Mistr

Finally caught up with you. No surprise to see you are already off with a big head start on your challenge. I'm looking forward to hearing about your killer ab work. The running I can admire from afar. Ab work I might actually do.

Yay! I'm glad that you are coming back swinging.

Challenge 14 Over the last few weeks I have noticed several things that make me go “Hmmmmmmâ€. Some are obvious and others may take more work. Let's start with the painfully obvious. Three to six months ago my knees did not hurt. I danced without problems at a ball in January and another one in March. In the last couple months my knees have reverted to their previous cranky state. What does the evidence show? [#1 – keeping a log is valuable] Knee PT exercise sessions September 10 October 12 November 8 December 9 January 9 February 11 March 8 April 7 May 5 I started slacking off when my knees were feeling good. I know better, but I let other things take precedence. Goal: Get through the whole PT series (14 exercises = 2 hours + stretching) at least once a week. The next thing to do on open days is shoulder PT which includes a lot of core exercises. If I am good about getting back to speed with these, I will add in upper body work again. The last time I did pushups was at the end of April. <bows head in shame> + 5 STR + 3 DEX The next set of clues are clear but there is more than one suspect. I am showing signs of stress. Clues include sleeping poorly, lack of focus, no interest in creative activities, playing a lot of sudoku (totally risk-free gaming anyone?) and nervous habits. Some of the stress is real and some is self-inflicted. I could buy more salads and do less cleaning and the world would not end. I like my cooking but in reality there are lots of other options. Just because I want to do a thing does not mean I need to do it. Looking at the real side first, work is going to be extremely busy over the next two months. The challenge starts with my team of 15 down by two – one left and one out on maternity leave. Another person is leaving after this week and a fourth person will be leaving the first week of July. On the good side, we already have a list of promising candidates to interview. The best case scenario is that we like the people coming for in-person interviews next week AND get permission to fill both newly vacated positions. That permission may be slow in coming. Under the best case we have new people starting training the beginning of July. That means another person will be doing training instead of regular work most of the time for three weeks. (Spread across the team, not actually a single person). So we will be down by a third. Plus people out for vacations. Chances are good that I will be putting in extra hours and dealing with more challenging customer situations every week. Goals: - Use non-food rewards to be nice to myself. Go soak in the hot tub after work if I am tense. Buy cafeteria food to save time. Listen to music when I am working on projects.- Get plenty of sleep. Sleep = slack. I will cope with stress much better when I am rested. This means going to bed on time. - Meditate. Meditation time may be the only time in the day when I am not planning or doing something. Make this a priority. - Practice aikido. Nothing is as good for blowing off stress as flinging people around the room. Fantasy-induced stress: I have visions of a perfect house and garden. Of me having plenty of time to read, make things and play music. Under other circumstances this might be inspirational. Right now I need to remove all emotional weight from these dreams. Goal: Choose things to do on a daily basis adjusting for reality as needed. Ask “will doing this make me happier?†Cleaning the slime out of the crisper is not a fun job, but having it done will indeed make me happier. Going out with my family or friends will make me feel better - the dishes can wait.Take time to do fun things anyway. There will be days when it feels like all I do from morning to night is be responsible (Wednesdays, I'm looking at you). Give myself permission to do fun things in between all the work.+ 5 WIS + 2 CON

Good for you doing your training at 9pm after a full day of work. That is why you are our fearless leader. Sounds like the new responsibilities at work are paying off for you. Listening to people is a sadly rare skill. I hope your managers value it and act accordingly.

