy busy on the weekend, so I guess that's still the residual Stockholm Syndrome from being in school for 3 years.

Teh German has the rest of an interview (it's weird, don't ask) this afternoon for an MD job.  So fingers crossed on that situation.  This week I'm wrapping things up and trying not to be an asshole to the Cyclone who keeps insisting they are going to "work on the pain points" of all the shit I've been doing for the last 2 years, as if I didn't try to make the processes better and why not attempt these things sooner than now since everyone knew I was struggling?  Fuck you.  Ugh.

I keep telling myself that current Company problems are NOT my problems anymore, but apparently I'm always in disaster mitigation mode.  Even Teh German told me the same thing.. I just need my brain to comprehend it.  One day, maybe.

Until then.. 3ish more days... as I'm not planning on doing much on Friday.. because.. well.. just no thanks.

Five on Friday #237

EINS - Random Shit

After the hurricane season of 2019 and the general trajectory of 2020, I figured people would be absolutely losing their shit over the first storm of 2020.  'Taint so though.  Other than individuals who feel the need to share everything that NOAA posts on FB (/roll eyes forever), local news sources haven't really said much about it, no evacuation crisis, no bum-rushing the grocery stores/gas stations.  It's almost been.. pleasant.  Or we're so desensitized by 2020 no one cares.  Or, the least likely scenario, people are finally realizing that a hurricane below Cat 3 is really just wind and rain..  Maybe that's something I need to privilege check since I live in a house with windows rated for up to 150mph winds and not a single-wide trailer, IDK.

________________________________________

I saw a Twitter thread the other day about sharing your location (via GPS/on your phone) with your significant other and read the comments, because that's what I do.  I'm 50/50 on it.  Husband and I don't share our location with each other when we're at home doing our regular routine life, but if one of us is travelling, we (ok, me) I generally turn on my location sharing.  I do this as a personal security measure.  If I die or get lost or get abducted, I need someone to be able to find me (especially if I'm already with Teh Bestie, which is usually who I'm with if I'm travelling without Teh German).  I've also started sharing my location with Teh German when I'm running distances over 9 miles (races and not).

That said, I share my location 100% of the time with Teh Bestie.  This started years ago for the purposes of tracking each other during runs and then definitely when I was online dating and then when we'd make trips to see each other.. So now, it's just on 24/7.

________________________________________

Husband and I have been doing garage WODs in the AM and everything hurts and I'm dying.

Monday:
20 min AMRAP
10 push ups
10 air squats
30-second mountain climbers
30-second wall sit (I subbed for jumping jacks)
+2 miles of walking the dogs.

Wednesday:
5 rounds for time:
20 push ups
20 jumping jacks
20 sit ups
20 air squats
20 alternating lunges
(30:48)
+2 miles of walking the dogs.

Friday:

800m = 1 mile

+2 miles of walking the dogs.

This was our course on Friday and if that doesn't look like a penis to you, you're not dirty enough to be here.

Me: I'm sooo sore.  I think you think I'm exaggerating my soreness, but I am not.  I have run half marathons and didn't hurt this bad.
Teh German: Yeah but that is the feeling of your body enhancing.  Getting better.  That's a good feeling.
Me: Enhancement is not what comes to mind when I think about moving and something hurts, I call that agony.

________________________________________

I've said it before and I'll say it again...
If you are a vlogger or recording yourself review a product on video and you are looking at yourself in the screen of whatever recording device you are using, you do not deserve for people to watch your content.  There, I said it... again.

STOP WATCHING YOURSELF PEOPLE.  LOOK AT THE CAMERA DOT!!

________________________________________

New medals arrived.  Originally the Divas Myrtle Beach was slated to be rescheduled, but I guess they gave that up and just mailed out race packets.  So now I have to run a half marathon around the neighborhood before I can put the medal up.  Leeee siiiigh.

I almost didn't hang the Llama Rama medal since it ended up being solo virtual race miles.  Dislike.  But I did hang the graduation one since Teh PT Wife said we ran the miles for that one together.

