FatboySuave

Monday, April 26, 2021

Quest 2: Walk my dogs: D

Quest 3: Cook more, eat out less: F

Quest 4: Awesome Hour: F

Life Quests: Finished "The Professor and the Madman" and also finished "Flamer." 

Week 4 Total: F

I've been quietly updating my battle log the past two weeks. Progress slipped quite a lot. I failed to get my meal prep done this past week, so that really threw me off. And Booklet had a pretty nasty bug bite on her paw that I've been treating. I decided to not take the dogs on walks until she heals. And I've been having some mental/emotional struggles, letting silly things to get to me. But I'm not going to let it derail me completely.

One major success this past week: I finished two books! I read "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. " It's about how the OED came together and follows the primary editor as well as one of the biggest contributors, who did work for the dictionary from an asylum that he had been committed to because he shot and killed a man. Very interesting! I later learned that Mel Gibson made a movie adaptation and it was pretty controversial, but it strayed from the true elements quite a lot. The book is worth a read, the movie not so much worth a watch. The book was quite wordy (as you can imagine a book about the dictionary might be) so I chose a graphic novel for a quick read immediately after. "Flamer" is a fictional story about a boy at summer sleepaway camp struggling with acceptance of himself and his sexuality. I cried super hard while reading it and found it incredibly relatable. I highly recommend it! Now I'm reading a book that I started previously but sort of forgot about: "The Angel's Game" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I'm not feeling it a whole lot, but I'm going to stick with it. 

Today I completed my meal prep, so that's a good start for the week. I've been thinking a lot about my mindset lately. I started a mentality podcast recently (The Mindset Mentor with Rob Dial). I'm not particularly fond of the host, but I do find the messages/themes to be thought provoking. I'd prefer to find a different podcast with similar messaging. I don't know, we'll see, maybe I'll stick with it. But when I was doing therapy a few years ago, my therapist talked about cognitive behavioral therapy, and I've been thinking about restarting it. I think the first time around I wasn't really ready to put in the work and effort into changing how I think. But I believe I'm more open and willing to put in the work now. And that's what the podcast focuses on, how to change the way you think about yourself. For example, he had an episode recently about how people dislike themselves and criticize their selves so harshly. He mentioned some experiment where women were tasked with writing down the things they didn't like about themselves. And then they had the women try to read those things to their younger sisters, and of course they didn't want to say those things because you don't say shitty things to ones you love. So the realization is meant to be that we should stop tearing ourselves down so much and be kinder to ourselves. I really need to learn how to do that for myself. And I fear that I'm taking out that harshness on some of the people I work with, so that's definitely no bueno. 

Quest 2: Walk my dogs: F

Quest 3: Cook more, eat out less: D+

Quest 4: Awesome Hour: D

Life Quests: Made a lot of progress on my current book. 

Week 3 Total: D

Sunday, April 24, 2021

Saturday, April 23, 2021

Friday, April 22, 2021

Thursday, April 21, 2021

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Monday, April 19, 2021

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Friday, April 16, 2021

Thursday, April 15, 2021

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Monday, April 12, 2021

Quest 2: Walk my dogs: C+

Quest 3: Cook more, eat out less: C

Quest 4: Awesome Hour: B-

Life Quests: I've read about 70 pages in my latest book. I've made minimal progress on being mindful of my gaming time. 

Week 2 Total: B-

I started this challenge late, so I missed Week 1, but here's what feels like Week 1 for me but is actually Week 2, lol. I feel good about a B-. I feel more mindful about everything, which is definitely an overarching goal. Meal prep helped last week, but there's still room for improvement. Walking the dogs is more of a mental barrier that I need to overcome. There's just days where I don't want to go through all the trouble of getting them ready and getting out the door. I'm also sorta struggling to figure out when it fits into my schedule. Around 5 or 6 p.m. is a good walking time because the sun isn't as intense, but that's also about when I want to eat dinner. I try to get ready for bed around 7 and be actually in bed around 8. I sleep early because I wake up at like 4:30 a.m. So I'm still figuring things out, but I will get better. Looking back at my battle log made me realize I'm not tracking my gaming time. I think I should start doing this concretely. Today, just before I came online to update everything, I allowed myself to game for a while, but I set a timer for 30 minutes. I'm considering getting one of those loud manual kitchen timers. That way when I go to grab my controller, I will see the timer and be reminded to set it. I think going analog will help make it more tangible.

