obax

Very nice. I particularly like the lamppost, I don't know why but my eye keeps getting drawn back to it

I like this a lot. A whole story in 5 lines.

Day 2 - Discover Gonna continue with the spoilers for now, seems most straightforward.

This is very intriguing. What's the picture? Why is she burying it? Why might she heal so quickly? Why does her mother give such a sense of dread? So many questions... Also, that's one heck of a paper cut, holy!

I may need to keep it for future development, I had no idea where it was going when I started but was rather intrigued by the end.

Back to work today after a long weekend, and I am resonating hard with this today...

Bit early, but I'm probably going to be pretty busy after work tomorrow, so here we go! I dunno if it's better to copy/paste it, or just post the google docs link.... Opinions welcome. This one's not even a page so I'll copy/paste it for now (spoilered to avoid the big wall of text, though I suppose a link would avoid that even better...)

I'm in, as a writer, not a drawer. 1-ish page vignettes sounds like the writerly equivalent to sketches to me

Still no game, but I'm more or less still doing the thing, so I'm not too fussed. By 'more or less', I mean I didn't do the things on Thursday due to a physio appointment right after work, I was both short on time and sore afterwards, and this is fine. Friday I completely forgot I ever said I'd do any thing of any kind, I was so exhausted, and just watched TikTok videos until it was time for D&D, in which we did not die, though I thought for sure we would. Decent sleep last night has given me all the energy today, but none of the focus (I so rarely have both). Managed to do some things anyway: made cookies; ate decently; cleaned dishes x2, put away dishes x1; 3x12 of incline pushups, 1-leg RDLs, thread the needles; stretches of various kinds. Might see if I can twist a friend's arm into coming on a walk with me tomorrow. I have a podcast as a backup distraction for the tortuous activity that is walking from A to B and back again, but I do better with a buddy, because I will never let someone else down, but will always let myself down. I also have hockey tomorrow, so if I get lazy I will still be doing a thing of some kind.

It's always fun to watch a cat alter its molecular structure to go from liquid to solid, but the reason why in this case sounds much less fun. Fingers crossed for a healthy and timely parts distribution system and a generous warranty policy.

It's nice that these things you're doing for you are extending to some extra family time also. A bit of time to slow down with our loved ones is always time worth spending.

I still haven't gotten the game set up, but I still did a workout-ish. I was way too lazy to dig around in the crawlspace for the things for ring rows, so I figured I'd just do more incline pushups for now and save the properly effortful things for the weekend, but then I was way more sore than I realized, so I cut that short. And the leg raises hurt my back, which has been touchy off and on for some time, somewhat unexpectedly, so I cut that short also. I did more RDLs (3x10) and some open books (3x10) and called it good. It's a bit of a cop-out, but I still did a thing, even if it wasn't all of the thing, so it'll do for now. I've been doing ok the last couple of days with work lunches, I took my own on Tuesday (and was low key hungry all day even though I ate it all way sooner than I intended) and got healthy-ish takeout today (and was not hungry all day until it was the proper time to become hungry again, which is really not helping my motivation to make my own lunches...) Not sure what I want to do with the rest of my evening. The new episode of Worlds Beyond Number is still not out yet, but I might re-listen to the last one. I'm not feeling very focused so that might be a good option

One of the players is the person I played 1-on-1 with and she wasn't down for running her own sidekick, which is why I ran the DMPC. If they each run their own character and I can just run the NPCs/badguys, I think that'll be more manageable for me and I'd be willing to try. I did sort of get the hang-ish of adjusting encounters for a party of 2, and I'm fine fudging it a bit if I need to. The 2 players I have don't know each other at all, however, and I don't know if they're going to want to stare awkwardly at one another without a few other players to hide behind, so we'll see.

Oy vey... 1st day back and I'm exhausted... I want my Muskoka chair back... Forgot to figure out my game last night, but I still did the workout today. I kept it real light, and will probably increase reps next time. The goal reps for the program I'm sort of working from are a bit ridiculous (3x50 glute bridges??), but I'm going to work towards them and see where I get. I've never done anything volume-y before, so we'll see how I like it. Today's workout was as follows: 3x10 each of incline pushups, air squats, glute bridges, 1-leg RDLs (this last one will get added every time, not just for this workout), plus some calf stretching. The alternate workout is 3x10 each of ring rows (if I can find all the necessary equipment), some form of leg raise/V-sit type thing (I'll have to explore the variations on the website and also see what I am capable of doing), and some twist holds, plus the RDLs and stretching. I'm just going to go back and forth between these two for at least 4 days a week (probably work days, which change from week to week), with the intent to get out for a couple of walks on my days off, weather permitting. In other news, I've decided to try to dip my toe back into DMing, my first try was fun but overwhelming, so I'm trying to make it a little more manageable by doing what I probably should have done in the first place and run the starter set adventure The Lost Mines of Phandelver (or however you spell it, I might change the name just to make it easier to say). I'm going to try not to mess with the published adventure too much, though that will take some restraint on my part, and it's contingent on me finding enough players, I've got 2 so far and would like 3-4 (I'd maybe try to run it for 2 if I can't get anyone else to bite, but I sort of did that before and the balancing is real finicky. Maybe with a published adventure and 2 actual players instead of 1 + a DMPC it wouldn't be as bad). Might actually do some reading tonight, I don't read nearly as much as I used to and I started a series while I was at the cottage that has piqued my interest. I want to catch up on the latest Critical Role episodes but if I start that I'm in it for the long haul and I probably shouldn't be up that late (not that going to bed on time means I'll get to sleep on time). OH! I just remembered the new Worlds Beyond Number should have been released today, in which case that will be the rest of my evening, but otherwise I'll try to read.