________________________________________

In 2016, I shot a wedding for $300.  A wedding where I slipped in the river during their kayak send off and sprained my toe.  That wedding when I fucked up my toe and then ran the Disneyland races a month later on a fucked up toe and cried my way through the last miles of the half marathon...

4 years later (yesterday), they emailed me asking for non-watermarked copies of their photos and when they could get those.  I mean, I'm going to send them if I can find them, but I'm still annoyed that 4 years later an event that I'd like to completely forget happened is popping back up. 

Latergram: I checked, I no longer have any of their edited photos, only the original raw files without edits and for $300 I will not be re-editing those to send them.  #SorryNotSorry. 

Also, "When could we get those?"  You act like it hasn't been 4 years since you got married and all of a sudden you are popping up in my inbox?  How about a, "Hi, I know it's been 4 years, but I was wondering if it was possible to get another set, but with no-watermark, of our wedding photos.  Hope you're doing well.  Please let me know if there's anything I need to do.  Thanks!"

IDK, the whole thing is weird.  Maybe I'm making it weird?  But I don't think that's it this time.

And I know this is selfish of me, but I want to be like, I paid thousands of dollars for my wedding photographer to get the digital rights to my photos and he didn't even have to travel out of town to shoot our wedding.  Soooo....

________________________________________

Meri has decided that she is going to be storm phobic for whatever reason and I'm trying to not encourage it.  If we're at the island, she will come and stand between my legs and the island and that's annoying.  If I'm in the office, she will come and lay RIGHT BEHIND my office chair or stand beside me touching me.  I'm paranoid I'm going to roll her over or step on her, so I've taken to picking her up and holding her on my lap.  Know what Meri hates more than storms?  Sitting on my lap.  Usually after I do this, she settles in her chair bed (if I'm in the office) or on the couch/dog beds (in the living room).

ZWEI - Money Shit

-Groceries
-Workout things: whiteboard, new markers (since we needed new ones), sidewalk chalk for rep counting
-Over priced dog treats... I was VERY angry when I was buying that stuff but I know it's the good shit.

DREI - From My Phone Shit

We have a back porch friend.
It's a trash panda.
By trash panda I mean a raccoon.
We have a raccoon friend.

Anyone else carry around empty containers until you can write the item on your "store list"?

Looks like some fancy recipe site shit right there.

AND it tasted like some fancy recipe site delight too.

Decided to test out sitting on the ball.
It's too short.
Le siiigh.

Laziness, it's what's for breakfast.

Dogs

Neighborhood Watch, on duty.

I washed the dog beds and there was some struggle with getting the beds just right again.

She looks like someone poured her into that bed... lurve her.

And this is why she is nicknamed Big Booty Judy.  her ass is always up in my space.

 

When your snootervisor invades your space and then acts too cool for Mahm love.

Post exercise selfies to Teh German.

VIER - From the Internet Shit

I cannot tell you how long you will have to wait,
but I can tell you that you are being prepared for what's to come
breath by breath,
day by day.
MHN

Even when she did not have a lot, she continued to give her all.
-MHN

You have worked so hard.
You have given so much.
You have made it through countless moments of not feeling good enough.
And if there are days where you still discouraged,
remember: you have come so far,
and no matter how your low moments have made you feel,
they do not define who you are.
-Morgan Harper Nichols-

And yes,
it is true...
all along,
you have been strong.
MHN

Me: 30 years writing software for money

Also Me: Googles how to hide a div with a querySelector

Hang in there #codenewbies

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) August 2, 2020

This is me... except cost of living is real yall.

THIIIIIISSSSSS

Every day when I sign into my work email.

FÜNF - Things that made me happy this week

1. RAIN
2. Workouts with Husband.  We've worked out together and apart and I think we both enjoy working out together.
3. Clean smelling dogs.. even if it mean a LOT of work for me and the Laundry Fairy (also me).
4. Switching over to my Disney card as my main payment method to start building up some rewards.
5. People being like, why the fuck do you have to do this and why is it so complicated every time? regarding the work tasking that has me job hunting.  This isn't just from coworkers, this is also from govvies who work for the company (although different departments) that I have to run in circles for.
6. Percussion massager and foam roller.  Without them, I'd be dead because I would have starved because I wouldn't have been able to do the stairs.
7. Taking PTO today as a mental health day. 
8. PayPal accounts for my 3 different banks so I can send money to myself easily without it being a hassle or taking 248219301 days.
9. Sudafed and Advil.
10. Matilda is on her way!

