Ornata

Today is Picture Day for me. Visually speaking, I look like I'm losing body fat. November is my best month so far, looking quite a bit different from my worst photographed month (September). I ramble more about this in my 6-Week Challenge here. I also have my calipers now, which means I can bust a new quest out from my List of Dreams: my body fat quest, now in the Fitness category. In this quest, I'd like to reach 22% body fat according to my calipers. My starting percentage is 28.4%. To reduce body fat, I'm going to progressively improve my diet in different ways. This quest is pretty low-maintenance compared to others on my list; it's something I'm going to work on in my 6-Week Challenges and actually tabulate once a month, on the 26th as usual. I hope I can continue to improve!

Bwahahaha! Oh goodness that's so true, isn't it [11/26] Health: 55 / 100 In real life I'm starting to feel a bit beaten back -- not quite as much as my character in this challenge, at least. After fighting off a cold unusually quickly, I find myself dealing with a cough the likes of which I've never really experienced before. I have fits of the cough-up-your-lungs variety and can barely sleep because of the worsening breathing issues it's been giving me. I'm not sure if this is just some manifestation of my illness or me responding especially poorly to the terrible winter air quality we have in the valley where I live. This is combined with all the little bangs and things I get in my day-to-day life of constantly injuring myself (e.g. yesterday I slipped on the black ice and took a bad fall that scraped my hand bloody and left a nice big bruise on the side of my ass). In a way, the constant mild injuries frustrate me more because I'm starting to feel like my chronic clumsiness is inconsolable. Is it possible to become less clumsy, i.e. through balance practice and some way to develop more spatial awareness? I really hate that aspect of myself. But! I did work out yesterday! It wasn't a particularly -good- workout, but it was a workout. And I have another bit of good news. On the 26th of every month I take a photo of myself. This month I see clear reductions in my body fat compared to previous months. To provide context, this is the first month that I've been conscious of what I eat and how much I eat. I haven't significantly changed my diet yet, but I have toned down how much I eat. Of the 4 months I've taken pictures so far, my November picture looks the best -- narrowly beating out my August picture. (In August I was living out of hotels, eating way too few calories in the form of microwaveable dinners and peanut butter sandwiches, so this month I was definitely eating healthier). I don't have a scale, but I did get bodyfat calipers this month and, after many many trials just to make sure, am reasonably sure that my bodyfat percentage is hanging out at about 28-30% (28.4% to be exact, but I have trouble believing that). I have no frame of comparison for that number but maybe on December 26 I'll see how much that percentage changes. The qualitative visual improvements I saw in today's picture have been really heartening for me and are a great motivator for me to continue what I'm already doing and even try to improve my dietary habits steadily. Long, rambling post. Sorry.

[11/24] Health: 55 / 100 S-so c-cc-cold... I got sick and only managed 2 out of the 3 sessions I needed in order to satisfy my third necessity (outdoor stamina-building activities). This isn't going to happen again, though, I hope. (-25 Health). I went on a long but easy hike today, so I've got 1 out of 3 so far. On Saturday I improved my grip strength by holding onto objects that were slightly challenging for me. (+10 Health). I'm also very close to fulfilling my Life Quest. My novel for NaNoWriMo is at 43K words out of 50K. So close! At almost half health, things are going downhill. I'm letting the season, the conditions and my own laziness get to me. Feeling overwhelmed by all my real life commitments, I've also slacked off on posting in my challenge, Accountabilibuddies and in people's challenge topics. This needs to stop! I'm adding new options to my list of ways to restore health: - Spend an hour (total, not in one sitting) encouraging people in the forum - Spend 30 minutes working on articles for a project I'm involved with. Intentionally a bit easy so it motivates me to actually get off my butt and start the work, which is the hardest for me. After a rocky Week 2, I'll hopefully be able to do much better on the remaining 4 weeks of the challenge.