Today I did some meal prep, made some fish, some broccoli rabe and onions, and a bean salad. I was dumb and didn't thaw a second thing of fish, but it's one of the few cookings I'll do after work, so I'll pull one out of the freezer tomorrow and cook it when needed. I also made a plan for some homemade lunches through the week. I'm hoping it'll keep me full long enough, but I've got some Soylent packs to take with me to hopefully fill the gap. No exercise done as yet. I'm actually kinda sore from hockey, not terribly so but it makes me want to laze. Not to mention the meal prep took most of my spoons for the day. I'm going to do some stretching and mobility before going out for dinner tonight, and then when I get home actually get the board game thing organized and figure out exactly how it works and figure out what exercises I want to do, and hopefully start it tomorrow for real. Back to work tomorrow after 10 days of vacation. I'm not exactly excited, but I do legitimately like my job so I'm not sad either. I'm just going to miss being well rested more than anything.

Back from the cottage. There wasn't a lot of doing of things while I was there, mostly just sitting on the muskoka chair and playing with the dogs. I got back late-ish yesterday, so there wasn't really any doing of things then either. Today I played hockey, which counts as a thing. We lost, but we're the last place team and we were playing the first place team, so this was not unexpected. I finally got to play forward again, and thought I did ok, but I was only sort of feeling it. Hopefully next year I get to play forward more often. I also found a new thing to try. It's basically a habit-building board game, you have your little character and every time you do a thing (?) you move on the board and every now and then you get to attack the creature by rolling a d20. I'm not super clear on exactly how it works yet (clearly), but I thought I'd give it a try. I've tried phone apps that do something similar but I'm real good at ignoring phone notifications and never opening a majority of the apps I have on there, I'm hoping the hard copy will make it harder to ignore. Though I've tried post-it notes as reminders in the past, even sticking them right in the middle of my tv, and I still ignored them too, so *shrug* I guess we'll see. I think I'm going to try to put together a little bodyweight routine for this, beyond the couple of easy things I've already been (sort of) doing, that's a little more complete, and make my goal 5 days/week. I'm normally terrible at doing this sort of thing at home, but I haven't been motivated to try the gym again since my mini-panic attack last time I was there, so... like I said, I guess we'll see...

I like the latest gif, very peaceful. Add waterfall in the background and you've got the little oasis near my cottage almost exactly.

Wednesday today, and I'm sure of it this time! No doing of the things as of yet, aside from lunch, I'm real tired today. I did have a nap, sort of, which is a thing. And swing a small sledge hammer a bit, but it wasn't real heavy. And now I've got the perfect little campfire, unlike last night's! And there's thunder moving in... I'll sit out as long as I can then move inside, and maybe do a few more things then.

It's... Tuesday? Maybe? Time has no meaning at the cottage. But regardless, I did a thing, even if it wasn't the things I have been doing: I sawed a bunch of wood and chopped some kindling for the pitiful excuse for a campfire I made tonight. It got my heart rate up a bit (I really go at it when I saw things), and I can feel it in my arms now. And now I smell like woodsmoke, which is just fine by me. Not much else going on, as it should be when at the cottage. Probably going out and about for a bit tomorrow, I don't know if it'll result in the doing of things aside from lunch, but maybe a change of pace will inspire me. Or something... Trying to decide if I want to take a trip to Tobermorry some time in the rest of the week, there's really not much there for me now that I'm an adult, though the candy store has good saltwater taffy, but I'm not sure it's worth the time and gas to go all that way just for saltwater taffy... Maybe if I'm bored I'll go for a drive and see where I end up, but most of my childhood haunts are so full up with tourists these days that I just stay away. Might like to try to get some writing done in the next few days too. My brain's been a bit bouncy and I haven't had much focus, but there's rain coming apparently so that might be a good day to give it a go.

And the dragon shirt! Way to do the things! Hopefully your knees settle down for you soon.

I had a job interview a while back and part of it was written, and the laptop they gave the applicants had a sticky'i' key. The job was for animal welfare inspector, and guess what letter shows up a lot when you're writing about animals...? I was convinced it was on purpose, and the point of the exercise wasn't to assess writing skill but to see how a person functioned under pressure with a minor but incredibly irritating thing going wrong that you can't do anything about. All of which is to say, I feel your pain.

If it does, then I'm excelling. *** I have not been doing the things (aside from lazing) since getting to the cottage. Some of it is the change in routine, some of it is having other people around, some of it is me just plain not thinking of it until I'm in the process of getting ready for bed then choosing not to. On the plus side, I've been reading, which I don't do much of any more, and I drank some real good cider yesterday. A little break isn't a bad thing, though the timing is not exactly conducive to me trying to establish a routine, if not exactly a habit... We'll see what I can do to get back to doing some things for the rest of the week.

Forgot to do the thing on Friday. I worked late getting things wrapped up for my vacation week, then made dinner and promptly got distracted by inconsequential stuff, and then it was time for D&D. I think part of it is, I moved the slant board I use for the stretching out of the middle of the livingroom where it had been, and out of sight means out of mind. I'll probably move it back when I get home again as a reminder. I'm at the cottage, so my routine is all messed up (not a complaint), so we'll see how the next week goes. Thus far today I've lazed and then driven and now I'm lazing again, and have not yet done the thing. We'll see if I remember before bed.

I feel this. I tend to write in a few marathon sessions rather than many smaller sessions, which helps me keep my threads together but doesn't make for the best consistency...

I had a brief moment of disengaging today also, though I think it was less intentional than yours, but I did think of you when I realized I was staring into space while standing in the middle of the road completely disengaged from the world around me... It was quite peaceful until I realized my surroundings. The thought I had was 'I don't think this is quite what Artemis meant, but...' and then I went to stand back up on the boulevard where I should have been in the first place.