Happy Friday, Gentle Readers.

Pupcakes Recipe

So for Pax's birthday, I decided to go all out #MomOfTheYear and make pupcakes for his birthday.  Let me explain what happened though... I couldn't find a recipe that used the ingredients I wanted to use, sooo I kinda made it up as I went along and hoped for the best.  This method actually worked for once and it didn't backfire as I kind of expected it to.  What had happened was, I found a recipe to make a cake from scratch, then looked up substitutions for items I could replace in the cake recipe with the items I wanted to use (i.e. instead of eggs, I used banana).

PS.  None of the ingredients are really exact measurements except for the dry items since I was just making it up as I went along.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 4 bananas - 2/3 for the recipe, 1/2 for you and the dogs as a snack.
• 2 cups of flour - I had coconut flour that was probably well past expired, so I used that, but it would have been all-purpose flour otherwise since that's always in the cabinet.
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 can of pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix, these things are NOT the same)
• 1/2+ cup of oil
• Maybe some water, maybe.

For the icing:

• Greek yogurt (plain is preferred but the store didn't have that, so I used honey flavored).
• Peanut butter

Directions:

1. Mix cake dry goods in a bowl.
2. Mix cake wet goods in a different bowl.
3. Combine cake goods into a bowl and ensure everything is mixed well.
4. Spray muffin tin or pan or whatever container you are cooking these things in with cooking spray.
5. Fill muffin tin with mixture.  
6. Cook until the middles aren't gooey.  I baked mine for at least 35-45 minutes.
7. Let the cakes cool.
8. Mix yogurt and peanut butter.  Use your judgement for amounts.
9. Grab dog bowl.  Place a cake in the bowl (maybe breaking it up if your dog is a slob), spoon some of the "icing" on top of the cake.  
10. Serve to beast or human.

Final product:

They aren't really much to look at.
Like all delicious noms.

See, I told you, nothing was actually very specific.

But I will explain what I did and how it turned out, but I wanted to get through the recipe so 1- people looking for the recipe didn't have to scroll through 6 million pages of my life story, 2- The references I make will make more sense now.

I had all the ingredients on hand except for the yogurt, which is why I was willing to make these pupcakes.  I had pumpkin on hand from the pumpkin pies I never made at Christmas or Thanksgiving, IDK which.  My baking powder expired in 2016.  Sooo ya know, should probably replace that.  No idea how long that baking soda has been open, BUT it is in a sealed plastic bag, so I figured it was fine.  /shrug.  I mean, while humans COULD eat these muffins, I didn't want to add any sugar or salt or spices in general since I wasn't making them for humans..

So when I got to step 3 where I combined the dry and wet items, my mixture was SUPAAAA clumpy and would not stick together at all.  Like, to the point that I was afraid that if I just smooshed the mix into the muffin tin, the cakes would just be crumbles after they were cooked and I tried to remove them from the tin.  

So I added an egg.  And still, I wasn't comfortable with the mixture.  

Soooo, I added some canola oil.  Still no good.  

I added another egg.  I was questionable on it, but I had nothing to lose, so it was fine.  

Still wasn't confident the batter would make cakes, so I added some water until the clumps were starting to stick together.  

Looking back, I know that I didn't need the eggs.  The batter would have held together with just the oil.  You probably also don't really need the water, but I put it on the ingredients list to make your brain comfortable.  The thing with making the batter more moist is that the cook time will take longer.  That's science, but I can explain it to you if you're curious. 

I mushed the batter into the cups with my super sterile and clean fingers, filling the cups completely since I didn't anticipate the cakes rising (spoiler alert: I was right).  I used a regular muffin tin because the mini muffin tin I found in my kitchen probably would have given the dogs Tetanus it was so rusty. A replacement silicone tray has been ordered.