I completed my meal prep yesterday, so I should be good for this week. That's always been a good way to rev up for the week, getting a big thing out of the way and knowing that decision-making will be that much easier throughout the week. I used to prep a breakfast meal too, but something about eggs just doesn't sit right with me anymore, lol. So I've actually been sort of skipping breakfast. Today, instead of eating breakfast, I ate my lunch prep early. I'm in the office by 6 a.m. and we finish the day's production by 9 a.m., so I ate around 9:30 or 10. That might be my new strat for the time being, until I figure out something else. I don't know. 

On Saturday I went out with friends. We had sushi and drinks for dinner and then went back to my friend's house for more drinks and dancing. In honor of DMX, rest in peace, we played a lot of his songs and jammed out hard. It was very therapeutic. I grew up listening to DMX and was super bummed by the news of his death. I cried pretty much all day Friday and Saturday. I was unsuccessfully holding back tears even while at work. Early this morning on my way to work, they were playing a DMX song on the radio and I started tearing up. But playing his music on Saturday night felt like a celebration of his legacy and impact. It was beautiful. He wore his demons on his sleeve and was incredibly open about his struggles, but he was always fighting to recovery. It even looked like he was on the road to recovery in the past year or six months -- before he ultimately OD'd and fell into a coma last week. So in honor of DMX, if I'm slipping or falling, I will commit to getting back up. 
 

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Friday, April 9, 2021

Update: I broke my promise. I did NOT take the dogs on a walk yesterday. I got distracted by other physical activity. I bought a new dresser. It might be my first piece of legit adult furniture. It's the real deal and took quite a bit of effort to get set up and into place. So I counted that as exercise for the day. Then I spent a lot of time trying to move and organize my clothes. As a result, I opted not to take the dogs out. However, we got back out on the pavement today for a walk around the neighborhood. I also sold my old dresser, so again a bit of physical activity. And so far I'm sticking to healthy-ish meals. I think I might already be losing quite a bit of weight - maybe even more than I expected off the bat. I don't want to celebrate too soon though. I'll do a proper weigh-in later. Some days water is a struggle. The other day I found myself almost feeling sick from drinking water. But then other days, like today, I down much more than my goal. I think my body may be freaking out at the changes I've been making. But otherwise, I feel pretty good about all my goals. 

On 4/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Jupiter said:

Sounds like you're doing great! Keep it up!  

Thanks! 

On 4/7/2021 at 8:50 PM, Jayniana Jones said:

I have this skill/curse that I remember random details about people I meet. Booklet was adorable and I loved the name. I  also remember your enthusiasm and enjoyed cheering you on. I fell out of the forums for a few years because of life rolls and injuries.

 

The size of your book pile sounds like mine. I have about 90 books awaiting my attention on my Kobo and Kindle. I read quite a bit because I’m a writer. I tease my family about how their phone is connected to them and mine isn’t. However, I barely walk anywhere without one of my e-readers in my hands.

 

Your outdoor chess game reminded me of Pixar’s short about Geri’s chess game. I adore Pixar short films. If you haven’t seen it, I think it’ll make you laugh

That video was awesome! I'll have to send that to my chess buddy. I also fell out of the forums for a few years, but I'm glad we're both back! You mentioning Kindle just reminded me that I recently downloaded the Kindle app on my phone. I should try to jump back into it. I deleted Facebook from my phone because I realized I just scroll and scroll aimlessly, even if I've already scrolled it a million times that day. So a while back I downloaded a news app that gives me the scrolling satisfaction but feels more productive because I'm keeping up with the world. I think my next jump may be into the Kindle app for my boredom screen times. 

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Wednesday, April 7, 2021