sammiejune29

Hi Elastigirl!! Its great to be back

Update on life: Crazy things have been happening. Still in school. Taking 3 classes now, 3 classes next semester and then I graduate!! I have been really bad about working out. I haven't been on a bike all summer, never went swimming or kayaking. In my busy schedule, working out has definitely been the thing that has been put on the back burner. But I need to change that for my physical and mental health. On top of my 3 classes (all upper level) I have three part time jobs with startup companies (2 of which I've been working for over a year now)I am treasurer of my church (plus going to all the other functions that goes with that)I'm in the rotary club (and I'm very involved in both the scholarship committee and the membership committee)I also run trivia every Tuesday night at a local bar in town (I used to just go and play but now I'm the one in charge of making the questions and getting up with the microphone and announcing the questions and the answers) You can probably see why I don't have a lot of free time. Lol. But I feel like I've turned into a "real" adult somewhere along the way because I get up early and go to bed early. All my classes are before noon and I LIKE it. Lol

Challenge #7 - Winter is Coming Overall Goal: Reform the good habits and regain the strength that I have lost Goal #1: Ramp up to doing 3 strength training workouts per week. - Weeks 2-3: work out 1 time per week - Weeks 4-5: work out 2 times per week - Week 6: work out 3 times per week Possible Points: 1 STR, 1 DEX, 1 STA, 2 WIS Goal #2: Get my strength back - By the end of the 6 weeks I hope to be back where I was with my exercises when I stopped working out consistently. In other words, hit my PR on each exercise by the end of the challenge. I will post what my goal is for each exercise when I get home and have those numbers. Incline Push-UpsWall-sitsWeighted LungesDumbbell RowsPlanksSide-PlanksGlute BridgesLying AbductionsPossible Points: 5 STR Goal #3: Cook at least 3 meals from scratch each week. They don't have to be super complicated, but they have to be from scratch. Possible Points: 5 CON

So this challenge has not gone anywhere so far... Lol The end of the semester was a decidedly poor time to start a new challenge. So my goal now is to slowly get back on the wagon so that next challenge I can attack it with a vengeance. I'm glad to (kinda) be back. I can't wait to fully be back Definitely want to work up to 3 workouts a week. And I realized a long time ago that trying to get to a push up in 6 weeks isn't a reasonable goal. But doing something like making sure I do push-ups 3 times per week regardless of whether or not I do full workouts. I don't mind the tangent And I love the UU. We have quite a variety of services. We have 8 pagan services per year (solstices, equinoxes and the ones in between) For instance this sunday we are dancing around the May pole for may day. We have services about meditation, spiritual journeys, Easter from a the perspective of UU, flower communion, inequality, etc. Our congregation is lay led. We are in the process of hiring a quarter time minister (so one service per month) with the others being lay lead. But we get a good variety of services. What I really love is the community aspect of it. Its great to have that support system. Its more about spirituality and faith than religion. We have a huge variety of beliefs in our community and it all works. We also frequently have bonfires with beverages and fun Sometimes classes do have to take precedence... Unfortunately :/ And I wish I could invite all of you to my dinner parties!! Obax!! Good to see you I still haven't gotten out on a bike ride. Gotta do that soon. Lol Thanks!! Good to be back Missed you too!!

So its Thursday and I still don't have my goals actually figured out. Its been a rough few weeks. This winter was really bad for my depression with all the crazy weather. I was doing better cause it was getting warmer outside and getting involved with Rotary and the Fellowship made my social life a lot happier. But then the 5-year old nephew of one of my dear friends passed away and I'm still having trouble dealing with it. I didn't know him that well but seeing how much pain my friends are in, and knowing that his life was so short just makes me sad. This is something I haven't had to deal with before and I'm just not sure how to handle it. So much of how I control my depression is by learning how to handle different situations. When to push through it and when to step back and give myself a break, but in this situation I don't know what my body/brain needs to recover. Mostly I just needed to get that stuff out there. Right now I'm sitting outside enjoying the sun and will hopefully work out before going to see West Side Story later. Hopefully goals will be finalized this weekend.

I did a similar goal lots and lots of challenges ago. And here I am months later and I cook more and am a much better cook. I started out by trying to follow recipes exactly and that wasn't going so well for me. So what I do now when I decide to cook something (some examples being lasagna, chili, fajitas) I look up a bunch of recipes and then make up my own from what I find. And it has actually worked quite fabulously. My beanless chili is Daniel's new favorite recipe rivaled by my ricotta cheese-less lasagna. I wish you luck!! And have plenty of "recipes" lol I used to get this error message a lot! Especially when replying to Chris_de_maas. Lol

