JustCallMeAmber

Thanks for checking on me! I forgot to update Monday like I usually do, and I didn't carve out time to do it Tuesday. Revised walking game a bit. 15 minutes OUTSIDE per day. 6/7 and 4/7 respectively. Y'ALL. I did not anticipate the level of storms. Yes, summer is our rainy season. BUT, it usually doesn't settle into a consistent pattern until later. I will say that on Saturdays I have made it a point to be outside more. I did walk yesterday. This week should be a bit drier too. I'm leaving this note from week 3, so we can all collectively point and laugh. They said it would be drier. It rained nearly every day. Not just rained, mind you. No, we had tropical downpours and the odd lightning/tornado alerts. Anyways. The goal was set with the intention of sunshine gathering, not getting drenched (either with rain or sweat, because it's hot even when it's cloudy.) I have not tried to tough it out this week, though it hasn't actively rained during the evening. Revive Pomodoro-esque work schedule. 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off, to be adjusted as necessary. I figure on the slow days, I can intersperse recreation with actual work and I'll come out ahead. I did use this a couple of times. I need to try and find a better rhythm with it though, as it feels like I "RUSH" when I see the thing counting down. I think that will get better with more consistent usage. Roll it out. Foam roll/lax ball, etc. my feet 5 minutes a day. They've been wanting to cramp up on me and that is both annoying and painful. I also plan to do some ankle mobility, though I haven't decided how much yet because I don't want to detract from my hip and shoulder mobility (because apparently I'm falling apart at the seams?). 6/7. Tripping over the lax ball is a decent cue to remember to do the thing apparently? Read! I have an ambitious goal of 1 book/week. I don't know how close to that I'll get, but I believe I've got some shorter books stowed/queued. Week 3 in progress Conan Doyle for the Defense still. I did read a short book and listened to a short audiobook. (I also finally finished catching up back episodes of Jocko podcast, which is something of an accomplishment I suppose.) Research! I keep kicking around ideas about learning new skills. Do you know how many of them I've followed through on? The answer is zero. Zilch. None. Nada. So, the idea here is to give myself 2 weeks to collect underpants and then DO SOMETHING. Keeping up with my homework more or less. I'll try this goal again once I have more resources mentally. Despite my less than favorable assessment of the weather, I still went for a jog Saturday. It was hot, it was raining, it was supremely muddy/soggy, with puddles of ankle deep water in places, and dang if I didn't thoroughly enjoy myself. Perhaps I rekindled some of that childlike enthusiasm of stomping in puddles? I may have ruined a pair of socks, but it was totally worth it. The world's been a hard place to be, and I try to keep the harder stuff in my journal rather than here. (Hmm. Maybe that's why I haven't updated very much this round?) I think maybe I just needed to remember that it's ok to play sometimes.

Week 2 and 3: Revised walking game a bit. 15 minutes OUTSIDE per day. 6/7 and 4/7 respectively. Y'ALL. I did not anticipate the level of storms. Yes, summer is our rainy season. BUT, it usually doesn't settle into a consistent pattern until later. I will say that on Saturdays I have made it a point to be outside more. I did walk yesterday. This week should be a bit drier too. Revive Pomodoro-esque work schedule. 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off, to be adjusted as necessary. I figure on the slow days, I can intersperse recreation with actual work and I'll come out ahead. This might get shelved. I think I jinxed myself into a crazy busy couple of weeks lol Roll it out. Foam roll/lax ball, etc. my feet 5 minutes a day. They've been wanting to cramp up on me and that is both annoying and painful. I also plan to do some ankle mobility, though I haven't decided how much yet because I don't want to detract from my hip and shoulder mobility (because apparently I'm falling apart at the seams?). 6/7, and 3/7. Consistency has eluded me but we'll get there. Read! I have an ambitious goal of 1 book/week. I don't know how close to that I'll get, but I believe I've got some shorter books stowed/queued. Week 2's book finished with a little caveat; I actually just listened to it instead of reading it lol. Also, can I just say I love the Harry Potter At Home readings that popped up on spotify? (And elsewhere, but Amber's lazy and this fell in my lap so beautifully.) Week 3 in progress Conan Doyle for the Defense and digging it so far. I believe it was @scalyfreak 's recommendation, so props and thanks 😀 Research! I keep kicking around ideas about learning new skills. Do you know how many of them I've followed through on? The answer is zero. Zilch. None. Nada. So, the idea here is to give myself 2 weeks to collect underpants and then DO SOMETHING. About that. I mentioned that I'd signed up for a take on Hamlet's ghost on EdX. Welp, I also wound up signing up for Psychology. So, I think I'm technically supposed to read a whole textbook in the next 2 days because I didn't read (or open the thing for a week or more) and the other one didn't have a time limit. I mean, I'm not after course credit so I don't know that there's any penalty, but my brain just sees a timer ticking down. I'm not usually an impulsive person, so I don't know why I thought this was a good idea to try and do ALL THE THINGS while also trying to read a book per week, and juggling the rest of the things I usually do. In other news, I burnt the ever-loving tar out of some chicken I'd put in the air fryer. I wasn't thinking clearly, and also, clearly wasn't thinking. I'd marinated it with the intention of roasting it off in the oven, but I had this great idea of sticking in the air fryer to cook quicker and not heat the house. HAHAHA NO. That's the 1st charcoal I've produced in my cooking career. Fortunately, only the skin burned and the chicken itself miraculously did not dry out. Also, the dog LOVED the chicken 'chips'. Also, had a good time watching Bob and Doug in spaaaaaace. Also, I say also a lot. That is all.