Oh goodness I haven't posted here in forever and I haven't posted in anyone else's challenges and I have a million projects I'm trying to juggle at once and-- *deep breath* Health: 70 / 100 I lost health from a snack I ate (a late-night sandwich) a few days ago, can't remember which exactly. I did the Angry Birds Workout and went on a hike both on Sunday, putting me at 3 stamina-boosting activities for Week 1. Toning down my snack quest has made me much more sensible. I also changed my workout routine back to how I did in my first challenge (a full routine every other day, rather than the 2-day split I've been trying to pull off for the past 2 weeks). I started an epic quest, too. I fixed the problem in my NaNoWriMo that made every day of writing a drag. I'm at 35,000 words exactly. My goal is to write 5,000 words a day on days I don't work until I'm done with that unholy thing for good. Sorry for the scatterbrained post, but man am I frazzled! Hopefully all my different projects calm down soon, or one of them gets done or something! My email inbox is going to explode, I've never been this popular before in my life ROFL

Performed 10 consecutive push-ups with good form today. +20% experience. Last time I was able to do that was probably my freshman year of college. Nice. I also shelved my Wyoming National Parks Quest and put it in my List of Dreams for now. It conflicts with my much more important Student Debt quest -- I can't in good faith dump a bunch of money into a road trip when I'm still this heavily in debt.

Yesterday I managed 9 consecutive push-ups with good form. So close! Once I knock out that last good push-up, the next quest in the Push-Up chain will be: Perform 3 sets of 10 push-ups with good form. Still struggling with inverted rows, though.

I took a new opportunity! Hung out with a biologist all day, helping him perform a waterbird/raptor survey of a huge wetland area. Learned a ton and even got volunteer hours out of it! Added a new Completed Quest: Do a real bird survey. +20% experience.

Hello, I'm Ornata. In order to avoid getting overwhelmed by my own life goals, I'm going to divide my Life Quest into two sections: things I'm actively working toward and planning right now, and things I'm just dreaming about at the moment but hope to be able to work toward in the future. The list of dreams is perpetually incomplete. Note: I'm prone to taking unanticipated opportunities. These opportunities might not have been included in this list, but I'll still get credit from them because they're really beneficial. My active Epic Quests are for things I'm deliberately pursuing. Ornata's Level: 4 (40% to next level) Each quest or opportunity is worth 20% experience. Master Quests are worth 100% experience. Some of them may not seem like much, but they're things I've been dreaming about doing for a very long time. "Master Opportunities" are also possible, but I've never come across one yet. Completed Quests (in reverse chronological order): Fitness Body Fat Percentage Quest Reach 22% body fat according to my calipers. (Current: 28.4%) Every 26th of the month, I take a picture of myself to visually assess my body fat percentage. Starting in November, I also have calipers to estimate my percentage. I would like to have visible muscles and a considerable reduction in the fat on my thighs. To accomplish this goal, I need to steadily improve my diet. Right now I'm working on reducing how much I eat -- improving what I eat will come later. Push-Up Quest This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage: Perform 3 sets of 10 push-ups with good form. I can currently perform 10, 5, 5 pushups. Pull-Up Quest This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage: Perform 10 consecutive inverted rows (legs straight) with good form. I can currently perform about 6 consecutive inverted rows with good form. Pistol Squat Quest This is a quest chain. Currently working on the following stage: Perform 10 consecutive assisted one-legged squats with good form. I can currently perform about 7 consecutive assisted one-legged squats with good form. Career and Finances Student Debt Quest My student debt is not as bad as some, but it's a major worry of mine. I want to demolish it in a fraction of the time it would normally take to repay (10 years). As Mr. Money Mustache says, this debt is an emergency worth my full attention! I am going to attack my debt in two questlines: Pay off $4,500 student loan in 2 years or less. (MASTER OPTION: Pay it off before it goes into repayment on Feb 7, 2015!)MASTER QUEST: Pay off $25,000 student loan in 5 years or less. (I have just begun repayment for this loan). Skills Drawing Quest I'm hellbent on learning how to draw people and everything that entails: draping fabric for clothing, movement, facial expressions, hair, the whole thing. I'll know when I've accomplished this goal when I can create a variety of drawings of people with minimal use of reference images. To accomplish this goal, I've been putting in deliberate practice for 10-30 minutes every day. Novel Quest Write a freaking novel all the way from Chapter 1 to The End. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be complete. To accomplish this goal, I've been participating actively in National Novel Writing Month. As of this writing, I'm about 3/5ths of the way done with my novel and it's part of my current 6-Week Challenge. List of Dreams These are Epic Quest goals I would like to accomplish at some point in my life, but I'm not actively planning how to pull them off. Yet. Constantly WIP and listed in no particular order. The list:

