Jayniana Jones

Overall my day was skewed to homeschool. I had to refresh my algebra, geometry, and human anatomy knowledge. I thought I had a good memory but apparently when these items aren't part of everyday use the details get forgotten. Yoga Streak Day 128. Today I had help from my furry friend, Buddy. He is a frequent visitor on my yoga mat. Before my surgery, his favorite pose was down dog because he could run underneath me. Lately, he likes to lean against me when I do floor poses. Rehab I had a later start today than usual for my exercises. I managed to squeeze two rounds (about 25 min each round) in. I discovered a few minutes ago that some of my exercises need to be done three times in a day in addition to sets and reps. I'll have to tweak tomorrow. Work on my novel. I wrote 1,747 words today all done while my family went to taekwondo. Epic Quest It has been rainy on and off today. I did some "up and down" drills (leaping on and off different pieces of furniture) with Buddy. I realized in the session that I have to pick some activities where I'm less animated. I found myself trying not to run or pivot - bad for my knee at the moment. Tomorrow, I plan to introduce the clicker. I'm reading a book that gives ideas on utilizing clicker training with agility. Supposedly, as the two of us get comfortable with all the obstacles, I could run him through the course using body language and no words. I'm intrigued. Getting Organized Slowly... Used my planner sheet. It's still helping me stay on track.

So I'm dropping in to follow you. I'm a bit hesitant to keep following because I've had cake on my brain for the last week and I've been trying to pretend cake doesn't exist. Then seeing all those gifs and comments about cake, my willpower is weakening. I actually have a strawberry cake recipe as startup page on the browser of my IPad to remind me to print it out and try it on one of those "special occasion" type days. Good luck on your challenge. I'm cheering for you. Well, except for this week because our teams are competing and I don't want to be disloyal to my team. Just kidding. I'll cheer you on anyways. Oh, and I borrowed your idea of using a blank calendar for tracking what I'm doing. I've been using it since mid-April and so far I'm finding it super handy and much easier to manage than high tech setups. Enjoy the evening or day (depending on when you read this).

I like how you're trying to keep your goals in mind both by meeting them and tweaking as necessary. I'm glad the allergy stuff is getting resolved. I assume this means you'll be leaving lots of tracks all over your town? Are you coming to the end of your semester or do you go through the summer? I'm a bit envious of your bouldering plan. Before my first ACL injury, I spent many hours climbing. Enjoy it when you can.

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to take a peek.

This round, I'm trying to post more regularly with my daily updates. Yoga Streak Continues. I'm on Day 127. I wrote down a bunch of knee friendly poses and created a practice from them. Physical therapy today. I'm doing well and received more exercises to do. Work on my novel. I logged 2,062 words today. I surprised myself, but the ideas flowed and my fingers hardly stumbled on the keyboard. I delegated some chores to get an extra chunk of time. Epic Quest My art area is in disarray because we're moving my office space. So this week, I figure I'll map out a plan to work with my dog on agility. I did a rowdy training session today because it was raining outside. He's a barker when we play. Getting Organized Slowly... So my husband and I decided to swap rooms for our offices. My office is always freezing (it's in the basement) and his is always super warm (it's upstairs). I love being toasty, I'm pretty sure I was meant to live in the tropics. My hubby prefers it to be chilly, he wears shorts all year even on days when temps are way below zero. Since the move will happen this weekend, I'll probably end up getting things organized more quickly than I expected.

Just catching up on my reading. It sounds like you're off to a good start. I'm glad the idea of cooking extra is building your reserves. It's so nice to have complete meals handy at a moments notice. We are at the end of our reserves, so I'll have to start building them up again. Love your shoppers from Saturday. They look happy. You live in a gorgeous area.

Sweet! I love ending the day with luck.

I think the spreadsheet is broken under the shapeshifters tab. I just logged my time and the rank info didn't change (I'm the last one on the list). Can this be fixed, please? Thanks.

Just dropping in to let you know I'm following. I'll catch up on reading later.

Just popping in to let you know I'm following. I'll have to catch up on reading later. Have a great day.

Following. I love the view. Bummer you can't run that on a regular basis. As you increase your yoga intensity try to focus on matching your breath with each movement, I think you may be surprised at how much aerobic ability you will be able to maintain for your running when you're able to get back to it. I've been wondering about your job quest. Glad to hear you're still working at it. If you are looking for a Kindle book recommendation, I just finished reading Wool by Hugh Howey. It's a very interesting read with lots of mystery, action, and rebel rousing. Its setting is a dystopian future earth, which normally I don't care for but this one has interesting twists. It's a trilogy. I haven't started the second book yet because I have a few other things I need to get done.

