elsfaire

Yeah, so, sorry about falling off the planet again. I have a couple of things come up, so here is the... Challenge Update This is totally informal, but here goes. In general, I am now moving a lot more. With bringing Fifteen to cross country practice 4 days a week, I am usually able to get some exercise in then (not so much this week, as I had to use one of those times to foodshop and another to do something at home). Overall, I think I am doing at least 5,000 steps a day at least 5 days a week. We did a really long hike up Kennesaw Mountain one Sunday, and i had over 17,000 steps that day. I was tired! Bodyweight workouts are completely on hold, at least as concerns my upper body. I found out why I would wake up with my hands tingling in the middle of the night - carpal tunnel. Fortunately, it was not full blown yet, so it is improving a lot with exercises, stretches, chiropractor visits and such, but it does mean that I have to be careful not to stress my arms too much, and can't do a lot of typing/computer work, at least not beyond all the regular work I have to do. It is frustrating, but every time I try to push it AT ALL, I end up with discomfort. It is hard to stay off the computer, especially with trying to help Seventeen get video clips and such edited for his acting YouTube channel. I am trying to learn to use voice-to-text more, but I have a hard time writing that way. I seem to think differently when i write/type than when I talk. So, I am calling my challenge successful because the point was to move more, and I am. Not exactly what i was hoping, but definitely in the right direction! Maybe the next one will be about arm/hand rehab... I'll post an update when I post one. The description will probably be a lot shorter than my usual long-winded self.

Cool. Had no idea that existed. I might be able to drag the Hobbit out to a meetup. I know I have not been so successful in the past, so definitely do not plan around me.

Glad to hear that surgery went well and that the little one is making progress in recovery! It is impressive how you kept up with your challenge in the middle of all of that.

Love to see those back muscles (and you climbing)! Congrats on keeping up with your goals!

No reason to mess with what works, right? You have a lot of side goals - I will be interested to see you take up Icelandic again.

Thanks! We do have a sync/cloud backup system in place that I installed a few years back, but it doesn't automatically save emails (We use Outlook) unless I manually back up the file. Since most of our client communication is in the Outlook emails, not having them would have been a problem. I guess it makes sense that the file won't back up automatically, considering the Hobbit's outlook archive .pst is something like 5 GB. I think doing the ghost image backup is probably enough, especially with SugarSync running and backing up the email. It's more just the habit of actually doing it every month or so... If it were just me I would have switched a long time ago. The Hobbit is a bit more - let's say resistant - to technology change. He had a smartphone a full 2 years before I did, and still was trying to call me for directions to client events a few weeks after I first got my phone. @-@ All of our client proposals are created in MS Publisher. I have tried to get him to switch to Adobe InDesign or something similar, and he won't. So I think we are stuck with Windows. :/ You should feel awesome about that! All the computer science majors I knew in college always had to use linux, and I saw some of the stuff they did... Impressive! Thank you! It's getting there. A couple of days ago I FINALLY started feeling like I could start taking care of some backed-up work and did some website tweaks. The office helps training is coming slowly (we have over 40 different team building events to talk to potential clients about, and it takes some time to learn), but it is making noticeable progress. LOL!

Yeah, so, doing more moving went well for the rest of the challenge, but getting on NF to answer you all and keep up with everyone's threads, not so much. Going to try to get some responses done and a quick challenge recap up tonight and tomorrow. I have the basic step tracker in my phone and use Argus to interpret it. I know it is not 100% accurate, but it is enough for my purposes. Judging from what I have seen in your thread, I think you understand the feeling. And yes, that's exactly how I feel...

Glad to see that your challenge went well, in spite of all the stress you were under. Congrats on that award - it sounds like you definitely deserved it!

I have thought about switching to Linux for years. There are 2 reasons I have not done it yet: 1) Linux would cause us trouble with work, either because of not having filetypes that were easy to transfer back and forth with our clients or because of not being able to find all the software we need (the Hobbit HATES cloud applications); 2) Using Linux would be too complex for the Hobbit and possibly both kids to handle (I think my younger son would be fine, but not sure about the other family members). If I don't switch, I know I at least need to get a LOT better about doing recovery discs, etc. every month or so. Ugh.

Hugs for Lara..... I know a bit of what you were feeling (I have had at least 1 miscarriage). As one of those people who did not plan my kids arrivals (they were "pleasant surprises"), I greatly respect your decision to wait. My biggest regret is that I did not start healing my own emotional issues until a few years ago, and I know it had a big impact on my kids. I do think you still have a good chance at having children. I have had many childbirth students who are older and had very healthy pregnancies. My specialty is not fertility, but let me know if you want to discuss it in some depth. [emoji6] Using awesome technology to communicate from anywhere.

