NightWatcher13

Thanks, it was a crappy year - at least he's not in pain and confused anymore though - it was a rough, slow walk for him :(

Hey all, so we all know last year was a doozy for basically everyone. When it started to seem like it calmed down a bit in late spring / early summer, I finally decided to step in the ring with 2020 and try to prioritize my mental and physical health. And 2020 knocked me flat on my ass. My family knew early in the year that dad was dying, but then when his decline came in October / November it was still slow and agonizing. He passed the week before Thanksgiving, then work took back my life until the week before Christmas when we had his funeral, and those of us who could do so safely had our family Christmas with Mom. So now, after a somewhat rough start to 2021 - I'm stepping back into the ring, with some added accountability, and some restructured priorities: Alter Titan - the beta is closed to new players till April for the moment, but much like here the community is super supportive (and they got me to wear a health tracker for HR purposes, which also tracks my sleep - holy smokes is that sucker helpful!!) Even if it means I have to work later, I'm doing yoga before going to work - the short and long term benefits just outweigh the cost of maybe working a bit later (hopefully eventually getting up earlier, but I'm still fighting to get my sleep schedule under control) Actively tracking what's going on with my exercise, sleep and food - which I have added a new IG account for to aid with accountability on there. I can't get on Nerd Fitness very well from my phone (Tapatalk hates my guts apparently) and while I see there's a new Discord (YES!!!) there's no way to keep up tracking on there, but I can keep up with an IG account from anywhere, and update here without the guilt I would feel from not having posted in a week + of not getting on a non-work computer. Fitbit - I just got this thing 3 days ago, and holy smokes is it pushy - but in the best way possible, since it's prodding based off of what past me asked it for, and it's very good at holding me accountable / reminding me that hey, that thing you forgot to do earlier? Please do it now. So long story short - I'm going to try to pop back in here for challenges starting with the next one that I'm guessing will be starting on Feb 14th (couldn't find the calendar for this year in the forums) and happy belated new year, everyone! Hopefully 2021 is much less chaotic in general than 2020 was.

Overall challenge check in: SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is. 15/20 points SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 11/15 points SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 17/25 LQ - Keep working on Japanese 25/25

Thanks, the second half of this challenge went a bit bonkers on me time-wise but was not terrible to keep up with in and of itself. I feel like I did a lot better until the end on my work schedule, and was more consistent with the food prep and VR workouts I'm pretty happy with it

Week 5 check in： SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is. 2/4 points ^^ that's about what I've looked like at work for the past couple of weeks. Oops. SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 2/3 points I got on Tuesday and Friday last week SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 4/5 I *think* I had four packed lunches last week, my trackers switched in September and I didn't make a new one for packing lunches. LQ - Keep working on Japanese 5/5

Week 4 check in： SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is.　3*/4 points I actually took vacation for Thursday and Friday of this week; of the days I worked I only got off on time for one. SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 2/3 points SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 2*/5 I packed for Monday and Tuesday, didn't pack Wednesday LQ - Keep working on Japanese 5/5 I think this was the week I fell off my WaniKani wagon for a bit, I'll work on picking that back up here a bit - Duo was easier to keep up with during some of the chaos just due to having a mobile app that pokes me with a stick.

It actually went pretty well, I had a bit of a time getting on here though 😅 Week 3 check in： SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is.　4/4 points Woot! (This one got worse later on though) SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 3/3 points I actually got on the VR 4 times this week, which may have had something to do with the Linkin Park music pack on Beat Saber. SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 4/5 I didn't pack for Friday, since I was planning to get out of work a bit early that day, but otherwise had lunch packed. LQ - Keep working on Japanese 5/5 I've kept up ok with Duo pretty ok.

I totally got the new song pack soon as I got home from work when it dropped 😅 They picked some dang good songs, not that you can go wrong with Linkin Park. 10 days of vacation will do that to you, but hopefully it gave you a good break and some time to relax. Yoga is... challenging but rewarding, but for me very hard to keep in a routine for some reason. How is it almost Friday already?!?! This week has gone by insanely fast. So far it's been pretty good, but busy. There are still some stressors that pop up at work here and there, but nothing like it was a bit ago and I think most of the ones under my skin can be talked through next week (there's an audit going on right now so bringing up the issues to my manager this week, while it might give me some relief, would not be fair). So far so good on the challenge front as well; I've gotten 3 VR sessions in this week with some variety in the workouts, keeping up pretty well with Duo even if I'm taking WaniKani a bit slow (level 2 on there feels like drinking from a firehose with the different readings of kanji already), and have managed to pack ahead all week. Today is the only day so far I've gone over 9 hours this week, and I have Star Wars tomorrow night since we're switching our game back tor Fridays this week - meaning I have a hard stop on my shift tomorrow.