Challenge 13 – Wrap-up My main goal this challenge is to get more on top of things. The mess in my house, garden and garage are the most obvious things. Last challenge I made substantial improvement in getting enough sleep by going to bed on time. I started meditation as part of a mini-challenge and signed up for a meditation class at work. I feel like I’m halfway up the mountain for most of my goals. Overall: I did in fact get more on top of things. The metaphor of climbing is a good reminder for me. I want to get things done. In reality I’m never going to be done with cleaning or gardening. The best I can expect is a pause for a few days while I can enjoy the view before I get back at it again. Exercise/wellness adventure challenge I did the spring wellness challenge at work. As far as achieving the goals of the challenge, this was a win. I came in first in the competition. I enjoyed the variety and getting outside. However, the screwy way they assigned points means that doing the “challenges†did not improve my fitness at all. If anything I lost ground because I was not as consistent with my workouts. A visit to the local farmer’s market to buy fresh veggies was worth as many points as 10 exercise sessions. Really people? I did almost all the things plus drinking water and using the exercise room or hiking trails. Adventure challenges (5000 points each) x Fitness consultation: Meet with the trainer. x Lunch n Learn: Session with nutrition consultant. x Meditation series: I signed up for this two weeks ago. x Meditation: group or individual session (don’t know why this is a separate item but I’ll take the points) x New exercise: try something new (did a yoga class) Peer fitness: bring a friend to a fitness class Walking meeting: have a walking meeting with coworkers x Local trails: (walk or bike the local trails) x Salad: build a healthy salad from the cafeteria (I did this today for lunch) x Farmer’s Market: shop at the local market x Hot water: Use the steam room, sauna or hot pool Food My challenge for this time is to cook healthy food containing vegetables. A couple new dishes over the six weeks would be great. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA – NO I ate more salad and made an effort to eat veggies. I did very little cooking this challenge. My ending weight was the same as my starting weight. Doing all the things I continued doing meditation and did a lot of the things. I am particularly happy about getting the files sorted and off the floor of my office. The winter clothes are packed and in the attic. I didn’t exactly stay on top of finances and filing, but I did beat back the piles more than once. I felt continually behind the curve on gardening. I am doing the garden things I wanted, but about two weeks after the ideal time. The last week of the challenge I did a tremendous amount of work to get on top of things with my family and at home. I ended the challenge with the house cleaner than it has been all year. I did some of the things that had languished far too long like scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen floors. (Scrubbing is NOT damp mopping, it is the hands-and-knees-with-a-scrub brush deep cleaning). I took a pile of old tires to the dump which cleared just enough room in the garage to fit my new-to-me wheelbarrow. I am calling this one a win. Overall - two solid wins and a complete loss. I'll talk more about lessons learned in my next challenge.

Nice goals and interesting articles! I admire your dedication to continued professional certification while you are working a demanding job and juggling everything else. Have you considered getting a pedometer (or an app) to monitor your movement at work? It sounds like some days you get a lot of walking in as part of your job. Other days involve mostly desk work and the 20 minutes on the elliptical would make sense.

Thanks for sharing your concerns about your Dad. Cancer is scary, even when the prognosis is good. I hope everything goes well. See you on the next round.

You bet we really love you! My sympathy on the flooding. I'm glad you didn't get stuck at work for days. Rain on a hike is annoying but expected. Water in your basement is a whole different thing. I had a car totaled in an urban flash flood once. No fun. You may be right about the Apocalypse. But why did you ever hoard ammo? You have amazing TKD skills for dealing with zombies.

I like your plan of a variety of mini-challenges. Finding small things you can succeed at while you deal with life stuff makes a lot of sense. And DDR is a fun way to exercise.

I can tell you really have progressed to the next level. Your challenge does not contain an exercise or diet component. On your question about what to do with your diet, I agree with Teirin. You have only been experimenting with a no-cheat plan for a few weeks. You have already learned some important things about how you relate to food. You pay close attention to signals from your body. I think you would do just fine playing it by ear. Considering how variable your work schedule is, you would be doing much the same with any plan you might try. My sympathy on getting rid of extra stuff. My partner is in the middle of a major book sorting and culling operation. As in 20+ boxes of books. Up until last week this was the pallet dubbed "Mount Humanities" in the garage. Now our living room and family room are overflow with stacks of books waiting to be integrated or given away. Want some books?

One of these days I'm going to post my challenge summary. Let me just say I'm glad the new challenge is not starting until next week. I'm doing exercise stuff but I don't have time to write about it yet. Rant for today. It started off looking like a normal Monday. Then one of my team had to go home to take care of a sick kid. While I was scrambling to redo the schedule, I found out that we are losing two team members. One gave notice today (to take a job at a different company) and the other will be transferring to a different department. I knew about the internal interview so that was not such a surprise. The bad part is that we are already down two people. One is on maternity leave until August. On the bright side, we are already doing interviews for the person who left in March. Hopefully we can find three good candidates (and get permission to fill the new vacancies). The one we talked to this morning was a bust. I should be disappointed but that gave me time to work out over lunch. There is another phone interview this afternoon and more resumes in the pipeline. Four people missing out of a team of 15 means a lot more work for me. Something new to add to my next challenge.

You did a great job this challenge. It looks like you finally found a program that works for you and have been sticking with it. Yay for getting to practice karate and judo again! I like how all the individual training you have been doing has prepared you to improve in martial arts. Yes, it helps a LOT. I appreciate the videos you post and your thoughts on how and why exercises work. Some of it is over my head, but I hope to be able to get there in the future.

Wow, you knocked another challenge out of the park! I am inspired by your consistency and dedication. Wonderful when this happens!

