lucky fire dragon

mmmmh, that sounds like perfect summer to me It does, doesn't it? Now that I've done it though, it doesn't seem so big at all anymore and the 24h are way less scary Yip That's the idea. In fact it's the main reason I picked up my French courses there I love experimenting and I find that curiosity helps me in so many ways tackle things with more ease and health. Funny enough the chocolate and cookies I made took a while before I even had any Yesterday I dug into some cookies, they were quite nice - the rest is in the deep freeze for now. Hubby tried the chocolate and actually liked it! I was very surprised, because he normally likes his chocolate way sweeter than I make it. He said we mustn't let the kids try for fear they would eat it all up I am not worried. Am just secretly wondering if I am retraining his taste slowly over time... first the mattress green light and now this. Wonders never cease. Talking about the mattress WE DID IT!! Finally, it's on the floor and we slept now 2 nights on it, finding it indeed much better for our backs and slept well. Hubby says it feels a little like camping, lying so low down in the room and it is really weird still, but in a bad way at all. Thanks! It was very rewarding too. Had a full kg less the next morning and I thought, it's probably mostly water and will be back on quickly but so far I am staying at the lower weight. Am very surprised and not complaining Renewed my spirits very much. True! That is a huge freedom. I don't have that altogether just yet, as I cook for the family and have to make sure the kids get their breakfast in and have their snack packed for school, but even so I have more time and freedom already. Also it feels really liberating to be independent of something that you always thought you can't do without. I like that part too. Kind of like when you learn to hold your breath for some time and reach a point where you feel clear and light and totally at peace without breathing. Which always amazed me so much, that of course after those moments I suddenly felt the urge to breathe again do you know what I mean? Similar here. At times it's totally nice and then when I think, now I've got it, I find myself planning the next meals instead which is fine as well. I really like the concept of fasting and feasting Thanks, I am really chuffed and it completely resparked my motivation Well life came towards me and brought on a cold that pretty much killed my appetite soooooooo I went for 20 hours into yesterday, having skipped supper the night before without aiming to. Then I had a late breakfast plus lunch yesterday and am now aiming for lasting until lunch again to have the 24 hours as planned. Lunch to lunch might be easiest for me as that is our main family meal and I can fill up properly plus eat with my dear ones. On weekends it sometimes switches to dinner, so I might do it different there. With the 16:8 I learned to feel good without food during the morning and that helps me now. However I don't want to fix the meal times when I do eat to much alike, not that come lunch I will automatically be hungry, just because of the time. Variety in schedule might be my friend here, we'll see. How long have you been doing the 16:8 now? How do you like it?

Yay for delicious holidays sounds like a perfect one and just at the right time, too

That makes total sense. Thank you

Hmmm, why do our points in the top corner lower when I switch to the TIE Advanced? @Anim07734 I thought it would up the points rather or did I misunderstand something there?

I for one am glad it's not snakes and don't mind veggies. For instance butternut with melted camembert cheese is one of my favorite quick meals for instance. Also adding grated carrots, some paprica and corn to left over pasta or the like is enjoyed by all of us. So yay for an easy upgrade

Sorry, I only discovered this thread now and also I did not contribute that much this week as I mixed up push and pull holds took extra care to record my wall handstand hold and did a wheel hold as well, just for this but now I see it's PULL hold of course, and I didn't do those. Oh well Will give it more effort next week!

OMG I can sooooo relate to that!! It was the reason all of my penpal friendships fell away sooner or later and email has not improved that either. I am much better at it then I used to but I must so watch for the gap not to grow too big for then I end up in exactly that place again. It's horrible. And knowing how unproductive it is, doesn't help at all either. Kudos for you to tackle that. Am sure it will be very rewarding in many ways and people will be so happy to hear from you no matter how long the gap has been Your garden looks brilliant! I want one, too, now! Woot woot on the squat win what a great moment to realize this! Sorry for the ignorant question, but what are soju and tuba? In German Tuba is the name for a musical instrument that looks like a huge trumpet, but I guess that is not what you are talking about here wouldn't put it beyond you though, with such a well rounded challenge of workouts, gardening and knitting Also yay for IF!! I have just started on that recently and am so happy to hear from others how they are doing. How long have you been at it? How do you like it?

