Urgan

I mean, I tell you what there is something magical to rain. Or poisonous. Whichever.

I'm still working on figuring out when and/or where exactly we'll be working! Yeah, at least it was before the impending Great Upheaval. We'll see.

Guarantee whoever owns the barn either doesn't know what a gibbet is or is desperately trying to distract. Brought to you no doubt by the storm-that-spawns-tornadoes that mowed us down lol.

January 2020: Week 2 Going Into Hiding BRB Tasks Clean Up Bedroom Desk Cat Grooming: 2/4 Toothbrushing: 13/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 2/4 Truck Refi Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone Training Aikido Tech Review: 4/8 Food Limit Natural Flavors Words Writing: 30, 32 LingoDeer: 11/20 Monday What I know so far is some part/whole of Friday - Sunday is going to be sucked into the black hole that is Work. 1/20 the gym will be closed for MLK Jr Day. That night at 10PM I have to test prod site. I strongly suspect I'm filing for PTO on that Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll hopefully maybe possibly know whether this is the route to go or not--I'd rather not because PTO is precious, but the rate this week is already going, I may need to do something next week to compensate. Thing I learned today: you can have two names on two cards when one name isn't on the account. For example, a maiden name and a married name. Whut. 15 minutes later that card is history. The rest of the day happened, a combination of unpleasant and unremarkable. This week is hovering in the 60s and raining most/all of the week. It makes the commute a joy. We practiced tanto kata 1 for the first time--both for that kata and for using a tanto, so that was interesting. We didn't spend the whole time on it, which I wish we had because there's a difference between I sorta think I remember and I know it now. Oh well, retained it well enough I guess. After I practiced the kata at home, it was food and Japanese and Youtube videos until an unreasonable hour because I had to squeeze something not-awful out of the 24 hours at my own pace. Never learned anything useful about the situation on the weekend. Boss is out of the office through Tuesday so far. Tuesday Texted boss about the weekend plans. It's not his final call, but he's the boss so he gets the pressure to cough up details. If it's a whole day of work or more, I'm going to take PTO next week to compensate. It's the only thing that I got. Not to spoil the ending, but it took 24 hours to get a response. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and Instacart didn't deliver an ingredient rather important but not integral to dinner, so we had sausage and riced cauliflower without the cabbage and we liked it. The whole day was a drippy humid soggy mess and thank God it is no more. Wednesday Hey look 191lb squat doubles that actually moved. Whoa. Got that answer from boss, it will be work from home. What days/hours? STAY TUNED I am told, so I should theoretically know by end of day what our fates will be. Fingers crossed for Sunday night. The weather is slowly "improving" sideways fashion. Dad got his heart valve replaced today. It was up in the air until the last minute whether he needed it, but he got it. For your edutainment, the valve looks like this: It's an inverted umbrella they float up the blood vessel to the spot and stick it right on top of the old one, not much cutting going on. I was just told Thursday morning he's slated to be released, which I sorta predicted lol because after surgery he was fine, better than before the surgery. A bit before 3PM, the promised update came. Aaaand...we aren't doing anything on the weekend? He doesn't say that specifically, but testing is going to start on monday Monday MONDAY so I assume the weekend was spared? Why this wasn't explicitly stated I don't know but strongly suspect what is going on there. ...anyway, more tanto kata practice. I am detecting a more focused training pattern this year so far. Okay then. This is real life now. Black belt club is Friday. We'll see if I make it there. To Friday or BBC. Thursday First they were going keep dad for two days, then they were going to release him during the day, then no nevermind. Okay then. Visited him in the hospital for a bit after a brutal, brutal-feeling day--he was fine and could have gone home easily but for proving he is walking with no problems. Nap time was thus cut in half. Done with this week. Friday There is about a 90% chance I am not doing to do BBC because my heart isn't in the same zip code as expending excess energy beyond the norm right now. Gonna treat myself to squinting at nail polish colors to see if there's any I just have to have. Maybe a white pearl or really light grey pearl for a semi-monochromatic look I'm thinking about attempting because I need to juggle 5 colors of polish and two base/top coats in one sitting really, really badly. Confirmed, did not go to the dojo and elected to paint my nails and lie in bed because that's where I was mentally. Dad went home, everything is pretty normal there. Apparently heart valves are NBD. Teh Weekend Saturday's gym session went better than most sessions the last month have gone. The focus is on not getting hacked off about deadlifts and just do them until they stop feeling weak. I finished the book I'd been working on in the gym at home, the binding was getting somewhat...pliable and so I decided it was time to finish it and put it back on the shelf. Ditched a book I probably won't read because I suspect it will be a depressing ending. Squinting at another one I'd put down, Arafel's Saga, for similar reasons--it was giving me the sads. The next week being all kinds of jacked up had me on the defensive preemptively. I got relatively little extra done, except a bit of writing. Some reworking a bit that wasn't identified as a trouble spot earlier, some finishing a section that needed to be fleshed out in the first place. I have done rather well at least at keeping the baseline down.