You did a great job of improving your eating habits while juggling all kinds of other things. Give yourself some credit - you organized your own wedding! That is a huge time commitment on top of your already demanding job. Getting out of work on time more often is a clear step in the right direction. Considering how short staffed you've been and all the other problems at work, it's amazing you are getting any time for yourself at all. No wonder you just want to sit on the couch and eat ice cream when you get home. I recognize the tangled mess of tired, sore, stressed and comfort food eating. You look at the situation and figure out where you can make small changes and get some leverage. I found that sleep is the key for myself. When I am tired I can't make good decisions about anything, don't have energy to exercise, and eat extra to keep myself going. YMMV I'm looking forward to seeing you do great things next challenge.

I twisted my ankle walking on uneven ground a few years ago. Doing ankle circles helped me a lot. I do these standing on one foot. That is not strictly necessary but adds balance work at the same time. Stand on one foot with that knee slightly bent. Draw circles in the air with the toes of the other foot - 30 times clockwise and 30 times counterclockwise. Change sides and repeat. Do at least one set a day. When this gets easy, do it with your eyes closed.

^^^^^^^^^^^This I would be happy to be your FB friend too.

I hope you are having a wonderful time in Japan! Congratulations on running a full tour and a century at Stairs! I hope your legs were recovered by the time you got to Japan. My sympathy on your dog. Losing someone you love is tough, regardless of their size, age or furriness. Yes - absolutely you are doing something right. One thing you might do is to try a different brand of pants. Different manufacturers use different "fit models" to calculate the proportions of clothes. You need something like "athletic fit" instead of "slim fit" or "big and tall". See if you can find sports stars who are built like you and endorse clothing. Those brands could have something for you. Yay for applying for better jobs! Maybe you will get back to find an interview request waiting for you.

What I did on my spring vacation Sorry for the radio silence. I was busy with work before I left, then was without internet for several days. I am still on vacation through Tuesday but am back at home now. Friday: Baked cookies and granola bars to take up north, packed, got on the road in the early afternoon.Dreaded task accomplished: dropped off an old band uniform item at my partner's university. This has been languishing in my closet for years.Got together with friends for dinner.I felt a little guilty about not getting on the road earlier so that I could help out my mom on Friday. Turned out not to be an issue. Saturday: One of the reasons for this trip is that my mom is moving into a senior condo this fall. She wants to take some of her favorite plants and furniture to our family lake place in northern Minnesota. I organized a family event with my mom and both my brothers so that we could make decisions together about what to keep and what to get rid of. dug 10 hostas and 10 daylilies from mom's extensive garden.Started to load her car. She determined that there was not enough room and some stuff would have to go with my brothers. This killed the previous plan of leaving early to plant things before they got up north, and no guilt for me not digging plants on Friday. Drove 2 hours north.I worked on sorting kitchen stuff with mom while my brothers put in the dock and boat track. There was a plumbing disaster when they turned on the water earlier this spring. Three of the cabinets were already emptied into the living room by the contractors. I pulled out the stuff from the other lower cabinets and started sorting. I also threw out all the dubious food with no expiration dates. There were some cans of pineapple that were starting to bulge. Scary stuff. My partner and I purged the cabinets about 15 years ago and found a can that had exploded. I think these cans were from that era.Planted the hostas with my youngest brother. He did the digging. Good chance to compare notes.Take-out pizza for dinner. Only slightly better than frozen pizza.Went to see the new Mad Max movie. We all enjoyed it. It reminded me of 80's sci-fi and fantasy movies with over-the-top villians, chase scenes and thin plots.Sunday: I cooked waffles, bacon and eggs for breakfast. If I had not volunteered to cook we would have