SunlitSapling

Whoops, I fell behind on this. I'm in Orlando so the storm has been taking up a lot of brain space. Still walking in the morning and doing pretty well on that, as well as cooking. Yesterday was a weird day because of the hurricane so we did basically nothing (there was a curfew, nothing was open, going outside was a no-no, etc). A few trees, lots of debris, and a fence fell over in my neighborhood but thankfully my property was basically untouched. I went out into the storm a few times to check on the stray cats hiding in my bushes and give them food. They tend to congregate around my house because we take care of them and each time I went out they wanted pets more than food. Furiosa, a cat with three legs, was the one we were the most concerned about but she's doing well and ate a ton this morning. I took the chance to effectively pressure-wash my lanai this morning, since all the furniture is still inside. I'll be putting those back together later today and starting up a fall veggie garden in the sunny spots later this week. Not doing as much fitness stuff as I'd like to, but this last month has been very work/home-oriented and I'm ok with that for now.

Thank you! I'm always impressed by how brave artists who sell their work are. There's a ridiculous amount of impostor syndrome in those professions and I'm amazed by my friends who have it as their full-time work. I just returned from a road trip to West Virginia to see the My Brother, My Brother and Me live show. Driving through the Appalachian mountains was breathtaking and I'm so happy my hubs and I went and had a great time. Also good to know we can be stuck in a car for 14 hours at a time and not argue. We went to the Georgia aquarium along the way and saw whale sharks (one of my favorite animals) and did a decent amount of walking there and around Atlanta in general. Road trips aren't the best for NF challenges but luckily mine was only three days. This morning I grocery shopped for some fresh veggies and am in the middle of doing my laundry. I'll probably walk or do some stretches/strength work today but this is partially a rest day since we're wrecked.

Got rained out of yesterday's walk but I finished my cross stitch grid and made some ribeye and green beans for dinner. Also did two ten-minute stretching/yoga sessions. These were really useful and I'll definitely work on incorporating them into my routine soon. Today I took a two mile walk, finished an art piece for a friend that can also be used as a placeholder for future commissions, and ate steak and green beans for dinner. I'm trying my best to finally look at my art as a legitimate form of income these days. When I was younger (and now), I was surrounded by so many talented artist friends that I always went "well I just doodle really badly and I don't want to do it as a job so I'm not an artist." 1) Years of doodling pays off and my art has improved significantly since then. I've just started practicing with the intent to get better so I'm excited to see how far along I'll be this time next year!! 2) Man I'd LOVE to do it as a job. 3) Those friends are always my greatest source of encouragement and take me more seriously than I take myself. They're the only reason my work has started getting out a tiny bit, despite only having like 20 tumblr followers. I'm nearing 900 notes on a quick throwaway painting so obvs I need to reconsider my approach from now on. @_@ On Thursday I'll be leaving early to drive to West Virginia (stopping by Atlanta to see a friend and the aquarium) to see the My Brother, My Brother and Me Candlenights live show with my hubs. I've never been on a road trip before and this trip was super spontaneous so I'm excited. I'm a very anxious person so unexpected travel always causes a little bit of fear but overall I feel really good about it! After quitting my job my anxiety has lessened significantly, which is great because I can't afford the $120/month meds I take after October begins when my health insurance finally runs out. Now I'm off to play board games with a group of friends

I'm keeping track of it in Evernote but I will be posting here as often as I can! Yesterday was kind of a rough day, since I spent most of the day with a killer migraine. Despite that I did some cleaning, played remote DnD with my friends, and did some walking around while my friends shopped. Ate a burger and shake my friend brought me while I was laid up in bed and a poached egg before then. Not a super great food day. Today, I've had an onion bagel for breakfast and two mini-croissant bologna sandwiches. I finished up one of my freelance tasks and sent the invoice (yay it was just $10 but I'll take it) and will be taking a walk shortly. Also working on creating a grid template for cross stitch patterns. Will update again later

Less than a month ago, I quit my lovely but underpaid and stressful job to focus on improving my health (which had gone downhill over the last three years) and building my freelance career. I've done a few half-finished challenges with NF before but drifted away before the end of each. This challenge, I'm starting from square one and accepting that all the progress I made in earlier challenges has been lost. The main goal? Log what I do. Food (not calories), work, exercise, household chores, cool things that happened, etc. I have a hard time remembering anything I did unless it's been recorded and that leads me to believe I'm not accomplishing anything in life. So I'll be aiming to upload a short update each day/every other day during this challenge. I found in earlier challenges that recording this data also leads to me making better choices overall, so hopefully that'll be the case again. I also might be participating in Inktober again this year, so that can be a bonus challenge! I'll be posting my art over at http://VerdantSpirit.tumblr.com

Figured I'd post the watercolors I've done so far. I just kind of zone out and start painting without a plan. I had to stop on the second one because I was getting kind of neurotic with it, which defeats the point of the exercise.