I set a timer for 20 minutes and that was definitely not enough time with all the wet ingredients I used.  I guess you could also add more flour/dry ingredients if you made the batter too wet, but I only had 2 muffin tins and I didn't want to have 10 years worth of extras, so I was trying not to make too much batter.  So I cooked the cakes for 20 minutes more.  At 40 minutes, some of them were done, but not the super thick ones.  I had added the 2nd tin to the oven since I realized they were going to have to cook for a long time and my time was running short.

And then, when it was time for me to leave, I did what all great experimental cooks do... I removed the mostly cooked tin from the oven and put it in the microwave so the dogs wouldn't help themselves (because they would) and turned off the oven and left the other tin in the oven to keep cooking, hopefully.

I came back to the house about 40 minutes later to grab something and checked on the muffins and the tin I had left in the oven was done!  I swapped it out with the tin in the microwave and left those in the oven (still turned off but warm) when I left the house.  For some reason, I had to come BACK to the house another 40ish minutes later and when I checked on the oven tin, the undercooked muffins were done!  Megan Miracles!  

Because we live the big dog life, the microwave is a sealed storage area for food that we don't want the dogs getting to but also don't want to put in the fridge, so I put both pans in the microwave and headed back out.  I didn't mess with the cakes until the following day and leaving them in the microwave meant that they didn't dry out, which was perfect.  I mixed enough yogurt with enough peanut butter to make the icing.  I did let husband eat some of the greek yogurt since it's not something I usually keep in the house (since I don't eat it), but other than what he ate, the entire large container went to the icing.  I probably used 1.5 cups of peanut butter, if not more and just mixed it together with a spoon.

I ended up with a total of 16 pupcakes.

The dogs performed quality control the day I made the icing.  I distributed 6 pupcakes to the GLCK pups.  This left us with 6 pupcakes, 3 for Pax's birthday and 3 for Pax's gotcha day.

Quality Control (not pictured: Roux, Marcy, and Max):

Gracie!

Basha and Winston!

Quality Testing

I believe that of 9 test subjects, I got a total of 36 paws up.

The Catch-Up of Catch Ups.

So I popped in on May 4th to let my Gentle Readers know that I was alive and promised to catch you up on life since a LOT of shit has went down since April 13th, the date of my last real post.  I think that happened for many reasons.  The primary reason being, quarantine life has me all jacked up, then add to that it being the end of the semester and I just wasn't willing to make blogging the priority, #SorryNotSorry.  But here we are.  I'm back, you're reading.  Maybe you missed me, maybe you didn't, either way.. I'm about to come at ya like a spider monkey with all the things that have transpired since April 13th.  Expect this post to be quite random and maybe out of timeline order and probably pretty long, like I do.

Let's begin, shall we?

NEW DOG.

Yep.  You read that right.  We got a new dog.  It was accidentally on purpose.  You see, what had happened was.... Teh German had agreed to foster.  Granted, he agreed to fostering a track greyhound, butttttt when I put in my foster application with GPA-Charleston they said, thanks but no thanks, since Corona virus we aren't accepting new fosters.  Rude.  And also, fuck you, dumbasses.  

Sooooo, when Teh Florida Greyhound Wife discovered an Irish Wolfhound on Craigslist, Sighthound Underground (SHUG) came to the rescue and the dog was retrieved from the home.  When the SHUG Director posted a video of this older Wolfie girl, my heart shattered into a million pieces.  She was 7.5 years old and malnourished and wobbled and knuckled and I wanted to love her for the rest of her days RIGHT THEN.  I messaged the Director and inquired about where she would be fostered.  Director informed me that she had considered keeping Sandy, but due to some personal reasons, knew it was best to let her go to another home.  I explained that she was EXACTLY what I was looking for; an old dog that needed a soft place to land and to be loved and cared for and doted on.  Director explained that those who had been interested in her revoked their interest after they found out how old Sandy was and it was the opposite for me.  I knew that Teh German wasn't really set on fostering and definitely didn't want to adopt a 3rd dog.  Yet this was a grey area since it was a long term foster situation.  