Social networking + cardio means I don't have to warn you that strength adaptations are not going to happen with light weight/high reps, it's not really the point of the er, exercise. * ba dum tsssh * My thoughts exactly. Anything with the word "clean" in it cannot be done slowly (or else it becomes another exercise, likely a variation of a row), it sounds like they are attempting to teach the components of the dynamic motion (noble), but there's a couple of sticky points with doing it with the light weight/high rep model because at some point the weight is too light to be enough resistance to get the feel for the movement pattern (try to power clean a PVC pipe vs an empty standard barbell and you'll know what I mean) and high rep encourages sloppiness of form at some point from the sheer number of reps creating fatigue. In a group class setting it suggests a challenge to keep an eyeball on everybody in the room. In the case of the poor squat form advice, you're working with light enough weight that the biggest worry is not likelihood for harm. Just carry on, as low and controlled as you can get away with, yeah? Should be okay. Ah, the classic Kitchen Sink Dinner. Waste not, want not.

Sounds like a hang clean to me.

I say you start your challenge weeks whenever you like and dare someone to care about it lol.

Maybe you should run the self-cleaning function a time or two to get a handle on this really hot oven thing lol.

Broil all the things. Except for your face.

This is a real thing and the holidays can really throw things out of kilter in more than one way. I've realized nothing goal-wise is ever on target during that two-week span between Christmas and New Years and just rolling with it is the most reasonable course. As you do. In a few weeks you'll probably feel better about a lot of stuff, hopefully.

January 2020: Week 1 Hell-o Winter Tasks Get Rid of Christmas decorations on 1/5 Clean Up Bedroom Desk Cat Grooming: 1/4 Toothbrushing: 7/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 1/4 Truck Refi Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone Training Aikido Tech Review: 2/8 Iaido - Buy knee pads Food Limit Natural Flavors Words Writing: 28, 30, 32, 6, 7, 10, 12.1 LingoDeer: 5/20 Monday Eeey new week. Did the decorations removal last night. I wanted to work on the desk clutter, but looooool no. Monday was a generally low energy--but not crashed, just low--day. Gym was fine, which is a two week first. By the time it was time to go to the dojo, I was being propelled along solely by black coffee. We worked on katatori ganmenuchi ikkyo, which was nice and easy. Got a tiny chip on a nail's polish at the dojo and patched it with clear coat when I got home. It was really tricky getting everything (Japanese practice, technique practice, eating the post-Aikido snack) with clear coat drying and a healthy headache but it happened and I turned out the light before midnight because that headache tho. Tuesday Well this was a Day. Survived it, did Japanese, brushed my teeth. I've been rereading through the entire outline for flow (to make sure it hasn't been screwed up by all the new additions...). Essentially after a certain point every section needs additions/edits, but that's okay. If I can get to a point where I can say everything past X point is complete, that would be sweet. Wednesday I felt less awful in terms of energy. Gym featured some not impressive numbers, but I wasn't dying and that was the main thing. I need a rebound there so bad. Otherwise it was a standard if busy day in a busy week. That's what happens when you take a vacation. Dojo was a mishmash of henkawaza style drills because Sensei has been out this week. The awkwardness of practicing male-specific attacks on a male partner, the very best of times. Been way too tired coming home, this time was a now-rare instance of me falling asleep with the light on again. Sigh. Thursday I don't have to cook tonight because So Many Leftovers! Hallelujah! .....aaaaaand got put on an online meeting every other Monday at 9PM/10PM/whenever for me testing. Because my schedule wasn't hard enough already. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to do that and get to work at the same time when it was already a struggle before but OKAY WHATEVER. Didn't cook. Did do Japanese and some very small writing before I gave up. Teh Weekend Had some okay gym sessions, not perfect but promising that things would get better if I could have a whole week that wasn't sabotaged by something for once in 2020 please. I worked on getting things cleaned up on and around the desk--I put up some clothes and shredded the holiday receipts now that it's safe to do so, got rid of a big box. Bought knee pads at the last minute along with some books with pretty covers (the rest of the series Blackdog is a part of). Wrote quite a bit, actually. Bemoaned my lack of future. Typical weekend things.