Week 2 Review Outside walks at work - 5/5 Brought lunch to work - 5/5 Exercise - 0/3 ouch Walking at work is already a habit and bringing my lunch is rapidly becoming the norm. One day I had to grab an extra snack because my lunch was super tiny but I still brought and ate it, so no points off. Getting the motivation to exercise these days is super hard because any kind of "strenuous" body weight work makes me dizzy. Not to mention I was basically sick most of Saturday too. I hate that this is my new normal. I should probably focus on something small like more walking. Maybe a fitbit step goal next week? On Sunday, K and I worked on the garden and bought a raspberry plant and blackberry plant to replace some meh shrubs by our front door. We also plan on ripping out the ugly shrubs in the middle of our front yard and replacing them with a peach tree and flowers. I also did some meditative painting, which I sadly couldn't count for the mini. I think it would fit into the mindfulness one this week, though. Need to go shopping soon so I can cook pot roast (the ingredients are on sale) and bring that for lunch this week.

Still doing well with this challenge! I need to do more intentional exercise but I'm still having a hard time finding a proper routine to follow. Currently 100% on all work-related items with one more day left in the week. It should be an easy 5/5 for walking and bringing lunch. I'm really interested in seeing how that last one frees up my budget. On Tuesday, I finally cleaned out my side patio and swept it so I could restart some of my container gardens. I did that and planted some bush beans before sitting down to stretch with some of the stray cats who hang out by my house. We currently have a clowder of very friendly strays that is made of 10-15+ cats. They're amazing and we and our neighbors keep an eye on them to make sure they're safe. I've also given myself an extra quest this week, which is to track what I'm eating and when I'm eating it. My medication has drastically changed my appetite (which isn't really a bad thing) but I just want to be aware of what I'm regularly eating and figure out how to improve its nutritional density.

Still feeling good this week! Still 100% on walking at work and bringing lunch. The walking bit has been easy because it's so enjoyable and I'm finally planning well enough for the lunch part to be easy. Hope to make it a stronger habit. I'm considering combining my exercise/yoga goals since feeling restricted in what I could do each day was becoming difficult. For now, I think I'll change that goal to exercising 3x a week. The time goals on Saturday also feel awkward so I think I'll adjust the weekend goals to just report in with all the productive thing I've done. I'm REALLY excited about learning RPG Maker and I find myself playing around with it or painting when I get home instead of immediately booting up guild wars 2. My current plan is to write myself step-by-step tutorials as I learn how to code different events.

Hello fellow respawning assassin! I'm really into your stat sheet layout and I understand wanting to do everything at once. I have way too many interests to get better at them one at a time (I've tried) so I just do what I can and adjust when I feel like one should take priority. Also, great job with your artwork! I've been slowly leveling up artistically myself. Wishing you the best with all your goals!

Week 1 Review: An emergency vet visit on Monday led to not being at work so work-related items were out of 4 this week. Bring lunch to work - 4/4 Workout on Tuesday/Thurs - 1/2 Outside walk at work - 4/4 Stretching on Thurs/Fri - 1/2 Housework and meal prep - 2/2 Overall I think I did really well this week, though I think some minor goal adjustments wouldn't hurt. My main issue with workouts/stretching were how restrictive the days were. I'd forget after work on Tuesday but feel making up for it on Wednesday still didn't count. So I'll probably just change those to numbers. On Thursday I "ran" a 5k with K's work (my hubs) and we finished at 49min, 54sec. Turns out being able to walk a 5k on the walking track at home is MUCH easier than on broken, uphill brick roads with 17k other people. Either way, it felt really nice and we'll definitely do another one. This weekend, I finished cleaning out my closet (with help from K because they're amazing) and got us RPG Maker MV. Saturday night I taught myself how to make environments, code NPC interactions and dialogue branches, move players between maps, obtain (and create) items and give them to NPCs who only react once it's in your inventory, etc. It was really fun and bug testing my baby code was pretty hilarious sometimes. I definitely want to keep this up, probably daily. I also discovered a really soothing youtube channel (CocoBeeArt) that is time lapsed watercolors set to really lovely music. I love traditional art (especially watercolor) so it inspired me to try painting without planning as a meditation practice. I also managed aged one guided meditation session using my Deepak Chopra app to help out in the mini. Overall I'm feeling really positive this week (probably partially because I finally got my meds back) and I hope to work on keeping it that way.

Gonna be a summoner again this round! Focused meditation is super nice (I usually use breathing or a candle). I hope summoners get something like art meditation before this challenge is over because I've been doing hours of abstract watercolor meditation lately.

Great idea building off habits you've already been doing. Wishing you the best in this challenge! As someone who is also into drawing - what kind of things do you plan to practice on?

So this weekend some kind of allergy!sickness had me literally bedridden for two days. But it's ok, I made up for it today! I made it all the way to work this morning before I got a text from my roommate, saying that my puppers needed to go to the vet. I immediately turned around and went home, took my dog to the vet, dropped him off, and went to get my hair cut since I had to take a vacation day to deal with all of this. While waiting to hear back about my dog, I filed my taxes, changed my sheets, did laundry, and called my insurance company because they kept rejecting my daily meds. This week's "walk at work" and "bring lunch to work" goals will be changed to a 4/4 goal, since I wasn't at work today. The good news is I packed two days of lunches this evening (steak, spinach, and a little bit of ravioli). I also did stretches for 15 minutes and am getting back to using my Deepak Chopra app to meditate so I can participate in the mini without it interfering with my other goals.

While I've got a great guided meditation app, do you think it'd be possible to count like super mindful yoga as well? Just trying to combine some goals this time around, if possible.