This may end up being more of a hospice foster situation, which will ultimately lead me to formally adopt Sandy because let's face it, after we get this old lady fixed up, I'd probably fight someone if they tried to pry her from my loving yet forceful grip.  I believe that Teh German has accepted this.

So, for now, we're working through her health issues.  She's severely underweight and she enjoys 4 meals a day at Teh Ville, in addition to snacks and bully sticks.  She is also undergoing acupuncture treatments to see if this helps with her backend weakness, which we aren't sure what is causing this problem.  Based on her progress from just getting 8 cups of food per day + treats, being malnourished was the biggest cause of the problem.  

Sandra Dee is now correcting her knuckling, demanding attention, and is VERY insistent about going on walks, even though I don't love it.  Not that I don't want her to go on walks, but with her knuckling and dragging her rear feet, she bloodies up her knux (knuckles, let me have my temporary thugness, mkay?) and then comes in my house bleeding and I have to wrap her knux and no one likes that.  I try to walk her in the grass as much as possible, but this old lady does not take kindly to my mothering and does whatever the fuck she damn well pleases.  Today, that meant GALLOPING from 6 houses down back to our house, with me being dragged at the end of the leash because her stride is quite a big longer than mine!  So I mean.. she's doing FANTASTIC.

As for Teh German, it was a battle to get him to agree to letting me foster her.  A literal battle.  There was the not talking about it, then me bringing it back up, and the not talking about it, and his 'no', and ultimately my having to initiate the conversation, despite neither of us wanting to deal with the problem.  

I was pissed off because when I showed him the photo of Sandy and said, "I think this is our foster dog."  He immediately replied, "No."  I'm not sure how well you know me, Gentle Readers, but I feel like we all know that my reaction to being told "no" was visceral and I was livid about his lack of consideration to the situation.  

Ultimately, we ended up on the same page but there were tears and my argument was essentially something along the lines of: 

"Fostering dogs is something I did before we met and I loved it.  It hasn't been possible for me to foster since I moved to SC other than Meri's brother, so it was something you never saw.  But I believe it is completely unfair for you to say, 'no,' without even considering my side of this.  ANNDDD, I was supportive and said ok when you said you wanted to get a salt water fish tank as "our" anniversary present.  I was supportive and said ok when you said you wanted to get a project motorcycle.  I was supportive and said ok and helped you arrange the money when you told me you'd found your dream motorcycle and you wanted to buy it.  I've supported you through all these things and didn't ask for anything in return.  THIS is what I'm asking for.  I want to foster.  I want to foster THIS dog.  I want to love her through her old age and be her family until she passes or someone adopts her*.  This is my hill.  But I cannot click the checkbox on the foster application that says everyone in the household is aware and happy with the arrangement until everyone in the house IS aware AND happy about this arrangement.  I can't deal with a potential special needs dog AND deal with a passive-aggressive pissed off husband who refuses to accept this.  I won't do it.  You know that if it comes to me having to decide between a dog and you, I'll always pick you, but I haven't asked for anything in a very long time, and this is something I want to do.  It shouldn't affect you other than there being another dog in the house.  I'm not asking you to pay for her vet bills.  In fact, I haven't asked you for money for the vet bills in years.  I would just ask that you love her like you love our dogs and feed her with our dogs when you do feeding time and let her out just like you would our dogs... and maybe let her snuggle with you on your couch."

*Ok, so the "someone adopts her" part was kind of a lie because, let's be honest.. I knew as soon as she got to my house she wasn't leaving, but in the heat of the moment, I had momentum!

Eventually, Teh German did come around, but it took some coaxing and some stubbornness and hard truths.  Now that's Sandy is here, Teh German has no issues with her.  He is just as much of a helicopter parent as I am and had all sorts of questions for me to ask the vet when we went for her first acupuncture appointment (Are we feeding her too much?  (nope) Are there things we aren't doing that we should be doing? (not that the vet could think of)).  Teh German lets Sandy up on his couch and then lets her take over 2/3rd of the couch, leaving him curled up on a single cushion, moderately uncomfortable.