Thanks. My new goals are posted here: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/82731-jayniana-jones-meets-patience/. I'm a few days behind schedule. Last week was a whirlwind. Lots of people dropped in to visit and needed to be fed. I drove someone somewhere almost every day. Friday, I spent nearly 8 hours on the road dropping people off at different locations and picking someone up. I should start charging it could be a great way to raise travel funds. By the end of the week, I saw almost my entire family including my in-laws (some people I saw twice). Saturday evening I met up with my former college roommate at an Irish Pub (yes, there is an Irish Pub in Wisconsin run by people from Ireland - how crazy is that?) because I needed a break from being the one in charge and preparing meals. As a side note, I really enjoy boxty (boxties?) with lamb stew. My yoga streak continues despite chaos.

Patience. I'm patient with everyone else, but often short change myself. I'm currently on the recovery side of an ACL repair and I'm in the window where I feel no pain and yet my knee ligament is at it's weakest point. I have to be careful not to push things. So patience is needed this month. As far as goals go for this challenge most of them are going to stay the same as before with a slight twist... Get Organized Slowly... Last round, I implemented a to-do list that is working really well for me because it requires me to identify the top three most important things I need to do for the day. I write some reminder at the top that it's meant to help me not harm me. While I don't use it every day, it's really helping me to keep things I care about most in the forefront of my mind. So I'm going to keep using the technique. In addition, I read about a technique that may help me reach some of the big picture goals that I have called the 6-week press. Basically, I'm adapting it for five weeks to match the Nerd Fitness challenge forums. The first four weeks I work super duper hard on my goals and then the fifth week I go do fun things I normally wouldn't do. I plan to have lighter loads the fifth week because I think if I completely stop my routine it'll be harder to get going again - however having a week of fun stuff sounds worth the effort to earn it. Maintain my yoga steak. As of today, I'm at Day 126. I honestly didn't expect myself to get this far but I'm glad I'm still working at it. I have to figure out some new stuff because I'm getting bored and when I get bored I tend to procrastinate. Obviously, procrastination puts my yoga streak in jeopardy and I don't like fretting about missing it. Do what my physical therapist tells me to. Pretty easy because I care about getting full use of my leg. I have some pretty big physical goals I'm working toward and my knee needs the best chance it can get. At the moment, the two home sessions of exercises take about 40 minutes total, so I'm thinking between yoga, these exercises, and walking that's enough fitness focus. Work on my novel. I've been puttering with my novel draft and decided before my surgery to have a deadline of July 15th. I was a bit optimistic about what I could actually get done in the month of April, but I figure I need to honor my deadline unless something super terrible pops up (and, yes, sadly there are some things on the horizon that could explode). My guesstimate for my novel's length is 75,000 words. This challenge I need to get 33,500 words written. That's about 8,375 words per week. It's a lot but for some reason, I'm motivated by things that push my abilities. Also, within my writing section, I need to send off my completed novel draft (a different one that is in editing mode) to my writer's group for review. They want the whole thing which scares me. I told them I'd think about it. Then on the way home realized, I have to say yes because of my Epic Quest item that says "Say yes to something that scares the crap out of me." I need to send it by Saturday (5/15) Gulp. Start an Epic Quest item. I had wanted to get my passport this month, but costs may prevent me now that I'm seeing medical bills rolling in. So I'm thinking about picking an art one that I can get started on. I'm not sure which one I want to do yet. I need to sleep on it. Follow other Nerd Fitness Folks I like keeping up with what everyone else is doing. My biggest struggle is I burn up hours reading and commenting in one evening. This isn't terrible, but I find that usually I'm using it as a tool to procrastinate something else. Then I don't check in for a few days and find there's tons of reading to do. So, this month I'll have to experiment with the best way to keep up without overwhelm.

Around here workbooks and flashcards aren't met with enthusiasm. I've had unschool leanings from the beginning and then shifted to a bit more formality for my daughter who is in high school. She likes a bit more structure than I do. So I just get out of her way and let her have a say. You will figure it out. There are so many resources available now that weren't around when I started. There're lots of opportunities. One book you may want to peek at since you're more unschool oriented is Free Range Learning by Laura Grace Weldon. It's a book I wish had been around when I was just starting out because I was constantly under the magnifying glass by family members who didn't agree with our decision to homeschool.