Two calories is a good sneeze, so were I in your shoes, I would totally count it. But, I admire your perseverance and adherence to the parameters you've set yourself. Also, I like your adjustments for this week. They seem very practical. Coincidentally, I prepped a vegan dish for my lunch this week-ish. But I'll confess have not yet tried any of the meatless meat products because my brain is a two year old... Wait, scratch that. She's 12 and can't see anything beyond Soylent Green whenever Impossible __ or Beyond __ appears on a menu lol 🤦‍♀️

Oof. That's a LONG week. I hope things are less crazy for you this week, and that you get some rest! Also, super impressed with how well your cut is going

That's a great idea! The summer heat can definitely sap one's energy, so there's a balance between needing sunshine and, well, having your face melted off Raiders of the Lost Ark style lol Funny you mention that.. I wound up signing up for Hamlet's ghost on EdX. Which may also contribute to not quite finishing my book, since now I'm reading more than one I've been roughly hashing things out in categories-- physical skills (handstands and the like), self-improvement (brain work, mostly, but creative skills too), work supportive (skills with crossover to my job), etc. I am probably going to stick to gentler activities though, since my shoulder is not quite as healthy as I'd like. At the moment, I think it's going to be something I can do in a fairly short amount of time (20 minutes or so?), and also will likely adjust reading goal to a certain number of chapters per day or the like. We'll see how this week goes. I'm not going to be mastering anything in that short of a practice span, but I figure I'll at least be able to figure out whether I like it enough to keep putting experience points towards it.

Week 1 in the books. Revised walking game a bit. 15 minutes OUTSIDE per day. Check! Revive Pomodoro-esque work schedule. 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off, to be adjusted as necessary. I figure on the slow days, I can intersperse recreation with actual work and I'll come out ahead. Check, I guess? I did use it on my one slow day, but the rest of the week wound up busy, so I didn't have the need to use the timer to keep on task. Roll it out. Foam roll/lax ball, etc. my feet 5 minutes a day. They've been wanting to cramp up on me and that is both annoying and painful. I also plan to do some ankle mobility, though I haven't decided how much yet because I don't want to detract from my hip and shoulder mobility (because apparently I'm falling apart at the seams?). [Insert gif of someone sweeping things under the rug.] I did the thing..twice. Oops. I have done Sun and Mon this week though. Read! I have an ambitious goal of 1 book/week. I don't know how close to that I'll get, but I believe I've got some shorter books stowed/queued. So I knew that it would be ambitious, and therefore I'm not immensely upset that I fell short. I HAVE read a little every day except yesterday, and usually for an hour or more. I just misjudged how much time I'm actually spending watching TV in the evening. It may be on for 3 hours, but I think I'm closer to 45min-1 hour actual watch time/not doing other things. Also I may read a bit slower than I used to. Research! I keep kicking around ideas about learning new skills. Do you know how many of them I've followed through on? The answer is zero. Zilch. None. Nada. So, the idea here is to give myself 2 weeks to collect underpants and then DO SOMETHING. So. Many. Sweatpants. Underpants.

Glad that the mystery pain is gone, and hope you get some rest!

This is my kinda recipe. Easy is good.

I was looking for an inspiring GIF of building something, but I got distracted by IndyCar drivers playing Jenga. Here for the things, whatever they may be

The possibilities are endless! (Or you know, 4. Same thing.)

The real trick is getting it off of her, so that she'll interact with the peasants (i.e. the other 3 cats). She takes her role of regal queen very seriously.

This follow brought to you by the letter M. Good luck to you!