(Most of) Week 2 Bulk Update So it has been an on & off week. Some great things and some issues that meant I didn't move as much as I would like, but it is still an ok "start. Monday - Did a bit of light gardening, planting a few flowers, digging out some weeds in the herb garden patch, and planting some of the herbs. I would have done more, but I decided to go to game night after all (we moved it away from our house). I'm glad I did because we had a GREAT time. Tuesday Not much... Wednesday Woke up over 30 minutes earlier than usual to pack up food for the Hobbit while he went to an event. Decided to do a real bodyweight workout instead of going back to sleep. I say real BW workout, because I had really only done tiny ones since about August last year - a few pullups this day, a single set of pushups another day. This was a full 3 sets of each exercise. Yay! I am happy that I did not lose quite as much arm strength as I had feared. I can kind of do a single pullup from standing on our doorway pullup bar. I had gotten to where I was doing 2-3 of each grip (chinup, neutral pullup, wide grip aided pullups) in rotation. I am also only able to do sets of 5 regular pushups right now before exhaustion. I had gotten to doing sets of 5 pushups with about and 18 inch decline. Squats are pretty bad now, but they were always inconsistent with me. So not as far back as I started NF originally, and more strength than I though I had maintained. THEN, after the kids left for school I went to get the mail and had to clean up the garbage some animal got into. After that, I decided to take 30 minutes and plant a few more herbs before showering and getting ready for our office help to come. Did I mention that? We are trying to train up one of our staff to take over a bunch of the customer service responsibilities from me so I am not so backed up (I *literally* did not take a weekend off from the second week of January through late March) and so I can start working on my healthy pregnancy business. more. It can't happen fast enough for me. Thursday Did some stretching and not much else. I know the workout from Wednesday was a good one, because DOMS. The day was very full, though. I spent a couple hours in the morning trying to fix the Windows 10 hijack that happened to the Hobbit's computer. He went into his office Wednesday and his computer screen said, "Welcome to Windows 10!" He did not approve or request the upgrade, and the only way out was to decline the Terms and Conditions. The computer said it was reinstalling Windows 7, but then would not reboot. I had left it alone on Wednesday because he was out of the office and I was busy, but I had to try to fix it Thursday. Tried everything I could find reference to and had the skill for (recovery discs, reboots, windows repair). No luck. Sent him to bring it to the local computer shop instead. We are VERY unhappy with Microsoft right now. Friday Not a thing, unless you count cleaning. I spent a few hours helping the Hobbit prep for our 2 big events happening that night (Game Show and "A Tasting Race"), and let him use my computer for much of the printing since his was still in the shop. Computer was ready in the late afternoon, so I picked it up. They had to transfer all of his files and do a clean install of Windows 7. They said they see this a lot from the forced Windows 10 upgrade. Spent time after dinner scrubbing mildew out of the guest bathroom because my kids didn't turn the fan on enough and my mom and stepdad were coming Saturday to sleep in that room. So I got an arm workout. Didn't do much else, though, because I was trashed. Had woken up at 3:45 with my hand asleep, and no matter what position I tried, it kept falling asleep again within 30 seconds. And today (Saturday) Finished scrubbing the bathroom and did some other cleaning. Also stood up for about 2 hours at the afterparty fro my son's Film class "graduation" screening. Mom and Stepdad arrived in the morning, and went to the screening with us. I might go do a bit of yoga now for 5-10 minutes, but that would be about it. So, not a great week (so far - I have 1 more day to fit a bit more in), but not horrible, either. For a laugh: Here is a funny song expressing my feelings about Microsoft this week:

Well, *some* of the herbs are planted, though I can't say how good the dirt is. FWIW, I also have some plants that I obtained previously that are not yet planted. I think the oldest is 4 years... One spent those years living in a plastic garbage bag because it is a native plant I collected locally from a construction site. Thanks! The front is looking pretty good (except the herb garden). The back has to be a project for another time, though. It can be an overwhelming project. I love planning and starting to plant, then partway through the process I lose steam, or life gets in the way again. Ah well... Maybe you can start with just planting 1 thing?

Interesting. I guess they use slightly different muscles?

Ok, so who is going to set up our Melting Cartwheels accountabilibuddy group? I'm in, Lol [emoji13] [emoji1]

Sorry to hear that things are rough right now. Relationships are hard. :/ I hope you can re-invent your life in a way that works well for you (and that minimal reinventing is required). Using awesome technology to communicate from anywhere.

That looks uber-delicious! Awesome job on the sub-1 hour 10k!