I had tried posting a comment a few days ago and for whatever reason couldn't. So I'm catching up. I'm sorry to hear things didn't go as smoothly on the flip side of your little one coming. The adjustment period is always a bit rough because everyone is tired and sleep deprived. I remember wishing I could sleep as soundly as my oldest when I'd be up all night with my youngest. It's sounds like you have a good support system in place for you. Take it easy on yourself. Homeschooling little ones is easier than you think (if you have questions feel free to drop me a line - I've been homeschooling since my kids were born). The hospitals will work with you for a payment plan if needed (it took us two years to pay for a son in full - we were very broke when he was born and had to pay for everything out of pocket because insurance didn't cover pregnancy). New routines will fall into place. The important thing is to grab moments of peace to maintain your sanity. Things work out. Glad to hear the weekend gave you rest and fun.

Just checking in to see how things went. For your crunches are you doing only one type? Maybe for the next round you could add other core exercises to your challenge to give variety for the abs (i.e. combos of scissors, reverse crunches, yogic bicycles, planks with leg raises, leg raises and lowers). I hope your back gets feeling better and your boat is spacious.

I echo the sentiments before me. I think you managed well considering your struggle with allergies. We're all a work in progress so perfection isn't as important as learning. By the way, plain tomato sauce on cauliflower would be gross. Homemade spaghetti sauce has basil, garlic, fennel, and ground meat and is pretty good on cauliflower. I can't eat pasta so it's my substitute.

My recap: Yoga - Success Today was Day 118 of my yoga streak! I almost gave up on the whole idea of continuing the streak mid-week last week because I overdid some exercises and my leg was killing me. The yoga session I have been using was getting boring because I've been using the same one nearly every day since my surgery. I tried a regular one thinking I could adapt it but got discouraged because I can't lunge, twist, pivot, or do anything where my leg is at a 90-degree angle. I know I will be able to soon, but I was a bit premature in the attempt. The day I wanted to quit, I went chatted with my physical therapist and learned a few things I could do. I can't do a complete yoga flow (those are my favorites) but I have some poses I can work on (planks, standing balance poses, and floor stretches) so I started experimenting with creating my own flow. That helped. Rehab - Success I've done everything asked of me in rehab. I still ask lots of questions and make sure that I understand exactly what I'm supposed to do. At the moment my rehab exercises are to be done twice a day, seven days a week, and take about 20 minutes for each round. If I don't do the first batch in the morning I feel like my day is nothing but focusing on my knee. Being mostly on the couch for two weeks gave me time to think about things that are important to me. To make a long story short, before surgery, I dropped a lot of the things I wanted to do in order to be available for family members and fulfill obligations. Since I couldn't do anything for others, I noticed that the world didn't come to an end, my family functioned pretty well without me, and the obligations I had found other people better qualified and more enthusiastic to carry on the torch. In a way, I feel like I'm in a spot where I have a clean slate and point myself in the direction I want to go instead of doing what I think everyone else wants me to do. Free weights - Shouldn't have been on my list because I didn't get the okay until last week to do them. Eat Well - Success Create Art Once a Week - Mostly I found this one challenging mostly because of focus and time. Originally, I pictured completing a project a week, but I wanted to do the best I could so things took me longer than I thought they would. I'm a bit of perfectionist when it comes to my stuff and tend to rework things until I get it "right". For the next challenge, I may have to switch to palette knife painting or pastels where I can't fall into the nitty gritty detail trap. Get Myself Organized - Success and still in progress. This month I found a daily planning sheet that helped me focus on what is important. Every weekday evening/morning I write down what I plan to get done for the day. The sheet is set up so that the three most important things get written at the top left corner. Then there is a separate list that appears below the top three things. Under that is a grid that uses the Einsenhower urgent/important principle. The left side has a timesheet where I can jot down things that are scheduled for the day. (I'd post a picture but it's copyrighted.) Since I'm usually terrible at maintaining any daily log or semblance of a schedule, every day I wrote something to the effect of "This planner is meant to help you reach your goals not control you." It felt silly at first, but I think it actually helped me not look at the thing with disdain. I assigned point values to the items I wrote in the to do list. If the items were in the top three, they were 5 points. The items listed in the other area were assigned point values of .5, 1, 2, or 3. At the end of the day, I'd tally my points. Anything undone resulted in subtracting points (this was to help me learn to be a bit more realistic with what I can accomplish in a day). Then when I had 20 points, I could use them to make a move on my game. Finished Setting Up My Epic Quest - Success It'll always be a work in progress, but it definitely gave me clarity on what is important to me. I plan using the items for my future challenges. I think I may break them into smaller goals because if I go a long time without checking something off, I'm going to forget about the list and never look at it again. As a side note, I focused on meditation for the mini assassin's challenge. I managed to meditate at least five days a week (unfortunately, my meditation efforts didn't get counted for the last week of the mini because I had computer problems and little patience for fixing it). However, I had an incident happen where stress levels were extremely high for everyone but me. That has never happened before. I let people rant and vent to me and my blood pressure didn't rise. Instead, I calmly stepped in, solved the problem and walked away with amusement. It was an awesome feeling and I think it's because of the meditation practices and the yoga breathing techniques. That's my challenge in a nutshell. Next round I want to find a way to balance keeping up with everyone's progress better because I think it really helps me stay motivated on my own stuff.