In my case I got cursing under control, but when work went to pot I vented with complaining. A lot of complaining. All of it, probably.

January 2020 Goals Here We Go I'm now resuming normal activity in the hopes I can get away with it. I think there's a psychological element to this, because I have lots of headaches just existing, it doesn't necessarily follow that the neck strain circa October 2019 is the cause of today's pain. The writing goals of December were blown clear out of the water, so I am feeling pretty good about my chances of cleaning up the existing sections of outline and stringing together an actual plot around the slice-of-life type stuff I am much fonder of dwelling on, ever since I had a shower epiphany. What else? Got my brown belt, weight has stayed stable with gas almost nonexistent by comparison to prior months, but calories have been all over the place, mostly on the lower end, which has not helped me in the gym in the slightest, let me say. That needs to stop right meow. Time to start 2020 by building on what 2019 left behind. Tasks This month is going to officially "start" for the purposes of this log on the 6th, but the deadline to remove Christmas stuff is the 5th. I do what I want. Most of this is obvious: I've been slacking on brushing my teeth at night, cat grooming is falling overboard, and the usual holiday box and crap pile-up has happened. What isn't so self-explanatory are the remaining items. I'm going to play a little game with myself. I'm going to deliberately look at my waiter's face when interacting with them, I can count the number of times I have done so in my life on one hand. Truck refi is on the list because we were planning on doing refinancing this month and it's just there to remind me to remind my husband. I bought fancy knives over the break, now I need to learn how to maintain them. Get Rid of Christmas decorations on 1/5 Clean Up Bedroom Desk Cat Grooming: 0/4 Toothbrushing: 0/28 Look Waiter in the Eye: 0/4 Truck Refi Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone Training Ye olde Do the Thing section, the knee pads are an effort to cope with the hard floor, because the only way I'm going to practice is to make the floor on my house more knee-friendly. Nothing magical here otherwise, post-class review only to start off. Aikido Tech Review: 0/8 Iaido - Buy knee pads Food If it isn't tea [addit: or a protein bar] and it has natural flavors in it, don't eat it. Limit Natural Flavors Words Hey, look I got my writing goal done in December. Time to make a big dent in the odds-and-ends cleanup department. And go back to using Lingodeer. Writing: 28, 30, 32, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12.2 LingoDeer: 0/20 Weeks: 1 2 3 4

Sometimes you kill it, sometimes it kills you. Right now just sorta clinging on for dear life until the room stops metaphorically spinning. The routine resumes in full next week.

2019 RECAP Posted Now Because the NF Site Decided to Have a Seizure on NYE! Well 2019 has come and gone, here we are again at New Year's Eve. 2020 is upon us, so what did I learn over the last 365 days? Let's go down memory lane. A recap of the Notable Events: Complaining improved and then slowly declined as coping with work became more difficult and cursing was curtailed. My to do list shrank over time because priority juggling was difficult. Nutrition did not feature heavily as a goal until the fall, perhaps the longest I have gone without serious tweaks. This year I advanced two belts in Aikido and started training in Iaido, Aikido remained a priority all year while Iaido slipped to give way for it. First aid, charity, and an attempt to make dinner at an at least consistent time held solid. Instacart was a big QOL decision alongside funding a new A/C and furnace. I found I enjoyed kanji, but Japanese, Aikido, and reading/writing compete for free time and it lost out for the time being, perhaps. I finally confronted the problems with my laptop and coughed up the money for a new machine. Reading and office maintenance turned out to be a surprise priority this year, out of nowhere. I've learned a couple of things this year--I have a lot of things I rank as highly important in competition with the less glamorous things in life, but I can manage as long as nobody asks me to clean the floor. I can really buckle down and tackle several major goals if I try. I tracked closely what was important month-to-month and do not regret any decisions made in 2019, but now it's 2020--what's it going to be now? STAY TUNED.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hope the New Year is a good one.

