Urgan

On a completely unrelated note, anybody need some QA done by chance? I'm not exactly wading around in choices here.

Thing that will never make sense to me: Doctors think it's more sensible to tell patients to not eat whole foods such as eggs or a whole food group (meat) when they're inhaling industrial quantities of processed food. The heck does Doc think they're gonna replace eggs or meat with? Celery sticks?

February 2020: Week 4 Mood Tasks Cat Grooming: 2/4 Toothbrushing: 21/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 3/4 Truck Refi - not happening, not a priority anymore Training Aikido Tech Review: 4/8 Iaido - 0/2 Food Find a protein snack Words Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33 LingoDeer: 17/20 Monday I am over February, please end. Fark Monday and it's 42,000 meetings, one of which was canceled after I went to some trouble to rearrange my lunch break around it, and the announcement one of the devs are leaving. Morale in the dumpster by the side of the road, on fire. Dojo featured two-handed kotegaeshi, which came rather naturally. Otherwise, I was a warm body for a red belt to rehearse with. TFW you remember details upper belts don't because Time. Came home, did the super useful testing, and fell asleep with Youtube on for the first time on a weeknight in a while, I think. Tuesday Meetings and a migraine, the semi-distinguishing features of the day. A joy-free zone. We got our taxes back and we owe quite a lot. Yay. Thinking about this more and I think maybe my migraine and thoughts like, "I'm sick of crawling out from one stress and under another constantly" are somewhat related. Wednesday Aside from gym not being a wash and dojo re-emphasizing ryotetori kotegaeshi and jujinage, there is nothing good to report about this day. I have been tired all week, every day has been a fire drill of some kind, I am so flipping over with being this stressed out most all this month. Thursday Day 27 features no change in morale, which I suppose counts as a good thing lately. Shark Week has landed. I haven't done the best job of killing my goals this month for a variety of reasons, some of which could have been handled better with a bit more resolve, but waiting on a back order of that stuff. We'll see what March brings.

Yeah one could say Work is attempting to wring every last ounce of joy and morale out of our mortal bodies. The weekend was in fact miles better than last weekend and last week put together. Unfortunately, this is Monday, when all the new meetings kick in and the one meeting I found useful has been reduced to once a week. Kill me please.

Post-PTO wish-I-was-still-there thread bump.