I have two physical therapists (I hope that doesn't mean I'm hard to handle) and this time around they actually believe me when I say yes, I'm wearing the crappy lovely brace like I'm supposed and yes, I'm doing the exercises assigned. The nearest gym is about 35 miles from my house (physical therapy is 25 miles). My hubby and I have talked about adding a few pieces of equipment to our home gym (he's a bit of a CrossFit enthusiast). I lucked out with our insurance because we had decided to go with the posh package last November (it was $20 more per month with a $2000 deductible instead of a $10,000 deductible) because our 13-year-old son is half daredevil and half klutz. I didn't expect to be the one using the posh coverage. Haha. Thanks for peeking at my character profile. One of my favorite services for meal planning is plantoeat.com. Recipes can be added with the click of a button into your account. For meal planning you drag the recipe onto the date you want to make it. In the process, it automatically generates a grocery list. The list can be printed or sent to your phone. I print it because I'm a bit old-fashioned and like to scribble things out with a pen. I'm thinking rather than cooking everything in a few days, I'm going to try doubling a recipe each time I make it and put one in the freezer.

Congrats on finishing your yurt platform. I love it when I finish something that's been hanging over my head for so long it's become an unwanted pet. Is the yurt completely built or is the platform only the beginning of the building process? Your crafts turned out really cute. I have a few thoughts for you with your challenges... - The different colors for your challenges work really well and I think makes it easy to see your progress on your different goals. - I think you're correct that a yes/no style challenge works better for you. If I recall correctly, one of your past challenges you had a yes/no and then had a weekly tally of how many yes/passes you were shooting for. I think it helped you see your progress and make you more determined for a success (the no sugar challenge comes to mind - there was a day towards the end when you were tempted by cake and you turned it down). - Definitely, make sure you factor in the changes in your schedule with the additional chores. Maybe they can be worked into your challenge somehow so that things in your life feel more connected? Looking forward to seeing your next challenge setup. Do you start selling at the farmer's market in May or will that be June?

I can totally relate with finding it hard to keep up with everyone and everything happening on the forums. I juggle lots and even though I have a computer at home and fast internet my good intentions with spending a few minutes gets lost along the way. Congrats on your continued progress of workouts. I don't blame you for not wanting to run in the rain. Hopefully, it won't be raining for you in the a.m. I'm sorry to hear about your brother. I hope since his cancer was caught early that it will get zapped with relative ease.

I've had the same debate myself. A week seems like it may be less nutty than doing three weeks worth of meals. Is it worth cooking for an entire day on the weekend to save cooking 30-45 minutes per evening? I could just have a rigid meal plan on hand for the week and make sure the groceries are there. Although, one thing I did notice is cooking in bulk did cut the grocery budget by $100 for the month.

Ooh, good one. I just made my epic quest live. I had "Explore Bryce Canyon" already entered but decided to add another to rise to the challenge. So I added explore a local tourist site. There are a few I've been meaning to get to but never make the time.

My nerd fitness character profile is live: https://www.nerdfitness.com/character/47341

Phew! I'm glad you were "too old" to post your updates because I'm almost exactly 6 months younger than you and I'm glad to see I'll have a handy excuse for not posting my updates regularly. Haha. I hope you are feeling better and get a chance to resume normalness. Have a great week.