December 2019: Week 4 'Tis the Season Tasks Clean kitchen table Change bed sheets Wrap presents Practice Iaido - 2/2 Flashback - 17/17 26.1 26.2 Nutrition No New Natural Flavors - FAIL Test blackberries Monday Got up marginally earlier than the last two days? I packed for the overnight Christmas stay. All the contingencies ever. Gym time happened and it was just a big thing. I have damaged the outer layer of skin on my fingers with the amount of chalk required to do rack pulls. I squatted a max set of 190lbs on fried drumsticks, then moved on to hand murder. An almost-triple of 225lbs, an actual triple of 225, and 3 sets of 215lb triples. I. Was. Done. Tuesday I did iaido practice? WTF. Yeah, I know, right? Wrapped all the things as planned. I got an early Christmas present for myself by not only breezing through several sections (there are actually 17...there have always been 17...I cannot count, Jesus help me basic arithmetic is really helpful for successful adult life), but also finding a solution to allow things to happen the way I want at the end of this flashback marathon. YAY. I ate like a trash panda--tea, smoked salmon and chocolate chips, salty lime tortilla chips and Frito's bean dip that I went for in spite of Natural Flavorings because all I'd had that day was a few ounces of fish and chocolate, it was 5PM and an hour and a half until prime rib, tater, and squash. Mochi, more tea, more chocolate chips. More or less, that was my day. Limiting the fakeness has not been a thing that has happened quite as well as I'd wanted, but hey I know what I did. Wednesday Christmas happened. I got two books, a car radio, and some other things. Food was oddly better in quality today than yesterday, no idea why it has to be this way. Eggs, bacon, and a chicken sausage for brunch. Shockingly little drama occurred this day--and not just at our house. There were some frustrating elements, between BIL/SIL talking of doing a Whole 30 together and struggling with the fact that she very much has a specific problem with some ingredient that goes into biscuits. It's not denial, it's just working up to putting action the understanding that biscuits = 5 hours of pain now. I'm not unsympathetic to this, but my patience is tested a wee bit and I have to tell it to simmer down--they just have to get bad off enough to want it enough to do the thing. MIL takes pills/drinks stool softener rather than confront dietary choices that are evidently very not okay for her. Same MIL is clinging to the idea of spot-reducing fat for the same reason she'd rather pill up than woman up. Hard truths were handed out very diplomatically and nicely, I promise--she wants to change the way her body looks, it's more about dietary choices than activity, and suggested the big four. She suggested she needed to do something to "get in shape" first, like me. I told her what I have done is exclusively the big four. Lol. Hard work is hard. I additionally suggested she could do a bodybuilding routine like she used to do, it will just either take longer or be more complex. This is not a great comfort "easy works just as well as hard", but hey she follows me on Instagram and knows I'm not talking out my butt. She keeps "Introducing" me to her bodybuilding/PT cousin as a topic of conversation that I've met in person three times and who once took a look at me and thought what I wanted to hear was a personal prescription for cardio. I told her that felt like a slap in the face, that I was really disappointed in him that he cannot tell what I am going for. She didn't get it. Nevermind the worlds of difference between bodybuilding and strength training, but I can't expect her at her level of understanding to get that, either. She has a breadth of knowledge across many industries, but the depth is pinprick level. And to be fair, she always says she wants to get back to the gym, so the positive intention is there, but again execution is everything. I'm not gonna lie to family just for the sake of the fragile house of cards they've constructed to protect themselves from the actual working solutions to their problems, but I'm really, really not interested in hurting anybody either and I feel I succeeded. This is not the first or second time I have delivered a message like this to her, so I'm getting close to shrugging this matter off going forward. Horses, water, drinking. FIL, who has had his second knee replacement recently, was much more motivated to do so after his physical therapy. To him I stressed find something you really like to do in the gym and do it, because you're much more likely to do it if you like it. A lot of enthusiastic agreement there, which pleased me. He's down 30lbs inadvertently, which is a heck of a mood boost, yeah? We'll be doing this one more time for New Year's, which will be nice, but days like these always leave me feeling like a combination of a lost child and a college student whose lower brain is screaming at them that they have exams to deal with even though no, they don't because they're all done now. All of this on less sleep than I've been getting, which meant I had to take a tiny 3 hour nap to do some half-hearted stab at dinner and writing this. I've kept up with Japanese practice. The world does not end because of holidays. Merry Christmas, Errbody. Hope you got what you wanted out the day, whether that was a gift, time with other people, or just peace and quiet. Thursday I sat around and did very little most of the day. Then I wrote a lot. Friday Did some house chores, survived an unspectacular gym session, and had a eureka moment over some bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. Nice. Wrote lots. Eeeeeeeeeey Weekend Gym on Saturday did not go to plan. I wrote a whole lot, finished up the FLASHBACK SECTIONS FTW. Ate a blackberry on an empty stomach, did not turn inside out. Cool. Sunday I ate more diner food, read more in Blackdog as per the usual. I don't mention it a lot, but I'm just reading the book in little bits because it's like the most potent writing motivation ever? Also a really good book that I'm just savoring, knowing there are four more books where that came from, to speak nothing of what I already own LOL. Changed bed sheets, cleaned off the kitchen table, rotated the mugs in our cabinet so we can, you know, get to the ones that are our current favorites? Husband changed the fridge water filter. Made beef stew. So....in other words, ladies and gents, I have discovered a standard low enough that I can meet it. WHEE. 2019 Year-end post-mortem coming eventually. Stay tuned for that.