Ready for Round two like

February 2020: Week 3 Monday Morning Got Me Like Tasks Cat Grooming: 2/4 Toothbrushing: 19/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 3/4 Clean Bathroom Sinks Do the taxes Truck Refi Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again Training Aikido Tech Review: 2/8 Iaido - 0/2 Food Find a fiber snack Find a protein snack Words Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33 LingoDeer: 15/20 Monday Update Wakeup at 4:30AM, it ain't cool, y'all. But had to do gym or else what is the point in living anyway? PTO - Tuesday and Wednesday To compensate for Sunday and Monday being blown the Hell I took some days off to try to compensate, and mostly succeeded. Tuesday I shredded junk mail, prepped tax documents to go to the people who handle that migraine for us, did some laundry, ate at my favorite place, finished Blackdog (finally). Wrote a good deal, none of it in the areas where I'd assigned importance at the start of this month, but in some ways what I have done is even a bigger deal. Let me attempt to explain: So there's a whole flashback sequence I spent the holiday time lining up, right? Well, it's a character telling this information to other characters via dialogue, but I didn't want it to be in first person because I morally oppose writing in 1st person POV and don't want to turn this book into angsty supernatural lit trash, but I didn't want to use another way to convey the info because at the time I was convinced it wouldn't work, but upon further reflection it totally does work and it obviates the need to explain how he knows what he knows, handling vivid descriptions of place that would seem like rabbit-chasing compared to the important plot points, and eliminates the threat of 1st person being the more logical choice. SCORE. On Wednesday I actually had another epiphany about how to possibly end this story (at least for now...) and the need to stub out those plot points as tabs in the outline notebook so I can begin fleshing out what I deliriously imagined on the drive home from Aikido. I was too tired by the end of the day to do anything concrete toward that end, oh well. Gym and dojo <6 hours apart is rather tough. Addit: some guy approached me in the gym and gave me the whole "I wish I liked to read" bit, and I did my best to casually evangelize to trying different books, use Amazon, etc. and he seemed kinda receptive to it. Thursday I come back and everything is freshly blown to Hell with nothing scheduled/attended when it normally would have been. Neat. Not 10AM and I'm having one of those Wish I Drank days. There's really no qualifiers needed for the above. It settled from blown-to-Hell to agonizingly boring, but would you trade chaos levels of stress for brain cancer-inducing meetings? No, I think not. I did give some thought to ordering the events I came up with on Wednesday--turned out harder than I'd envisioned, but that's how it goes. Friday Well I've been in the office 15 minutes and the sky hasn't fallen. Gym session was fine. We're going to see Sonic tonight barring said sky deciding to cash it in. Things I remember about Friday: so many frickin' meetings, so much last minute testing down to the moment of leaving the office. We did see Sonic, and it was a good little movie. After being dragged to The Last Jedi back in the Dark Ages, I declared movies a dead medium. They're just mostly dead, it seems. I ate popcorn and got tacos afterward, which somehow ended up involving sour cream. God knows how, I am pretty sure Husband ordered correctly. Oh well. I can describe in non-excruciating detail what it's like to ingest it. Step 1 - The calm before the storm (Friday night), featuring: abdominal rash Step 2 - The Silent Treatment (Saturday midday) Step 3 - The Evacuation (Saturday afternoon) Step 4 - Operation: Swamp Gas, also featuring abdominal rash (Saturday night) Back to regularly scheduled programming Saturday A redux of last week, this time with less impending Bonus Work, aka none thank you Jesus Hallelujah. Finished A Song for Nero, which true to a Tom Holt novel, is a literary gut punch. I went through the books awaiting sale and salvaged a few--all but one I have no intention of reading anytime soon. So now the count stands at 13. Sunday I knocked out roughly a quarter of The Leopard, which is the sequel to Blackdog. I got some writing done on 32.1. I brushed cats, de-furred the bed, and cleaned the bathroom counters. I made ham and bean soup. It was a whole Day.

To be fair, timing is important, yes?

I think we all feel this one deep in our souls.

It's raining nearly sideways at times. SIDEWAYS. WHY. Yeah better part of valor is to go straight home. I've been in a calorie deficit for two days (Stress: the Ultimate Appetite Suppressant), a sleep deficit for more than that, stressed the crap out about hair and logistics and farther back this upgrade nonsense. Perfect for snagging a shiny new disease. And likely transmitting it to some poor fool just wanting to practice Aikido on a snotty, drowny night.

Giant. Mat-sized. DDR. Pad. Yuck. Colds have been known to do that.

Not gonna lie, that actually sounds like some kind of fusion of music mixing and martial arts. Was it strep/throat-related by chance? I'm getting the feeling that throat/chest-related infections are the current trend. Boss and parents got knocked out with it the latter part of last week into the weekend.

Alcohol and Senseis go well together. So well that one time one of our instructors came in after having had a few and it seemed he forgot he was doing an Aikido atemi because I nearly got jabbed right in the face while he was demoing technique to my partner had I not been guarding. Solid gold. Quite it it wasn't the first or will be the last time this happens lol. Glad your Sensei's version of drunk/buzzed BJJ worked out a bit better.