This challenge is making me question why I write what I write. Because I'm starting to realize that, for some reason, I chose to write a novel that only barely touches on the things I truly love to write about. 0_o I'm not sure if I can change that so far in, but I'll try. Also, I'm behind at 27,717 words. Gonna do some sprints tonight with the hope of reaching 30k. Possibly changing the entire third act and ending of the novel in order to make me more invested in it again, I don't know.

Kind of a quick update today since I've been busy. I'll give a more complete rundown of my progress either tomorrow or Tuesday. I think my attempts to eliminate an unhealthy habit (snacking) are causing me to start going down the road of an equally unhealthy habit. I've noticed I'm eating more and more during mealtimes, which was okay at first because it made me fuller for longer, but now it's getting a little out of hand. I find myself eating way more than I probably should during meals just so I feel like I can "make it" to the next meal. It's completely defeating the purpose of the quest in the first place, which was to get me in the habit of eating in moderation. This is starting to worry me enough that I'm going to tone down my second quest quite a bit. If I feel hungry between meals, I shouldn't be losing health because I'm eating a carrot or something. That's insane. So from now on I'll only lose health for snacking if the snack is unhealthy (candy), excessive (sandwich), or consumed when I'm not truly hungry (I get cravings when I'm bored). Hopefully this will be more fair to me and won't make me go neurotic, haha!

Perhaps it's just burnout, but I've been having this strange problem. Basically, I get really excited near the end of a scene because I'm excited about writing the next scene. Then when I'm actually writing that new scene, I lose interest and wonder why I was even eager to write it in the first place. Could anyone spare some advice to help me with this? Will I feel better if I just take a break for a day or two?

[11/14/2014] Snow yesterday. Freezing rain today. I'm going to need to build up my tolerance to the cold quicker than I anticipated. Every time I put on the running clothes I looted from this abandoned house, I get so close to fulfilling my third necessity. But it just doesn't happen. I don't know if my inaction is because of fear, distractions or plain laziness. Fear could be it. Yesterday I went out to gather supplies, carrying my trusty CutLass knife for protection. Then I heard it: the distinct hiss those angry spiders from Don't Starve make when you get too close! I had accidentally stumbled into a whole group of them in the process of converting a section of alpine forest into webbing! It took 3x5 push-ups, 3x6 inverted rows and 3x6 decline pike push-ups to stave off attacks from those (admittedly kinda cute) little buggers. Luckily I didn't skimp on my upper-body workouts this week, or else I might not have been able to escape relatively unscathed. However, I need to be prepared for anything. It's very likely this island is full of even bigger and meaner monsters I'll need to defend myself from. As far as food goes, I've been doing well! I resisted the urge to eat some mysterious berries between lunch and dinner, despite being cranky like no other. My body is getting more accustomed to the idea that maybe it doesn't need to eat something every couple hours. Boy is it tempting sometimes, though. (Thanks for the responses about my Epic Quest question! I think I will make one sometime. I haven't eaten a single snack since I last updated. Hurrah! It's been really tough, but I think I'm finally starting to get used to it. Still doing fine on NaNoWriMo. I'm at about 26k words, which is ahead of schedule.)

Hi viki, sorry I haven't poked my head in to your challenge yet! Love your quests. I'm especially interested in seeing how you're progressing on your push-up quest. I'm also working on improving my push-ups. It took me a really long time to get to the point you're at now; major props to you! You're going to crush this challenge.

Excellent work so far, BattleKat! Sorry I haven't yet popped by to give my CutLass crewmate some encouragement -- I've subbed in hopes of making it up to you. And I just want to say: dude, bellydancing is awesome. So cool that you're practicing 5 days a week! I've only dabbled in it, enough to have major respect for people with that kind of control over their movements. Keep up the great job.