This is true. The arts are so different, from watching black belt level demonstration. Or at the least worrying about doing them precisely and correctly lol. The emphasis definitely changes when we feel like we're doing black-belt-esque experimentation. Like yesterday. We did yokomenuchi sankyo variations. One of them was a one-handed version in recognition that one of the teachers was one-armed by a shoulder issue that is slowly healing. It goes like this: 1 - yokomenuchi strike comes in 2 - intercept by your one hand 3 - turn and find sankyo grip 4 - turn again (this is the part where I will often get lost as to which way to turn...) You are now more-or-less facing uke while holding sankyo 5 - pour uke's hand/arm down their own back, taking them to the floor 6 - knee goes to uke's back, gently pull up on the arm you've been controlling until they tap, cry, etc. Okay cool. I'm not sure if it annoys some people or not (no comment, no vote lol), but if too much content is an issue, this sure fixes that.

Testing standards does me a concern the more I think about, in the abstract sense of global practice standards down to a specific dojo. I have decided the operating intensity of this dojo fits my lifestyle and this brown - black range needs to feature a refinement process for prior techniques. Sometimes I have to stop and verify that I am in fact doing the correct version of a technique, by which I mean the correct limbs are forward. This is harder than it has any right to be, but my defense is this is taking place after dark on a weeknight, all brain cells remaining are holding on by a thread. I mean, if we wanted to be up against maximum intensity and violence there's boxing, BJJ, and the more hardcore karate schools. Not that there's anything wrong with those things, they do have their appeal, but the appeal is invisible after 8PM lol. You know? Stay tuned for Fallout: The Day After lol. Seriously, if I don't feel like I've been beaten on Thursday then I will be very encouraging. It does force you to acknowledge and Deal With things that keep buzzing around the brain month in and month out. Sometimes things just aren't that important, sometimes they suddenly become very, very important. Lists are great in that it makes analysis more or less a snap. I'd like to think my retrospective will be Entertaining in some fashion. I've gone to doing Weekly update posts, still updating daily. Its obvious downside is it isn't pinging every time I update, right? But then you might like that. Maybe?? It's easier on me in that I don't have to do as much work and the week's stuff is all right there. I'm sure other things will make themselves felt as time goes on.

Making a note that I have written out the Clif's Notes version of my year and have worked on outline, it's just not enough to mark anything off the list yet. Really giving this some time to sink in before establishing 2020 goals.