Winter and I are not friends. And this winter was pretty atrocious. It was all I could do just to get through the day. I hate that working out ended up being the thing that fell through the cracks, but classes (and the three billion group projects) had to take precedence. That being said I didn't let myself go completely. I've still been going to yoga about once a week. Get a strength workout in a couple times a month. Not great but enough that I haven't really lost much progress, even though I definitely didn't gain any (I may have gained a couple pounds of fat though) New things in my life: 1) Started going to a Unitarian Universalist church 2) Became treasurer of said church 3) Joined the Rotary club 4) Daniel (the roommate) is moving in with his bf when our lease is up at the end of May 5) I'm taking over being in charge of trivia next year (this is the 5 round live trivia I play every week) 6) I've gotten much better at cooking and now host dinner parties fairly frequently (and people actually love my food, or so they tell me) Loose goals (I know they need to be more specific at some point, but I need to get stuff out there): 1) Lose fat & gain muscle 2) Get back to working out 3x's per week 3) Go on some bike rides 4) Do a full push up 5) Host some more dinner parties 6) Buy minimalist footwear (I STILL have not done this) Not sure how I want to translate these into a challenge. But I miss NF and its great to be back!! Also in February I hit my one year of NF except I'm not sure if it counts cause I missed a few months... but still, I've come a long way!!

Challenge #Never Happened (shh...) So its been a while since I've done a real challenge. I tried the whole unchallenge thing and it didn't really do much for me, but at least I know that now. **THIS IS A PLACE HOLDER FOR WHEN I FIGURE OUT MY CHALLENGE**

Chris!! Miss you much

Looks like things are going well even with the little hamstring snag. Yay!! Keep it up

Thanks Nuala! Recently I've just been struggling with everything. I haven't been cooking as much or cleaning as much or keeping up with my homework as much as I should be. I think the weather has a lot to do with it. We've had two snow days in the past few weeks, and my University NEVER cancels class. Its too cold to wear dresses too But I've still been doing some yoga. And trying to do some random pushups throughout the day. I was also sick for a week which didn't help matters. I don't think the unchallenge is working for me. It was worth a try, but I need real goals with rewards (even if the rewards are points that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things). So next challenge I will have real goals again. So I'm going to use the rest of this challenge to start figuring out what I should do next challenge to get myself back on track.

I hope you know I wasn't suggesting you ignore your kids! I understand how much more difficult that would make it but I think all in all you are handling it really well

So glad to hear that the surgery went well! When I was going through everything with my back surgery, I was definitely frustrated at not being able to do all the things that I wanted to do, but I like to find the silver linings in things. So for me the silver lining was that for two months, the only thing that was expected of me was to take care of myself and get better. I tend to push myself super hard at everything that I do and after pushing that hard for so many years, I took the break that life gave me and actually relaxed. Don't get me wrong, I was still frustrated a lot, but after all was said and done, I felt more at peace than I had been in years. I also took the opportunity to do things that I had been meaning to do for years and had never found the time to do. Here's to the silver linings *cheers*

And this didn't post last night as I had intended. Oops. But I did work out after I typed it up so yay!! Looking back my workout habit really got destroyed early last semester (neck problems, goat sitting and getting sick). Since Aug 31 I have only done full strength workouts 12 times. Granted I've had some yoga in there and other fairly active things but it still is disappointing. But I'm committed to doing better now!! So I'm going to work out right now I will be happy if I can get back to two times a week consistently at this point. List of workouts (mostly I'm putting this here so I have it somewhere): Aug 31 Sept 4 Oct 27 Nov 3 Nov 5 Nov 18 Dec 10 Dec 15 Dec 19 Dec 21 Dec 28 Jan 1

Just to clarify, I didn't move. I was home visiting my family for three weeks and now I'm back living in the same apartment that I've lived in for 6 or so months.

If you've been following me you know that last semester was stressful. Group projects out the wazoo, two part time jobs, plus trying to keep in shape and have a social life. Unfortunately for me, break wasn't as relaxing as I wanted it to be. I spent three weeks home with my mom and grandparents. However, this turned into a lot of errand running and cooking though I did get some workouts in, more than I had in a while. But its mid January now and I haven't worked out since Jan 1 I really wanted to participate in this challenge but it started right around the time I was trying to leave my family and get back to my own apartment. There were a million and one things to do and creating my challenge thread ended up at the bottom of the list. I've also been struggling for inspiration as far as my challenge goals go. For the longest time the goal in the back of my head was to get back to my high school weight of 155. I've done that now and I look better than I did then. I'm in better shape and am stronger. I still can't do a pushup but somehow that hasn't been enough to really motivate me to workout. But I know if I don't do this challenge at all its just going to get worse. So roughly I want to be: 1) Working out 3 times a week by the end of the challenge. I will work up to this. And then next challenge will be setting the habit back in stone. Now is building that habit again. 2) Think about my future goals. Figure out what motivates me now. What do I want from working out?