Also: I DID IT!!! Had my first 36 hour fast this weekend and surprise, surprise it did not kill me In fact, it didn't even strain me much, I was really surprised. Had a good workout yesterday morning and I don't necessarily feel hungry after those anyway. Had some herbal tea, but apart from that just water for the rest of the day, knowing that if I could last until 8pm I would have the 24 hours in. Then again it would be silly to break the fast at that time, because it would be so easy to go sleep early and have the additional hours in and tadaaa, I did it Even cooked a nice pot roast meal for the family during the fast - making sure there'd be enough left overs for me today - and made my chocolate as well! The hardest thing was not to automatically lick my fingers or nibble some crumbs while cooking, which I am so used to doing. (fyi I do wash my hands after licking my fingers, yes) Apart from that it was fine! This morning I woke up quite early and felt my empty stomach, but not in a bad way, just ... idk different. I got up at 5 am for my meditation (hmmmm, weekend) and did the Blessing of the Energy Centers one to give my body extra love, afterwards had my group meditation and then I had a true feast in choosing what to have for break-fast at 8 am Ended up with 3 baked bananas with some coconut oil and peanut butter, along with some dark bread and tea. Yummmmmmy So I will totally count that for my suck it up action for the day as it did take some willpower and totally freed me up from some fears around the whole thing. My fun thing for today was reading a tiny bit of Petit Nicolas to see how my French lessons on Memrise are paying off. The vocab was way beyond my current course vocab, but I understood a lot anyhow and I adore Petit Nicolas. It was the story about taking a picture of the class at school and how they fetched boxes from the basement to stand on for forming 3 rows and while searching the basement one of the boys finds a bag, pulls it over his head to act ghost and is of course completely black afterwards because it was a coal bag (I guessed the coal, but understood the bag and the black face) and so on... Youngest is doing her English and Latin vocab with some ambition now to stay ahead of me in points on Memrise, double win

Me too Made the chocolate and some "monster cookie balls" with oats and peanut butter and they are both really nice I was a clever hobbit and added some gingerbread spice to the chocolate to have the treat of the flavor in a power food combo You like baking as well, don't you? Any recommendations for healthy, yummy things? I got over the fasting crisis by now and treated myself to a new book for inspiration and easier motivation that is called "Feast without Fear" encouraging to first fast and then feast with whatever your heart desires with a good conscience. That sounds like a deal to me Still, she also says, your body might want different things than before which matches my experience and I suspect that my dietary horizon needs some broadening for me to have diverse enough ideas for what I could want to eat - does make any sense?

Will do then I did do the 12 reps in the end, it just felt a little too straining on the elbows somehow (?), but then maybe I only do like 8 or 9 in the second set and work my way up. I know generally it would probably make more sense to up the weight and do less reps. Just want to make sure I am familiar enough with the move itself before I do that. But it's actually not that hard and as I can tell when my back is straight, I should probably be fine to go a bit heavier. Maybe I should switch to 3 sets of 5 reps instead of 2 sets of 12... so inexperienced at these things. It was too funny, when I started playing with the weight training section I said to hubby in the car: "Maybe I should head over to the warrior guild for a visit. Ah, but then we do have assassins who lift weights as well..." and his facial expression was so funny only then did I realize how this sentence must sound to a NF muggle Awww, you're so sweet Thanks! Hope so too It actually got way better on the weekend already. Wanted to suck it up and take my boy's bike to the repair shop yesterday, because of the saddle not fitting properly and we thought it's because it was originally on a different bike. It always tilted askew and we simply could not fix it. Had taken it apart and as I assembled it to take it with the bike to the shop, suddenly it was perfectly straight and seems to work fine now That was very cool! Also having home made chocolate and tea makes up for a loooooot of things

All the WINS indeed! You're on a roll now, hey So awesome to read all that

Big YAY on waking up happy and healthy Ooof, your energy levels sound really used up and I totally get it with such a big question hanging over your head, while having to constantly see negativity while doing your best to stay up. It's so exhausting! The Mom retreat sounds wonderful, I really really hope it works out and you have a beautiful time there! Also New Zealand always looks like a magical place and I think a lot of South Africans have already taken that route, haven't they? That and Australia, but New Zealand sounds way better to me. Less poisonous wildlife and then of course, there is Hobbinton