Stumbling in late to the threads....like most everything lately lol. Following, cheering, etc.

* stumbles into group challenge * o hai. I just had to point out that wendigos clearly are just in need of a hug, this weather needs to make up its mind or GTFO, and hoping your shoulder starts acting right soon. Movement tends to help these things, unless you're dealing with a brand new tear lol.

When I get sick, this is typically what it looks like. If it were me, I'd consider stepping into a return to normal as far as training goes. Not the week for 3/week strength training if you haven't been doing that a while, but you know, get out there and see how it feels. And yeah, 3 > 2 in every sense lol. And just like that, your sickness paid for itself.

December 2019: Week 3 Brown Belt Get Tasks Clean kitchen counters Clean kitchen table Change bed sheets Wrap presents Review 2019 Practice Iaido - 0/2 Flashback - 7/16 26.1 26.2 Nutrition No New Natural Flavors Test blackberries Monday Well, I'm not dead. I did actually pretty well at the gym, aka what I expected for myself a month ago. I am currently in levels of pain that do not make me want to bite heads off. Goals are still well within management. Added a couple because let's do this stuff before the last minute maybe? Waited out the day, beat it to my parents' house, and skedaddled before the rain started. Got my brown belt, new requirements, and the technique dvd. Gave Sensei his present. I think he maybe liked it? I always worry about this stuff but didn't get to talk a lot to him because a - he took the new black belt into his office for a closed-door talk and b - the rain was kicking up. The storm chased me home, it was just a big ol' windy deal with a lot of lightning but not much in the way of sound. Tornadoes did touch down south of us, but nothing bad happened to anybody we know of (as of writing this). Ripped the technique dvd and watched the first technique on the list, so now I'm good to go. Tuesday Dropped Maggy off at the vet for her urinalysis. Got to work late in spite of leaving early, because Major Highway Life. The entire day was one big fire drill for the pre-release code. I spent waaaaay longer than necessary looking for a file >20MB to test a file size limit (because turns out it wasn't checking for these things correctly...what, you're QA, you ask? Shouldn't you catch these things? I got access to the right folders today, what are you gonna do?). It was Not Good. All the Traffic, All the Headache. I was good and made dinner after shower, because 7:30 - 10PM nap happened. Nobody was neglected or starved to death. No word on the cat health front yet. I guess we'll know something later? Wednesday Oh hey look just three more days to go. I went to the gym and did lower body for the first time in a week. That was something. 190lb squat and 230lb rack pull doubles happened. Just one set, but on the plus side I did not hurt afterward? Last Aikido session of 2019 incoming. We did a group lunch at the place I picked because they wanted everyone to come and I am by far the most restricted of everyone. It was my usual diner I go to every Sunday. It seemed like everyone liked their food. It all disappeared except for two people, who picked things that were rather enormous. Then we got tea at the bubble tea place next door. I discovered said tea is the equivalent of a powerful laxative, because a 5 alarm digestive event occurred. Noted and not surprised. Fruit + chemicals = No. Fruit is weird, I don't know what all the rules are, but I think juice is a bigger problem than the whole fruit? It's a working theory. Anyway, no nap today in exchange for a two hour break. It was hard to make through the latter half of the day. Got home, told mom about a weird situation my husband told me about on Tuesday (didn't tell her then, because see above. I was shot and in particular my patience for 20 questions-style followup even though I told her that's all I know was nonexistent). A family member had a major medical procedure and had a few weeks off to recover. This wasn't the first procedure they had to have, it wasn't optional/elective at this point. They came back and the temp worker that was filing in refused to give up their seat or the phone that forms the basis of their work. The boss has been avoiding them. They're scared to confront the boss because it may be the difference between quitting and being fired, but of course this limbo can't go on and is driving them crazy. Never heard of anything like it. It's some combination of a badly-run business and personal issues. Probably. I feel two ways about it, because on the one hand the owner of the company is a Grade A scumbag (either for passive-aggressively offing an employee or for failing to step in and clear things up), on the other this is a golden wakeup call for them to stop over-extending themselves and come to Logistics Jesus. Even if this didn't happen, there's trouble brewing and this may force them to make some important decisions. Maybe I'm straining to see the possibility of benefit. Thursday