had toast and donuts.All four of us worked on the kitchen. My grandmother started bringing up her extra dishes when they built the house in the 70s and everyone has continued that tradition. We pared down the dishes to three sets: good china, nice everyday ceramic, and the beat-up plastic set that the little kids can use. We marked lots of things none of us would ever use to get rid of.We did a survey of all the furniture in the house. Only one footstool got discarded but other things are on the hit list for later.I planted daylilies while my brothers hauled 40 years of old paint to the garage.I helped my brothers sort the stuff in the furnace room and laundry room. Did I mention that I come from a long line of pack rats? We found more pots and pans behind the tools. (Why grandma? Were you worried that you might need to cook something up with chemicals?) We found a vacuum cleaner that is old enough to be worth something as a collector item.My brothers were very appreciative of the cookies. The raisin-date ones were more popular than the chocolate chip ones. They also appreciated the hummus and peppers.Monday: (The older brother had to leave Sunday to get back for work. My youngest brother is visiting for the week) I did laundry and made beds with mom while my brother packed up kitchen stuff.Dug 6 raspberries to take homeWe drove to town and found a consignment shop that will sell or donate the kitchen stuff. Score! My brother and I just wanted to get rid of the stuff. Mom wanted to sell it. This arrangement made everyone happy.Loaded mom's car with a wheelbarrow, luggage and the raspberries. My brother drove back to mom's.Down time - knitting and sudokuHelped sort tools. My dad had a LOT of tools.Tuesday: Ran errandsTried to fix the garage door opener with my brother. I might have been able to do it by myself. There was no way we could do it together. He didn't want to do it but felt he had to take charge. We quickly gave up and called the service company.Sorted stuff in the garage.Took old tires and paint to the county recycling center with mom while my brother was on a conference call for work.I cooked dinner: pork chops, green beans, baked sweet potatos.Looked at old photos with my brother, sorted more tools. Mom picked out a set to keep and we picked out some to take up north.Wednesday: My brother headed back up north with his friends for Memorial Day weekend. He took along the tools, a electric trimmer and a long to-do list.Packed old encyclopedias.Put clean sheets on beds (mine and my brother's)Dropped off encyclopedias at the thrift store, picked up plants at the hardware store.Planted new plants.Packed my car with the wheelbarrow, raspberries and my stuff.Drove 5 hours home.Went shopping to take advantage of a 30% off Kohl's coupon that was expiring.I can't remember the last time I worked so steadily. I got in meditation most mornings before everyone else woke up. No exercise. Lots of physical work. We got along better than I expected. My brothers got a little snippy with mom when she was not listening to them or taking them seriously. I noticed that I spent more time with mom than they did. She doesn't get under my skin the way she does with them. We got a tremenous amount done. If there had been any doubt, this trip made it clear that mom is making the right choice by moving out of her house. She can't walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and catch her breath for a few minutes. Carrying a basket of laundry up from the basement is a major production. It also made it clear that she can't maintain the family lake place. Either my brother who is local will have to take responsibility for making sure things get done, or we will have to sell it. I was hoping we would have that discussion, but that brother left before the subject came up. Final gripe - when I was leaving on Friday my partner said not to worry about the dishes, he would take care of things. Over the weekend he asked if a friend could stay at our place on Tuesday and Wednesday. My office is the guest bedroom. I told him it would be fine if he did some cleaning up first. I had that cleaning on my list for this weekend. I got home to find the kitchen full of dirty dishes and my office in the same state as when I left (but with the friends luggage scattered on top of my mess). Grrrrr. Then he got cranky with me because I was more critical of the things not done than appreciative for the things he did. Communication. We need lots more communication. It will be fine, but I was not a happy camper when I got home.