I may hunt around for some variety on Youtube, but I'm definitely going to need to do some mobility / restrengthening work, especially in my hips and shoulders apparently. Today and yesterday were pretty good - after the yoga I got some dishes and cleaning done, caught up laundry etc - then had our Star Wars game last night that we'd all been really anxious about (escaping the Geonosian palace where we were "guests", having a massive chase from speeder bikes and a ruthless merc, then my character had the surgery to remove the bomb implanted in her as a baby due to her enslavement that another merc had gotten his hands on the controller for and was holding over our heads... It was an epic, ridiculous and fun session) I completely forgot that I'd turned my alarm off, so I didn't even wake up till 10 and got into work later than I wanted - but got a lot done and was able to get out of there within my 9 hour limit, then downloaded the new song pack for Beat Saber 'cause it's Linkin freaking Park, did that and a 15 minute BoxVR session. Overall a much more positive start to this week than the last several

Hope you're having a good trip / return to home life!

What did your manager say? Because telling her to go to her manager (who likely SHOULD be the person helping her figure it out) rather than you sounds like the proper approach when you don't have the time to spare to fix her mistakes for her, or teach her yourself - which likely falls outside of your job description.

I don't even want to know how many times I've said that about stuff this year... but babysitting teachers by telling them they need to be in the classroom when no one else is is definitely a few more levels of "what the heck?!"

Aw maaaan I haven't done any of the virtual races yet, but that's still really annoying.

Welcome back!

I'm soooo awful at DDR but it's a lot of fun, and definitely a good workout (one of my friends in college lost over 100 lbs with that as his exercise). And yay for good rides with Daisy, the heat can definitely throw the rhythm off for a canter... or ya know, really anything.

Good, you should be proud - doing emotional work on yourself is a lot of very hard, but often hard to see work. Yay! Also, performative eating sounds extremely unpleasant and awkward edited to add: Echoing all the hugs in here, you're dealing with a L O T

Also, I tried a guided yoga this morning from Audible (you can get some stuff like that with your subscription, so figured I'd try it out) and holy SMOKES I am stiff as heck. I still have a few issues I had from last time I did some yoga - left shoulder can't hold downward dog pose very long, can't sit on my feet for very long before something falls asleep - but I was not this stiiiiiff and I hate it. I did cut the session basically in half 'cause I hit a point where my shoulder was just done, but overall the stretching felt really good. I may rewind and restart this one a few times this week, or try a handful of the next ones in the series, haven't decided yet.

Definitely better than a lot of turn-around times! I'm glad you got your test back and it was negative

NIghtWatcher ran forward into the fray again, tired. She managed to dodge past the first few hollows, before feeling a sudden pain in her spine, collapsing, and opening her eyes back at the bonfire. Dammit. Seems she'd missed one... Week 2 check in： SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is.　3/4 points Work was crazy as hell this week, especially at the beginning of the week (someone I was supposed to train kept getting rescheduled on me) but I did manage to pull myself back from it a bit towards the end of the week. I'm getting frustrated with myself in the lab though, I keep missing or forgetting things I shouldn't and it's infuriating SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 2/3 points I got on the VR Thursday and Friday, I didn't do as much Friday as thursday but did get a few minutes of fun physical activity in. SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 2/5 I had food I had prepped over the weekend I was able to throw in the bag Sunday and Monday nights, but after that I didn't get food packed really - Friday (thursday night) was intentional though, since I had gotten overtime in the beginning of the week I was planning to leave earlier that day to make up for it. LQ - Keep working on Japanese 5/5 I did pretty ok keeping up with Duo (and WaniKani) this week, I did miss Sunday but met my goal and feel like I'm actually starting to get somewhere with it right now

oooooh man those look really good

I second @fitnessgurl, there's got to be a serious disconnect between that manager and what's going on in the organization. She isn't realizing that there's too much going on for you all to keep up with. Yay for new book! I may have to check out Brandon Sanderson's youtube channel, I didn't know he did writing workshops on there

I did make some noodles & beef yesterday in the instant pot (and cheated a bit and used red wine to substitute for one of the 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup) - nom

Week 1 check in： SQ1 - Back to Firelink - Home is where the... well, everything is.　3/4 points I did better at this than I have for quite a while - but it was definitely what I struggled the most with. SQ2 - Into the painting - virtual is still reality 2/3 points I got on the VR Tuesday and Thursday last week, with some decent time on both Beat Saber and BoxVR - but didn't get on a third time. SQ3 - Refill your estus flask 5/5 I did get food prepped and packed the night before every week last week - which while not perfect as far as what I packed was way better than quick food LQ - Keep working on Japanese 5/5 Actually got Duo in every day this week, plus started WaniKani which definitely seems like it's helping So overall, I'd say last week went pretty well. Not perfect, but good.

That is always simultaneously frustrating and gratifying... "I'm glad you think I'm this smart, but can you please not think I'm this smart?" is a really weird feeling.

Quick check in for tonight : - Managed to get out of work on time, - Played some Beat Saber then added a 15ish minute BoxVR class on top of that. - Lunch is packed for tomorrow (That's 5/5 on that for the week! woot) - Did Duo, and so far I'm liking WaniKani too - thanks @Rookie for suggesting that one I need to figure out what I want to make for dinners next week... I'm thinking maybe Noodles and Beef