I did not wake up in pain. I did not wake up wanting to get up, however, which is a darn shame I guess. Realized I missed an ingredient in my grocery list last week, always a good start to the day. It's clear most people are taking off at this point, traffic was the best it's been for a non-Friday since summer. Biggest Nothing day of 2019. Got salsa, went home. Husband reported there was a confrontation between fam and their boss, it ended in the most cowardly, impotent way possible--boss didn't acknowledge the person was hanging on and being the obstacle to progress and tried to blame fam, but fam wasn't having it. End result: temp will leave and so will fam soon, because nothing says security like a boss trying to hold you responsible for the logistics of a shipment that came in while you were literally under the knife and then just sorta plugging the ears about work status of employees in the meanwhile. I think this is going to end up forcing a bunch of improvements, and may herald a business going under soon. RIP and whatnot. I'm not in staggering agony, which is a new development. I am cognizant of the impending reality that presents need wrapping. Did it happen today? Lol. Friday Hey look, another complete gym session doing everything as planned except for that one warmup weight I skipped to make the work sets fit in the time I allowed myself by sleeping in darn near an hour. WELL DONE. Scrambled around to get a project wrapped up, took an opening stab at another one, and packed it in, went home, and slept before I got in all planned calories. Fail. Oh and USPS tried to deliver a sign-for package at 11:14AM. For some reason. Fretted about redelivering that thing in time, as it's half of a Christmas present. UPDATE: I forgot to mention that some overbearing Finance department supervisor rounded the IT department up for undisclosed Christmas things. I told a coworker if they make us sing, I'm out of there. They spun up Jingle Bells and indeed expected us to sing along. I went to the bathroom until it was over. No, I don't listen to the radio Christmas music, I just really, really do not do corny-arse group singing with strangers or perhaps group singing in general. Saturday Secured the package, squatted 197lbs for doubles, did some deadlifts, wrote some outline stuff, bought the blackberries, and sized up the Christmas wrapping situation. I think I have all the supplies I need for this year without buying a single strip of tape or tissue paper. Nice. What's not so nice is my "natural flavors" streak. Turns out most all tea blends have them, as do mochi. Had some gas this week, between the bananas, kombucha, beans, and Taco Bell. This is also a Fail. Oh well. I'm slightly smarter for the experience. Slightly. Sunday MORE gym, this one less glamorous. I moved upper body over a day and it was decidedly mediocre, but I didn't feel bad so this is pretty much standard for the holiday shuffle. I'm just keeping my head above water until a - the holidays are over and b - I get some kind of consistency with doing all of the big 4. Did my usual brunch deal, hit up Home Depot to scope out my Christmas/birthday present of a storm door. Yes, it's that sexy over here, folks. The real present is getting it and getting it installed this decade. Did I mention the other half was flipping the washer and dryer back to the washer on the left and dryer on the right configuration that the rest of the US has if they sit the units side by side? Well, it's been a brisk 4 years in this house with shuffling wet laundry around two doors clapping one another (good times....), but we got it, fam. Turned out they'd been avoiding an easy fix. LOL. Well, anyway, did laundry and made dinner as if this were a normal Sunday, because to husband it was, but I am off until January 2nd. Yes. Part of the dinner preparation was making a home for the knives I bought, which turned into me cleaning the counter tops. Who am I even? Also got my tea put up so I don't look like a tea hoarder. I polished off the night by working on outline and digging up a story file to compare notes on some things. On the one hand, 4 year old writing that doesn't suck is a plus. On the other, it's going to take a lot of reworking to make it....well, work with the new framing of the same plot. This tale has gone through a LOT of revisions, now I'm pondering how to couch it in another story (to do a series of flashbacks or not to do a series of flashbacks....that is the question). So many questions there. Went to sleep at a not-absurd hour given there would be no consequences for absurd bedtimes for the time being, except maybe gym time sucking more than it likely will. The DOMS is real.

It would terrify me to behold a test that had Sensei like this. I think he would just flat for the good of humanity tell a student not to test yet if there was a chance of this situation. I hope. Thanks, we will find out very soon, relatively speaking. No plague has been caught so far. The weather is swinging back and forth wildly like a poorly constructed theme park ride, so we'll see.