Sorry to hear you've got such a long wait in front of you! That sounds very stressful and scary

Following!

Goals! Revised walking game a bit. 15 minutes OUTSIDE per day, whether we've already hit our step goals or not. This will be more challenging towards the end of the round, because summer is a thing. But I figure if I wait until twilight, it shouldn't be that bad. (Assuming I can stay awake that late lol) By that point it will be less suffocating, and probably not actively storming. Revive Pomodoro-esque work schedule. 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off, to be adjusted as necessary. I spent a good chunk of last week playing card games on my computer because I was bored and in no mood to do the few items on my task list. I figure on the slow days, I can intersperse recreation with actual work and I'll come out ahead. I'll get stuff done that I've been content to shuffle off to the side, and also I can play games at work. Win win. (To be clear, our company is not against us doing non-work stuff, provided we are still doing our regular work. My old supervisor was a fan of using a bit of distraction to disengage the mind and then attack the problem from a different angle.) Roll it out. Foam roll/lax ball, etc. my feet 5 minutes a day. They've been wanting to cramp up on me and that is both annoying and painful. I also plan to do some ankle mobility, though I haven't decided how much yet because I don't want to detract from my hip and shoulder mobility (because apparently I'm falling apart at the seams?). Read! I have an ambitious goal of 1 book/week. I don't know how close to that I'll get, but I believe I've got some shorter books stowed/queued. Research! I keep kicking around ideas about learning new skills. Do you know how many of them I've followed through on? The answer is zero. Zilch. None. Nada. So, the idea here is to give myself 2 weeks to collect underpants and then DO SOMETHING. Leaving the kitty gif and also giving you a bonus gif because it feels right. I do hope that was clean when he put it on..

Week 5 and challenge wrap up: Working towards Flying Pigeon pose. Practice Figure Four Chair pose, with reaching my hands to the floor. 5/7. I did skip one day on account of another headache, and one random bad stomach-ache. Water my weekends well. Drink AT LEAST 120oz of water per day, more if I'm outside much. Check! Haven't missed yet, but I've had to take action a couple of times to make sure I didn't. It seems to be paying off in terms of not feeling like I've been run over by a parade of pachyderms. The third one I haven't really determined how to properly quantify. Eat more mindfully; stop and breathe. Take 10 seconds to check in. I feel like I did well with this overall. It's weird trying to figure out how to grade something so subjective but I do feel like I'm actively paying more attention to my eating habits, and I'm not actively sitting in front of the TV with snacks. Generally, I am pleased with things. I did not do a whole lot of extras this week. I did straighten up the pantry (again) and canned goods cabinet (again). I also put a few things in a box to be donated at some point. We did seek out lost kitty toys, but found surprisingly few. (We also found we need to vacuum/dust under furniture more often.) I think I hit a floor press PR, if I remember right. Got a lot done at work. Determined my to be read/TBR list is actually longer than when the world started shutting down. So, we read and read, yet there's so much more to go, and I'm not mad about that. I haven't decided what I'm doing for the next round yet. I'm starting back to 4 days/week lifting (from current 3), tweaking some nutrition (peanut butter, forever and always) and either re-emphasizing mobility or giving up squats. Not sure how much more I want to add. I'll figure it out at some point I suppose. Anyways. Happy Star Wars Day and zero week!

This feels like a magical situation waiting to happen. I took my brother to Aldi's before I went to the grocery yesterday. The contents of my bag: (admittedly, multiple households represented) 8 bags of chips, a box of rice krispies treats and 2 cases of bottled water. This is how you quarantine, yes? Oh, that sucks! At peak, I'd say 90% of the people at our grocery were wearing masks. So if anybody was giving out glares, they were mighty busy. Also, if you're wearing a mask, you 100% have permission to stick your tongue out at rude people. Just sayin' FTFW Also, you still technically earned the wagon, so you can treat yourself to it when it makes more sense. Curious to hear your solution for shoes! I've a small mountain of stacked compartments/shelves and the little zip up containers they sell at IKEA. It works, but it's not exactly the prettiest thing ever.

Sorry you had a tough week. I do hope this one is going better for you and does not involve many 12 hour work days (yuck!). You'll get that wagon in no time!

Seconding (thirding?) freezing of tomato paste. If it's good enough for Alton Brown, it's good enough for me. Also, the internet says you can freeze the garlic as well, but I've no experience with it personally.