Agreeing with the others, do let them know, just in case. Also very happy to read a few words besides those daily updates from you, just to get a bit more feel for how you're doing. As Hatter says, you'll be fine Also I think, closer to the time, the excitement of the trip will give you an extra boost, that will help a lot with everything still needed. But yes, give yourself the breathing space and let your new place know about your schedule! Big hugs and sparkling prayers are on their way

Whoooooooooohooooooooooooo CONGRATULATIONS that is awesome!!! That kind of drunk is probably from both and very well deserved

So I got my second training in for the week, yay Very similar to the last ones, just that I upped the weight on the lat pulley to 30kg for the second set, but that got real hard after 8 reps, so maybe I will stick to 25 after all. They just felt too easy Wall handstand is getting sliiiiiiiightly better. Headstand was hard work today from balance but got admired anyhow by the ladies training next to me, so I felt awesome anyhow All in all a good workout session. ------- This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. The ups were more work sessions, which I love and which also went beautifully. Also youngest has such joy in painting and drawing and comes running every so often to share her progress, which is amazing (even though she doesn't always see that, but we're working on that ) She got some instruction books on drawing for Christmas and is having a lot of fun with them. What she enjoys even more is using a sponge and water colors for a bright background, taping off some shapes or letters to form a word, that then stands out in white between the sprinkled color. Looks stunning and so cheerful!! The downs were things not working or schedule mix ups and stuff like that, which were a lot this week. Wednesday was the worst. Internet connection gone in the morning and I restarted our router about 5 times, had already set up a phone hot spot, to use for my morning meditation group when at two minutes to six, it suddenly started working again (I start the group at 6am). Oh well, I thought, rough start, but we're rolling... not so much. My boy overslept and I had to take him to school, before setting the room up for my client coming shortly after. No worries, I thought, actually I might as well handle some bank stuff on the way, but turns out the bank machine was out of function. Work went well, so yay on that Afterwards when cleaning the vacuum cleaner stopped working. Doesn't switch on anymore, just died, meh. And it's not even that old. Just old enough to have no guarantee on it anymore. Then the hospital called to give me the operation time for youngest the next day, with a time around noon, which would have been as expected and enabled youngest to still write the exam her class had in Latin this morning. But 5 minutes later they called again, to say "Oooops, things changed, her turn will be at 8.45 am" There was no way to change that, so I called the school to let them know and got handed on to the headmaster himself, because it caused some real extra work, especially so close before midterm testimonials. Anyway, we worked that out as well and so the day continued. I managed everything that came up and kept my spirits somewhat high as well, but by the evening I just wanted to curl into bed and sleep. Not on, however, as it was the first choir rehearsal since our Christmas concert so off I went of course. Turns out the choir, where youngest went, has to stop as they are too few kids by now, which makes me quite sad for her. Most of the kids are old enough to feel at home in our choir and can join there, but for her even if she would, the time is too late during school nights, so it won't work Choir was real nice, though and we have some awesome pieces to train for. Also singing always makes any day just so much brighter for me Got home at 10.30pm and only meditated at 5am next morning to make up for it. Thursday was the day of the operation of youngest and it took way longer than what they had told us up front. Despite the morning appointment we only got home at 2.30 pm and were both quite exhausted. Shame, she had to spend two hours in the waking room, for them to see if she's okay, and there were some toddlers sharing the room, which were very unhappy after their ops and the one cried straight through for an hour. Difficult for my girl to catch some rest next to her, of course. Despite her body circuits being a bit weak we got her home as soon as possible. As expected she recovered a lot quicker there. Also enjoyed the food more I took the rest of that day off for myself and yesterday (Friday) I took basically the whole day as a lazy, restful, pathetic day Took youngest to the clinic for a check up on her wound, but apart from that and a little bit of housework, that was it. And it was Heaven! I vegetated kind of like this Just that I listened to the Sherlock Holmes collection on Audible and drank tea instead. But it was sweet tea and I had some of the gingerbread cookies with it, that we had baked last weekend ------ Talking about food and cravings - the intermittend fasting came so hard to me this week!! Thursday was easy because of having been stuck at the hospital, but on most other days, I started questioning if I shouldn't make exceptions, is it even working,... bla bla bla, the whole thing I have hit a plateau, I feel, with weight rather going a tiny bit up again and pants not sitting as loose as in between and it got me very frustrated. Now I guess that has more to do with what I eat in between the fasting - there had been quite a few cookies this week and the milk/sugar combination in my teas is not really great for my insulin levels either - but then I also hear a lot that for weight loss the 16:8 rhythm I am using at the moment is too short a fasting window. It's great for maintenance or for improving a whole bunch of things like antioxidants and the like, but for losing fat tissue, a 24 hour or ideally 36 hour fast or longer seems to be more efficient. In other words rather go for 24 hours twice a week and eat normally on the other days, then doing the 16 hour fasts on every day, like I am doing. This morning I was so down for some reason I was about to toss it all to the wind and give it up altogether. Luckily, hubby noticed and told me straight off: "You have to push through this now!" He told me he can definitely see it working, so that helped a lot and now I am pushing on. In fact I am now sucking it up and will try to do a 24 hour fast today and take my fears out of this thing. It's ridiculous me fretting at all, because if I would really not feel well, I could stop it at any time, so why worry? Anywho, the other track to pursue for today is preparing healthier sweets to treat myself to in the "feasting" hours Like homemade chocolate with coconut oil, almond flour, cocoa powder, some sirup and berries or ginger or so. Because I have a suspicion I am lacking the healthy fats still in my diet and I can put lots of good coconut oil into those. Also maybe preboil some eggs to have at hand in the fridge, when I do break the fast and instead of sandwiches as a quick fix, I can go to those eggs along with cheese or avocado or so. Will have to browse for more ideas here, because clearly the diet the kids enjoy (lots of pasta, rice, sugar bombed cookies) and get away with, is not really that great for me. Now to my main two challenge goals, which I neglected horribly this week: - Liberating actions (Suck it up and free myself) were rather small ones and nothing special or even from the dark red points of my to-do-lists, but I'll count most days anyway, (won't count blissfully lazy Friday) because amidst all the things going on, I was sorely tempted to procrastinate on some things and instead did them straight away. Subjectively it was a whole week of sucking it up and I want to acknowledge the effort of that - Fun, adventure actions came even shorter though. I simply did not have the energy for them or even plain forgot. I guess the most fun was watching some Bob Ross with my girl can't count that though, because I should have picked up a pencil rather, or brush or whatever and have done something creative myself in order for it to count. So not much there (yet) Might count the chocolate baking today though So that's it for this week so far. Now I am off to prepare pot roast for my dear ones and see how I am doing on that during the fast and tackle some more of our laundry piles. They sometimes feel to me like leaf piles to Calvin