I am glad to see you, too! I think I needed NF to remind me that progress is not linear - ups and downs are all part of the process. This, too, can be used well. Thank you!!! I am not looking forward to the soreness and such, but I am looking forward to feeling strong and confident again. Thank you! Weekend was good enough - I have teenagers, so that always ends up shaping the weekend a bunch. Hi Waanie! I missed you, too. We do still have the giant beanbags. I think I need to try a few handstands tomorrow. I am so glad you all stopped by! I am feeling so very loved right now. Friday - Not much of anything. I had a short, bad night of sleep on Thursday, and a lot of stress at work, so I didn't end up doing much except a few minutes of stretching. Saturday - Did some half-hearted digging. I thought we were going to leave the "herb garden" until next year, but I got a surprise late birthday/Mother's Day present of a spending budget to get some herb plants. I was not quite in the mood for being a human roto-tiller again, though, so I did not clear as many weed areas as I could have. So, my plants are still sitting on the wall instead of planted. I also made cake so we could celebrate oldest's 17th birthday, and Fifteen went to help at a charity car wash all day and got a horrible sunburn. Sunday - Today was weird emotionally. Once I did some jouralling and got back to more stability, I helped Fifteen with making a plaster mask (well, gave instruction. He doesn't like much "help"), and the Hobbit and I went for a walk at a big creek. It was an easy walk, but we were moving so it counts. Week 1 Goal Recap: MOVE! - YES! Got out to walk 3 times. Strength - Nope. Did not do any bodyweight at all, though did do a bit of digging which helps a bit. Stretch - YES! Did at least a few minutes of stretching a few times this week.

YAAAAAAAAY, Waanie, you're back! We are restarting challenges at the same time - how cool is that? I am glad to see that you are still climbing, and that your skill has improved so much!

I think my brain is just wired differently than I thought a the time - I am much more of a science-head. I was in college with tons of people and ensembles (sometimes 5 in a semester!) when I decided performance wasn't for me. I LOVE teaching health and pregnancy topics, and I LOVE the research side of it, and LOVE writing about it. With music, I felt like I LOVED performing, but endured practicing. Not exactly the best if you want a job, LOL. It all worked out. I am VERY happy that you have such a wonderful experience with music. I still very much enjoy music, just not performing at this point in time. You are inspiring me to get back to some of the gymnastics again.

I think I started with super-basic stuff like forward and backward rolls. I also did some round-offs, and Elastigirl and I did "melting cartwheels" until we were able to get up straighter. I also like some of the gymnastics "poses" like candlestick/shoulder stand (the "result" of a back extension). So much of it overlaps with parts of yoga and parkour that I am honestly not always clear which is which. But I am not picky so that is ok.

Starpuck, I am seriously loving your "freeing" goal posts. And definite kudos for finishing your workout when you were feeling run down!

Maybe I shouldn't add this, but here is a cake I made for my son's birthday yesterday: Gluten-free, color free (that's why it is pink - I was trying for red but the natural food color didn't do red...), homemade icing - and that is why cake is one of the few things I eat even though it is far from paleo. i say I am "mostly paleo." I am virtually sending you a piece. Virtual cake is great. You can have all you want, and never gain weight.

OMG, yes - I went to 1 lesson with a Russian teacher when I was 9 and quit violin that very day. That kind of "motivation" just isn't. I love gymnastics - I do some of the basic stuff at home (well, used to and will be doing so again soon). Maybe I should look into a class, too... You do have such a great attitude about this!

Oh, wow. Glad you like acrobatics, but RUN AWAY from that class. It would not surprise me at all if this guy gets people injured on a regular basis. NOT OK. I hope your back pain is just DOMS from so much sudden work. I'll try to make a long story short - I realized at the end of my junior year as a French horn performance major in college that I did not want to perform. I didn't like spending hours every day alone in a practice room. I realized what I had really liked about music was the community of people. So I applied to graduate school for Musicology (for those non-musicians who are actually reading this, it is the study of music history and theory) and intended to study early instrumental music. Before the end of my first year, I realized that this was not suited to me either, as I did not feel like I was impacting anyone's life (something very important to me) and even the undergraduate music majors I was working with through my assistantship didn't care to learn music history. they acted like it was a waste of their time. So I finished the year and quit. I kept my horn for a few years, but really didn't play it after leaving college. I ended up needing to sell it a few years later (I think about 14 years ago now) for rent money. So now I have a BMus in French horn performance and 1 year of graduate school in Musicology that I have never used. Instead, I do a myriad of tasks for my husband's team building business (don't even get me started on the list), and learn everything I can about natural health and nutrition in hopes of someday being able to get back to teaching pregnant women and parents.

So glad they found the underlying problem! Hope you feel better tomorrow and have fun with acrobatics. Using awesome technology to communicate from anywhere.