I think that you would make an absolutely fabulous guild leader! (my eyes just about popped out of my head when I read this)

Following this train of thoughts on teleportation/duplication you guys might want to check out the Outer Limits episode "Think Like a Dinosaur" It looks at the ramifications of exactly this. Here is a link to the full episode on hulu And hang in there. <3 We are all rooting for you. And even the little victories are victories. Remember that

I love the house projects Here's to another great challenge *cheers*

Even if you petered out near the holidays you still made progress!! Don't forget that That makes a lot of sense I'm finally getting good solid pushups on the third stair so I'm happy! I've run into this issue too. No one wants to be contacted by mail. Everyone uses phone or e-mail for everything. And yet I got yelled at by my teacher for putting the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of my references before their physical addresses. Yay better time!! And woo holidays

Sending much love your way I'm glad you will at least be around. We will all be here to give you love and support

Yay for having more energy than usual for this time of the year!! But my favorite thing is the list of other accomplishments!! You did so much on top of your goals Great challenge! I can't wait for the next one

I totally feel this way about tennis shoes. I like black tennis shoes with some kind of accent as opposed to white ones. The white ones always look dingy in no time. My favorite pair now is black with turquoise but I don't know what I'm gonna do when they die. Btw, great challenge Aeryn!!

Challenge 6 Wrap-up Overall: B-/C+ Not my best challenge. Not my worst either. Had finals in the middle of it all. Went home for thanksgiving and went home the week before christmas. Always shakes things up a little. Goal 1 - 1.21 Gigawatts - Strength workouts, yoga, jumping, got me varying amounts of Gigawatts Possible Points: 3 STR, 1 DEX, 1 STA Total: 0.74 / 1.21 Gigawatts = 61% Grade: C+ Awarded: 2 STR, 0.5 DEX, 0.5 STA Goal 2 - 88 MPH - Cooking, cleaning and earning Gigawatts 3+ days in a row got me MPH Possible Points: 2 CON, 3 WIS Total: 69/88 MPH = 78% Grade: B Awarded: 2 CON, 1.5 WIS Goal 3 - "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance" - Follow and comment on 5 people on the message boards - Update my own thread Possible Points: 4 CHA Grading: 30+ points earns me "Johnny B. Goode" (A) 25-29 points earns me "Earth Angel" ( 20-24 points earns me "Night Train" © 15-19 points earns me a generic song by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters (D) 0-14 points = I got stood up for the dance (F) Total: 29 points Grade: B+ "Earth Angel" Awarded: 3.5 CHA Side Goal - Power Lacing Shoes - Buy minimalist footwear Possible Points: 1 WIS Grading: A or F Grade: F Awarded: 0 WIS New Stats: STR: 20.5 + 2 = 22.5 STR DEX: 13.25 + 0.5 = 13.75 DEX STA: 15.25 + 0.5 = 15.75 STA CON: 16.5 + 2 = 18.5 CON WIS: 15.5 + 1.5 = 17 WIS CHA: 8.5 + 3.5 = 12 CHA Level 7 Assassin!!

Challenge 6 Wrap-up Overall: B-/C+ Not my best challenge. Not my worst either. Had finals in the middle of it all. Went home for thanksgiving and went home the week before christmas. Always shakes things up a little. Goal 1 - 1.21 Gigawatts - Strength workouts, yoga, jumping, got me varying amounts of Gigawatts Possible Points: 3 STR, 1 DEX, 1 STA Total: 0.74 / 1.21 Gigawatts = 61% Grade: C+ Awarded: 2 STR, 0.5 DEX, 0.5 STA Goal 2 - 88 MPH - Cooking, cleaning and earning Gigawatts 3+ days in a row got me MPH Possible Points: 2 CON, 3 WIS Total: 69/88 MPH = 78% Grade: B Awarded: 2 CON, 1.5 WIS Goal 3 - "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance" - Follow and comment on 5 people on the message boards - Update my own thread Possible Points: 4 CHA Grading: 30+ points earns me "Johnny B. Goode" (A) 25-29 points earns me "Earth Angel" ( 20-24 points earns me "Night Train" © 15-19 points earns me a generic song by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters (D) 0-14 points = I got stood up for the dance (F) Total: 29 points Grade: B+ "Earth Angel" Awarded: 3.5 CHA Side Goal - Power Lacing Shoes - Buy minimalist footwear Possible Points: 1 WIS Grading: A or F Grade: F Awarded: 0 WIS New Stats: STR: 20.5 + 2 = 22.5 STR DEX: 13.25 + 0.5 = 13.75 DEX STA: 15.25 + 0.5 = 15.75 STA CON: 16.5 + 2 = 18.5 CON WIS: 15.5 + 1.5 = 17 WIS CHA: 8.5 + 3.5 = 12 CHA Level 7 Assassin!!