To go and get Sandy, I made a stealth mission to DC/Baltimore.  I wasn't sad about needing to make this trip since it meant I also got to visit Teh Bestie for a few days, despite both of us still having to work.  Just being in the same house was heart soothing for both of us since we'd had to cancel the March race-cation weekend, my graduation went virtual so no reason for her to come down for that, and the GEGR picnic was cancelled so Teh German and I weren't travelling up to MD for that.

The evening of the day I drove up, I was notified by the Director that she'd been advised that she needed to quarantine herself for 2-3 days until her COVID test results came back... and I was almost heart broken.  Because I'm a horrible liar and because I don't keep secrets well and because I don't purposely lie to Husband, I explained the situation to Teh German who was VERY adamant about me NOT picking up a dog who had been loved (and coughed) all over by someone who had the virus.  I was disappointed, but understood and agreed.  Thankfully, the results were negative, so I was still able to pick up Sandy without issue.

Teh Bestie and I made a trip to SHUG HQ to pick up Sandy in the evening and since everything is closed down, traffic in DC was fantastic!  When we got back, we had dinner, I gave Sandy a bath, and it was bedtime.

Since Sandy has been in Charleston, she has continued to progress!  Her rear weakness is improving day by day.  I personally believe that it has a lot to do with just how much food she is getting per day.  Her body can actually rejuvenate what it will.  She likes to leave toys she's played with all over the house and on her bed in the bedroom.  For the first week, she was not using dog beds, but the bed I ordered for her finally arrived and she's started using it and Sandy actually tricked Meri out of her slumber ball and took her spot when Meri came up to me for jealous pettins the other night.

At 7.5 years old, Sandy is an old lady, especially for her breed.  I'm not sure how long she has left, but I'm willing to spend it feeding her and loving her and letting her pull me down the sidewalk while she gallops.

SCHOOL

It's over.  Officially.  Thursday was my last day of school related tasking/events with the exception of the online commencement ceremony.  Truthfully, COVID-19 was a blessing and a curse.  I appreciated not having to live the harried life of going to classes and having to be in the office.  But at the same time, this doesn't feel like closure.  It almost just feels like I quit.  I mean, I quit because it's over, but it doesn't feel as big as it would if things had been normal.

This is not even a humble brag, but a straight up brag:

I will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a minor in Cybersecurity after only 3 years (instead of the traditional 4 years that it usually takes to obtain a Bachelor degree; having a degree already help satisfy all the English/history requirements, which helped immensely).  I had to drop the German minor due to a crammed schedule in the Fall and a lack of offerings in the Spring.  I didn't think of it, but I probably could have talked to them about offering an independent study type of situation to get the credit to get the minor since I was only one class away, but it wasn't SO important to me.  AKA, not worth the stress.

I earned the following awards/honors:

• Cum Laude honors with a 3.656 overall GPA
• I made Dean's List 6/6 semesters (summer courses don't count apparently, but if they did, then it would have been 7/8, because fucking Calc 2, which is also the reason I graduated with only Cum Laude (3.5-3.69) instead of Magna Cum Laude (3.7-3.9)).
• I made the Gold Star list (4.0 GPA for the semester/straight As) 3/6 semesters (again with summer classes not counting).
• I was named the Swain College of Science and Mathematics 2020 Outstanding Veteran Student.
• I was named the Department of Cyber and Computer Science 2020 Outstanding Veteran Student.

I'm gonna be honest, I never EVER thought I'd obtain a Bachelor of Science degree ever.  It's why I have a Bachelor of Arts degree.  I was afraid of math and science... and I do not know why that was ever the case.  I am GOOD at both math AND science, despite the fact that they are difficult subjects.  I suppose maybe I was afraid of both because it took a little more effort for me to be good at math and science the way I am good at English/languages/humanities/social sciences.  

To me, a 2nd Bachelor degree feels like I got a Masters degree.  Maybe it's not exactly the same, but proportionally considering time/workload, it seems pretty much the same to me.  Maybe the classes aren't quite as demanding at an undergraduate level, but it takes longer to get a bachelor degree than a Masters.. so trade-offs.