Week 4: Working towards Flying Pigeon pose. Practice Figure Four Chair pose, with reaching my hands to the floor. 6/7. I did skip one day on account of a rather annoying headache. Water my weekends well. Drink AT LEAST 120oz of water per day, more if I'm outside much. Check! Haven't missed yet, but I've had to take action a couple of times to make sure I didn't. The third one I haven't really determined how to properly quantify. Eat more mindfully; stop and breathe. Take 10 seconds to check in. I did much better this week. I haven't made the jump to absolutely no distractions during dinner but I am focused on my plate, and while the TV has been on at times, it is literally in the background (behind me). I savored the heck out of some pita yesterday instead of eating it as fast as possible because it was dang good. So at least the concept is slowly sinking in. I did get my bands hung up... and one of them fell off already lol. I guess I'm going to use those hooks elsewhere and find some magnetic ones of the garage. I also cleaned out and re-folded the majority of my wardrobe. It looks pretty, but it took much longer than I anticipated (half my Saturday, roughly) and I needed a workspace that was a few inches taller (I was slouching and the upper back DOMS made me weep.) Anyways. I believe a kitty toy round up will be on my list this week. I doubt I'll surpass the previous score, but you never know. Sometimes I think the cats intentionally push their stuff under the furniture just to see me digging them all out. I've been in a unusually sunny mood today, so I leave you with the following:

Realized after logging off yesterday that I never actually updated my thread. Whoops. Week 3, now that we're halfway through 4: Working towards Flying Pigeon pose. Practice Figure Four Chair pose, with reaching my hands to the floor. 3/7. Ouch. Actually, come to think of it, literal ouch Monday Squatday. Creaky knees were creaky the past couple of days. Physical reinforcement of my mentally noted need for hip mobility. Water my weekends well. Drink AT LEAST 120oz of water per day, more if I'm outside much. Check! Barely, but check. The third one I haven't really determined how to properly quantify. Eat more mindfully; stop and breathe. Take 10 seconds to check in. I did not do this very well, to be honest. Had a couple of rough days mentally and those always drain me. But I did not pick it back up once I was feeling more myself. That being said, I did not have any impulses to eat things I wouldn't typically eat, nor did I eat more when already stuffed to the gills. Mostly I just ate in front of screens or while walking more often than I would prefer. Week 3 much more productive overall than week 2. Basically did 5 days of work in 3 because I was in a fog the other 2, but it got done and that generally makes me feel better. Ticked one item off house list. Made some tasty foods. Washed the dang shower curtain because it was getting annoying. Watched a more reasonable amount of TV. Watched an unreasonable amount of Otter Cam. (Only unreasonable considering I'm at work. Otters are adorable and it is peaceful to watch them do otter things between work stuff, what can I say?) On my list to do this week is to rehang the suction hooks where I had my resistance bands stored. I'm thinking they just did not adjust well to temperature changes in the garage, and as such they fell off. It should be consistently warm-to-hot now through October/November, so I'd like to get them back up there and get my bands neatly situated again.

Right? It was so GOOD! I think that's the point where I realized I should actually schedule some movie watching time. (It's hard for me to stay awake most evenings, so I have to start them early or split them over a couple of nights. Makes for difficult spontaneous choices.)

That's true. The to-do list will still be there when I get back to it, so a little extra rest is not a bad move. The trick is to find the balance between doing all the things and doing nothing, because I wind up feeling icky if I do nothing all day. Last week just happened to be the week of distraction. This looks much like my work week. I'm glad you asked. Currently, Spring Baking Championship, Buddy v. Duff 2, Chopped: Sweets on Food Network, and Zumbo's Just Desserts 2 and The Great British Baking Show: Masterclass on Netflix. I also did reruns on demand of all of the baking championships (Spring, Halloween, Christmas, except the Kids one. Mainly because the kids always cry when they get eliminated, whereas the grown ups only cry about 30% of the time) and the Best Baker in America whilst Science Channel was randomly broken in my home over the last few weeks. I haven't started the 2nd season of Sugar Rush, or Nailed It yet. My TV time is roughly 95% gingerbread, pastry, and frosting..

Dang, you made that look easy!

LOOT! I support your choice. It is indeed both stylish and functional. I'm very impressed with how close to target you are with your nutrition! That's no easy thing. Sorry this is hard, and wish I could do more than just commiserate! I think most of us are surviving by structuring as much as possible. Hang in! These two seem to be at counter purposes. Just sayin' I would be happy to have a partner in the goal should that be feasible and of help to you when you are ready, though. 'Tis a shame the curry chicken wound up in the bin. Have you tried freezing (assuming you have the space to do so)? I know some stuff does ok, and other stuff not so much. It seems like most of the curries I've frozen in the past did ok provided I ate it within a reasonable timeframe and didn't kill it while reheating.