February 2020: Week 2 Do It, It'll be Fun Tasks Cat Grooming: 1/4 Toothbrushing: 13/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 2/4 Clean Bathroom Sinks Do the taxes Truck Refi Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again Training Aikido Tech Review: 2/8 Iaido - 0/2 Food Find a fiber snack Find a protein snack Words Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33 LingoDeer: 10/20 Monday It's Drowning Week, Errbody. Literally and otherwise. No really, there's a lot of water pouring down, and a bonus redux of last week's Tornado Wednesday! This Sunday is the Database Go-Live Spectacular, then the Tuesday and Wednesday after that I can pretend to be deceased if I so desire, and I very well may. Gym session this morning was actually better than I suspected it might be. To balance that out, mom texted me that she has the full-blown Whatever It Is and is thus both highly sick and highly contagious. This throws evening plans into hard doubt, a bad thing for multiple reasons that are fairly obvious. Sorry this isn't Fitspo Central lately, it just be like that right now. ...yeah, did not go to the dojo. Despite really, really wanting to rip the haircut bandaid off at my parents' house, it really wasn't a smart move. Imagine getting a whole dojo sick because your butt just had to be there. Not me, not today, Satan. I went home and slept and had a second meal of eggs because not even I could make husband go get tacos after wading thigh-deep in water to save cars at the shop. Tuesday Significantly less drowning occurred, but the flooding is real across the city. Hair adventures have been a real test of my confidence, which is taking a bit of a pummeling just existing. I will be quite glad when March rolls around. Stress is up, general morale is down. After next Monday things will improve. Maybe. Wednesday I did everything on the lifting agenda with no modifications, did hair stuff, AND made it to work on time--this, the day of my entirely-too-frequent employee evaluation. Jesus mercy Hallelujah. So I've got that, multiple meetings, iffy weather to walk through, introducing the parents to the hair, and dojo time. I've had a better lineup for a day, honestly. One of those meetings was an Employee Evaluation, which occurs entirely too often (aka, at all but specifically more than once a year). It was scheduled at 1, then 15 minutes beforehand it was moved back two hours. Perfect. Two more hours of feeling nauseous and jittery for me! The other meeting I was worried about was a CWOT--it was useful for another department that was not us. The rest of the day was normal-ish, my parents were still symptomatic so we did our best to not do anything terribly stupid, like eating food they cooked for example. I'm not sure if it's due to illness or what but there were no fireworks about the hair, so at least there was that to say about today. The dojo people all liked it. We did randori practice, the first "official" 3-vs-1 round we went through as brown belts, where there is a requirement to handle randori on the test. So you could say things are getting pretty serious. There was an encore of last Wednesday in terms of tornado warnings and rain chasing me home, this time it was much slower, with an accompanying temperature drop over Thursday. WHEE. Thursday Possibly the most useful thing about this day will be me testing to see if I could get away with just using hair spray to achieve the same style more or less that I've been working on this week. The answer is it's a little less good for a little less time spent. Otherwise, yeah, a boring, insignificant day spent treading water. Friday Valentine's Day. I did not forget my present in its hiding spot the night prior, which is a minor miracle given how well the old brain is percolating lately. Gym was actually fairly okay. 78lb OHP doubles aren't really particularly impressive, but not backsliding is the thing right now. I survived the day then ate a standard garbage Friday "dinner" before expiring. Saturday Not a bad gym day, but it took absolutely everything out of me? Part of the day involved buying taro mochi and Natural Flavors Tea as a coping mechanism for Sunday and an attempt at getting food from Panda Express but there was a charter bus full of humans between me and dinner. I turned my happy butt around and got tacos and called it a day. Sunday Let's put all the chores in a bag and tumble them 'round and see what gets done around the go live event! Yay! Folded some laundry before heading out for brunch and destiny of testing the entire production site in two hours, then getting Monday lunch from Panda (turns out it was two charter buses that pulled up unannounced), then returning to laundry folding, laundry shuffling around, and other assorted mundane chores. The only thing that didn't get done that rather needed it was brushing the cats. I did one of them on Saturday, but that was it. Did a little work on writing, which, thanks to a later epiphany, will be completely undone probably! Yay! Also turned off the lights a smidge early because Early Monday Mornings R Me. Had a food goal, fell asleep way early, woke up at 3AM, carried right on eating the rest of my planned food.

Welcome to the Survivor's Club. That was a really bad day but it is now dead and gone and cannot come back to give you more heck. Also you have boxing gloves now.

Okay hold up. You cannot be underselling the flashiness of ukemi, now. Nothing says razzle-dazzle like taking violent-looking falls and amazing bystanders that you actually walked away from that! Lol.

What? Nothing says "I'm a fun partner to train with" like the potential to cause small abrasions with said dirty gear, lol.

Clearly everything is fine, because the Capslock has returned.

I've heard of this concept of being close to (all of) your family and liking one another most/all of the time, but I've never seen it before out in the wild. You aren't the only one with weird family/sibling dynamics and honestly what you describe doesn't sound that unusual. It takes people on the receiving end of the at-best aloofness decades sometimes to figure out what's really going on. They want a close bond with someone who for whatever reason just.....doesn't. Giant shrug.