I meant with the mattress on the floor - before buying the futon Yay Thank you That's exactly what I have in mind and very encouraging to hear thanks! no worries, glad to have you here now I am so glad we went when we did!! It was all grey and miserable the days after and today is the first sunny day since but with way less snow. So we hit the magic at the best time. So weird to think that it's probably really hot with you right now Heyyyyyy Suzaqu I've been meaning to track you, too and now you beat me to it Thanks. We have a little bit of snow left, should I pack it real tight and send it? Just kidding... Thanks Yes, but that's not mine mine are all so grown up by now I'm the shortest in the family!! Even my 12 year old is slightly taller than me now.

Hope all goes well today best of success!

Awesomesauce dinner

I can only imagine it must be super frustrating. That's why I am so impressed with you not letting it win over you and still going through on all your challenge goals and that amidst that hectic schedule you have!!

you are truly so courageous! It takes a lot of gut to try out these completely new things among people who have been at it a while. And your descriptions soothe me so much, because that would totally be me too, I just don't even try (yet) so thank you for taking it with such good humor, it's very encouraging to read. And honestly how can you possibly freestyle on something you have no clue of just yet?! So happy you having so much fun again

Still such a brave Hobbit sticking to your challenge despite the poor cranky foot Hey you could join me in headstand training. Giving complete foot rest [emoji6][emoji23]

you're really active for someone down with a cold. But I can totally understand the notion of movement being helpful rather as long as you don't overdo it. Am sure it will lift soon soon. Usually by the time we are that fed up with it, the worst is over Sending some healing vibes your way * * * That soup sounds delicious, thanks for sharing! I didn't think of using frozen veggies, but of course in a soup that would work. I often delayed plans to wait until whatever frozen thing had defrosted first, and now I realize that's not even needed

Kudos on all the responsible acts! You're doing great

couldn't resist this part

yay for the pics and CONGRATS on the presentation going well!! Is Friday when you get the results?