Yes, it's confusing how different dojos use different names for the same techniques. My old dojo would put the arm-under-the-chin back fall technique in the broad family of kokyu nages. My current dojo calls these kokyu tanden. Go figure. There also seems to be a grey area about what is included under the "iriminage" heading. Yes, we got another session in. Sensei taught Saotome boken kata #6 on Friday. My friend missed that class, so I taught him the kata. Excellent for reinforcing all the fine points in my mind.

Glad that you had fun time with your family and good judo practices. I like the embroidery too. I hope you have had some time to relax and recharge.

How are things going? I know what you mean about sleep shifts being tough. I managed three days on an earlier schedule last week then blew it all over the weekend. I'm working back to it again this week. And that is just a half-hour change. A three hour change is a big adjustment.

I hope everything goes well with your presentation and the marathon trip! What state are you running in this time?

Thanks for the reinforcement. When I first learned meditation it was in a more mystical yoga context. Lots of implied "this is the best way". I much prefer the current "pay attention and do what works" approach. This morning I sat cross-legged on a thicker cushion. After 20 minutes my legs were just starting to fall asleep. This position works well for keeping my back straight. Really, I can't sit still in a chair for an hour without my knees locking up (I test this at work all the time, not that I sit very still). I'll just have to work on my endurance. We both had sense to snack earlier. I have to say that slightly overcooked baked potatoes hot off the grill are yummy. Grilling is not my favorite way to cook. It is ideal for social occasions when I can sit outside with a beer and chat with friends while we wait for things to cook. When it's just me, I want to do other things at the same time. I have to set a timer or I guess wrong on when to flip the meat or take it off the grill. Week 4 so far Monday was every bit as good as I hoped it would be. I got up at 5:30am as part of a successful effort to reset my sleep schedule. I planned to take a nap later but never felt tired. Many things accomplished: Meditation 19 minutesWashed dishesCooking:finished turkey wild rice soupbrownies with goat cheese topping (I wanted to use up the goat cheese before it went bad) if you buy that...Turkey gravy to serve with the now quite dry sliced turkeySorted the piles that have been on my office floor for months. The past many years of tax folders are now in their own box. All the retirement fund statements are in the filing cabinet. I still have a pile of random papers but the scary part is done.Dropped off old clothes at the charity store.Dropped off a broken piece of furniture at the repair shop.Put winter clothes in attic, got out sandals and packed up winter bootsIroningInteresting observation on the turkey wild rice soup. I added 2 cups of wild rice to about a gallon of stock on Sunday and simmered it for a couple hours. During that time I added about 3 cups of sauteed vegetables. It looked like a lot of broth and some rice and veggies. I left the lid on while it simmered, turned off the heat and let it sit on the stove overnight. This practice is based on the theory that all the microbes are killed by the steam and none are introduced from the air. There was no room in the fridge for the big soup pot. So on Monday when I opened the lid I was surprised to see that the broth was gone and the soup pot was full of rice. Really full. Apparently wild rice swells a LOT after it is boiled. I took out some of the damp wild rice turkey casserole and added in one of the pints of turkey broth that I had put in the fridge. I also added the rest of the turkey. While the sliced turkey was so-so, the turkey soup turned out great. Both the guys agreed. They did note that it needs more broth. Now that we've finished off a third of it there is enough room to mix in the last pint of extra broth to make it more soup-like. Tuesday Got up at 5:30 and went to work early to practice weapons kata with a friend. He had figured out that there was an aerobics class on Tuesday starting May 1st. When we planned this last week we looked at the April schedule. I ended up doing the 31-count jo kata a couple times, then showered and got to work early. Exercise - lunges, heel raises and clams at lunchtimeCooking - Greens with bacon, garlic, raisins, lemon juice and pine nuts. These had turned into veggies of conscience.Wednesday Tried again and succeeded on early morning weapons practice. We had to share the aerobics room with an informal aerobics session. That mostly just added to the overall weird feeling of doing aikido outside the dojo and at work. If anything, it made me focus harder on my partner. We worked on reinforcing jo kata #6 (from last Friday) and reviewed boken katas 1-5. Half an hour of practice was perfect for me. It was lovely to be able to just train and not have to worry about anyone else. If we keep this up for the summer my weapons work may get up to grade. Exercise: shoulder/core work at lunchtime. Taught aikido 1.5 hours in the evening. The attack was grabbing both shoulders from behind (ushiro ryokatatori). We started static for the basic class then from motion for the advanced class. Techniques included kokyu tanden, ikkyo, kokyunage (the simple drop forward and down version) and iriminage. Some students had trouble with the concept of stepping back and to the side. Also with the idea that it is critical to get uke's arms stretched out. I am happy with the progress of the senior students in the class. It is fun when someone looks frustrated and I can give a clue on how to make the technique more effective. We have a new yudansha who just moved to the area. He has been coming to a lot of classes and is fun to work with. This is a very good thing because we have lost other yudansha to job transfers and injuries. Thursday Woke up at 5:30am again but went back to sleep because I got to bed late. No regrets there. My excuse was that my housemate worked on my shoulders for 20 minutes when I got home from aikido. Torture, but in a good way. Meditation 12 minutes at lunchWalk at lunchShopped at the opening day of the farmer's market for the work challenge. Got some plants for the garden and a bag of spinach.Got out pots and trays for starting seeds, mixed potting soil and compostDinner with my partnerPlayed sudoku - no motivation to do more work.

Yay for hitting your pike press goal! For all that I've been reading your threads for a long time, I don't think I understand what you mean by either deload or rest. You describe doing a lot of difficult things under those headings. Thanks for describing your expanded job responsibilities. I see an Assistant Manager position in your future. I have not been following the details of the Wheaton Twitter discussion. However, I can see good reasons for any well-known creative type to cut off social media. Simply because of the time and distraction, regardless of whether the comments are positive or negative. When a person is working on a creative project he or she needs to concentrate. A popular artist does not have an obligation to connect with fans in any particular venue. There will always be some fans who are disappointed not to have contact and other fans who would rather see new work be released sooner. It's the artist's choice how to spend time. Glad you are having fun with the Marvel universe. I've avoided getting sucked into the mainstream comics realms so far.

There you go, clear evidence that it was not too much. Sounds like you had quite the celebration. Congratulations! Putting away a 152 piece truck absolutely counts as a workout. Just think how many squats you did. Probably some overhead presses and weighted lunges to boot. I know exactly what you mean. Seven hours a night may not be enough for you. I hope you can catch up this weekend.