1000 calories is pretty scary-low for any duration, man. Please be careful.

Ah yes, the masochism of the martial arts life is a potent drug. Congrats you're now doomed lol.

So you and your brother each had a Moment this weekend, sounds like. Maybe it's best to "forgive" the both of you and carry on. If it keeps happening, then there would be cause for concern.

We all are going to have pain, some of us are dubiously blessed with more than others, but a whole lot of the day-to-day mundane (non-congenital, you weren't mauled by a bear...) stuff is more under our control than mainstream programming would have us believe. You don't have an expiration date on your forehead. Sounds like someone's joints are more stable now.

February 2020: Week 1 You won the first round, 2020 Tasks Cat Grooming: 1/4 Toothbrushing: 7/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 1/4 Clean Toilet Clean Bathroom Sinks Do the taxes Truck Refi Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again Training Aikido Tech Review: 2/8 Iaido - 0/2 Food Find a fiber snack Find a protein snack Words Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33 LingoDeer: 5/20 Monday Ah, it's month 2 of 2020 and we're already at the Hanging On for Dear Life stage. Brilliant. Insert a lot of moaning about being tired and sore here. I did high intensity work at the gym, hence half of the whining about being tired and sore. I did have some Ideas during gym time and actually wrote them down the same day I had them, ensuring they have been captured. What a world. Dojo time featured a combo of jujinage and sudori work. It's a glamorous process, learning movements meant to be executed dynamically in a static fashion. Uke just sorta hops away on one leg--if I'm lucky lol. Ran-ish home and was totally useful for deploy, you guys. Like wow. Then I ate chocolate and watched RedLetterMedia until Too Late at night. The End. Tuesday Um. Well. It was a day. Absolutely nothing exciting to report. Or not exciting. I made chili and fell asleep for three hours? Wednesday A pretty good gym morning aksually. 206 and 226 ain't nothing. Endured yet another day, this one featuring a smidge more work than the last three days put together, which is to day I was almost occupied for a minute there. Dojo was test night, so nooooo techniques except managing to do randori uke-stuff for a red belt doing his second? qualifier. Scored a sweet scrape + bruise combo on my forearm, but no arm bar, no broken nails or bones, so we good. I came home and got suddenly powerfully sick of my hair. Apparently it has been around 2.5 months since I got a haircut. Well. Thursday Worked from home, plotted my complete makeover (okay not really, but it feels like it, darnit). Went and got my hair all chopped off. Went to Walmart and bought products to make me look like I meant to look this way. FYI, this is like what I showed the stylist. Um. Yeah. So, I didn't really do any actual hair care beyond get clean + brush + some hairspray before this, my last style I had for 5 years, and the years before that I had no style at all. So.....progress. One consequence of working home + hair cut was no naps, which proved darn near fatal. Friday Well I'd like to say this was a good day, but....yeah, not even gonna lie. It was the start of the weekend of dealing with Collective Parental Gasp at the whole haircut thing. I needed to go to the dojo and visit the World of Wheels show preferably on Friday since I was already nearby because the convention center is right near work. After the Parental Gasp I just did not have the emotional energy to do both things so I just did WoW briefly and called it a life. It's amazing how you can have a lot of positive reception for a thing and it just takes one person to make you want to crawl under a rock. Did not exactly eat well. Had no energy, due in large part to the trifecta of sleep loss, emotional stress, and suppressed appetite. Saturday It was a day. You can imagine how amazing it was. Squats were awful, deadlifts have already been awful so I was just surprised to manage a baseline there. Sunday Also a day, but a better one. Had it out with my mother, so to speak, but not dad. He decided to get some kind of microbial infection in his lungs, which presented like fluid in the lungs (couldn't breathe well). Super scary-sounding, not as bad as initially it seemed. Yet still not cool as it hit mom in a different fashion so it's nasty AND contagious as heck. We're all alive, the virus/bacteria hasn't killed anyone, the haircut hasn't killed anyone. We'll deal. Eventually. Maybe. Meh. I did things that needed doing in addition to the bare minimum here, I just did not have any fun outside of the dojo and Thursday evening.