Teh German and I were discussing all my new found free time and we joked that I had Stockholm's Syndrome because I kinda missed the busyness of my life and felt afloat without a tether having nothing I HAD to do in my evenings/non work time.

(College) Student AF (hoodie, sweet tea, blue hair (well, kinda), selfie).

In the distance, the building with the big window is where I spent my time on campus.

Final Assignments

Research Class

I had to write a research paper for my data science research class and that was fine and dandy... until my research partner kinda sketched out during the beginning of April and wasn't doing the tasks assigned to her and then she dropped a bomb on me about potentially dropping the class on the last day of the semester but she'd help if she could... YALL.. I lost it on her.  

I straight up told her, if you're going to drop this class, do it RIGHT NAOW.  Don't lead me to believe I can rely on you to help me and then fuck me over at the end of the semester when I have to pull your weight.  I can handle it all if I know RIGHT NOW that is what I need to do.. but don't wait until I've really checked out to drop the class and be like, sorry I couldn't help more.  Additionally, if you're going to stay in this class, then DO THE WORK ASSIGNED TO YOU.  She was assigned the introduction and related works section of our paper.  That was it.  The instructor also wanted her to contribute some graphics to the paper to show she'd done something over the semester.

The instructor and I had numerous conversations about the situation, so she knew where I was with it (I don't want my partner to fuck me over) and I knew where she was with it (I'd be getting an A as long as I submitted something for a final paper, even if my partner's sections were missing).

The very last week of class, the department head announced that those doing research would be presenting their research during a virtual meeting on Zoom and I was pretty stabby about it because I do not generally accept new tasking during the final week of classes.  Sorry not sorry.  But, honestly, we were supposed to have presented our research at the end of March during the Research Symposium, so this is something that should have been simple, but since the presentations had been cancelled, we hadn't bothered to come up with any type of presentation at all, so it was a weird situation.

In addition to presenting during the virtual computer science symposium, the School of Science and Math also decided to do a virtual awards ceremony since they had had to cancel the awards banquet award recipients were supposed to have presented at in March.  Le siiiiiiigh.  Since I already had to create a presentation for the other virtual ceremony, this wasn't difficult so much as it was annoying because the virtual ceremony was 3 days after my final final exam and I was 100% checked out by that point and wasn't overly interested in much of anything.

Despite all my bitching and moaning, both virtual ceremonies were pretty cool.  The computer science one was awesome because I got to hang out with my homies, who I oddly miss very much.  The school one was also pretty cool and I received some pretty significant visibility since General Walters (The Citadel's #1 dude) was on the line, as well as other Citadel leadership, School of Science and Math leaders, plenty of science and math faculty and staff, plenty of alumni, and the 3 award recipients (of which I was one).  

My presentation was first so I jumped right into it.  Honestly, I didn't practice at all since I had 7-10 minute to talk about it, which was way better than the 2-4 minutes I had to talk about my research for the CS meeting.  I was able to fully explain all the things that happened during our research (sans the partner issues) and people actually had question to ask afterward, and more importantly, questions that I could answer.  And the MOST important part of my presentation was after I was done, when one of the alumni/special guests was messaging me about employment potential for a job that was related to data science and intelligence work.  We exchanged information and I hope that once being within 6ft of another person won't get me killed/sick, we can sit down and have lunch and discuss possibilities.  Unfortunately, the specific job that he asked me about is located in DC, but with enough perks, I'm willing to make that DC sacrifice... annnnd is it reallllly a sacrifice if I'm within an hour of Teh Bestie?  I think... NO!

Database/PITA Professor

I completed my final project for my database class WEEKS in advance and PITA Professor never graded it until everyone's projects were in.  THEN, I refused to do my course evals until the very last day because the emails annoy me and because I didn't do them when PITA Professor wanted them done, even though he's not actually allowed to do this, he withheld my grade by not posting it to our class site.  I waited a week to call him out after he still didn't post it.  His response: "Sorry.  Your grade is there now.  I had intended to update this the next time I went into CitLearn, but there was never an occasion to go back to CitLearn."  THE OCCASION WAS TO PUT IN MY FUCKING GRADE, ASSHOLE.  

In addition to that conundrum, PITA Professor refused to let us take our exam earlier than the scheduled date/time.  This was annoying for several reasons, #1 being that I could have been done with my exams more than week prior to graduation if he had let us take it early.  Another reason this was annoying is because my life at home is much different than my life if I was going to class in person and it is unreasonable to expect that of people.  

It's over now, but Jesus had to take the wheel for a bit there because I almost lost my fucking mind.

German Things

German was the class where I straight up didn't do some homework assignments.  I was so over it and the idea of watching an entire movie to answer a simple discussion board question was not something I was interested in.  I did have a final project to work on with a partner and we unintentionally waited until pretty close to the due date to finish it.

This is by far the best thing I ever did for any of my German classes:

You see, we were supposed to watch this 1960s performance of a Faust play and this creepy guy was in it.. sooo I made him the creepy Erlkönig, who was the main topic of our project.  My partner wrote the info for the slides and I made the images since we did a modern retelling of a story.  He admitted when he got to this slide he actually laughed out loud because we all agreed this dude was super fucking creepy.  #MeganWin

Stats

LOOOOOOOL.  Stats was my easiest class of my entire degree program, easier than even Photoshop since that guy was an asshole grader.  

RUNNING

I'm super glad to have an accountability partner in Teh Running Advisor because other than the week that I was in Baltimore, we have run every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday consistently.  AND, Teh PT Wife and I have been Sunday Runday accountability partners, so I'm running Sun, Mon, Weds, and Fri and loving it.  I'm working towards some high distance virtual medals and it's a nice change from long distance races.  Being able to do it at my pace and doing varied distances isn't hurting my heart.. or my body.

That said, I would really like for my races to stop getting cancelled and rescheduled because the fall is started to look rather cluster-fucky and that's no bueno.

ETC THINGS

Random Shiznit

-My laptop is still kickin.  Despite Best Buy saying they would send me the packing stuffs and label to ship my computer to Geek Squad, I've never received it.  I'm not surprised.

-I've started tutoring Teh PT Kid and it makes me feel supah smart to still remember these things that he's learning AND to be able to teach him how to take tests and learn things.

 Tutoring AND snuggles.

-To celebrate finishing all my school work tasks, sans that final final exam, I switched it up on Teh German and went on a ride with he and his motorcycle gang.  Despite some difficulties, it was enjoyable.

Eating pizza curbside is now a thing. /shrug

That's 1.35 for regular unleaded.
This is starting to feel like high school again.

This is what my windshield looked like after paying $9 for a car wash.
FML.

Is there a more Megan soap?
No, no there is not.
See also: a few of my favorite things.

I missed out on the strawberry Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but made sure NOT to miss the key lime doughnuts.
ZERO REGRETS.

Cooking

I am still working, so I don't have all the free time ever, but I have been motivated to cook some decent things, so I'm considering it a win.

Mushroom pork chops in gravy.

Tuna casserole

Not pictured: Creamy chicken with mushrooms, pork enchiladas 

DOGS FOR DAYSSSSS

Meri being ridiculous about her butt scratches needs

Secret snuggles

Baby in the corner.. with Dash and Secret

Secret and Olive

Tug with Dash and Secret

Olive is always listening

PUPPAHSSS at SHUG HQ!!

Treat time!

Sandy is a BIG girl!

Monkey sammich!

The muppets. <3

When it's hot AF outside (90°F) and your mom takes too long to open the door to let you in...

/swoooooon

If it fits, I sits. -Sandy

FINALLY using a bed after a week of sleeping on the floor.

This goofs. /love

Beast mode?

The new toy from Teh Bestie has gotten SO much love that it already needs to have it's butthole sewn up!

Sandy sitting on the ottoman, as she will.

So with that.. I think you're caught up.
And maybe now that I'm not overwhelmed with the idea of writing this catch up post, we can get back to regular programming next week???