Mike Wazowski

So far, I've experimented with a light viewing schedule and I'm pretty sure I'm getting good results (it's also giving me new ways to mess around with my smart lights, which may or may not have any real effect but it's a fun toy to play with). Definitely the type of podcast I have to listen to in the right mindset, as y'all have mentioned. Food porn is delicious looking, as always! And I don't know your exact situation / progression scheme, but that *looks* like some real progress on the build up from the shoulder injury, which is awesome to see!

Oh. My. I'm so sorry librarians have to deal with that nonsense!

Scaly! I'm late but following. Glad you're getting such good success from having a fallback option when a full-blown strength workout just sounds like too much.

Ehh, a lot of people with that opinion 1) are ill-informed on the nuance of what's actually going on within Texas and 2) fail to comprehend the level of fragility in the power generation and grid systems where they live. It's not just a Texas problem, though I suspect many places are not getting the wakeup call from it that they should. Wrap up of Week 1: Saturday was my 30th birthday, and it was a pretty great day! I woke up, did some stuff, met up with my boyfriend and we grabbed beignets from a local shop, feasted on those while watching the newest WandaVision, and cuddled / hung out for a while. We took a break during which I did...something but I don't remember what, then we grabbed a nice Tex Mex dinner and I got a marg to go with it. Oh! And there was cake! Sunday I did...some stuff, but mostly just meal prepped a big spread for the week. I've got a kale and chickpea stew with a spicy tomato peanut sauce (that I'll serve over quinoa), plus a veggie and soyrizo quiche that I'll be eating with roasted Brussels sprouts. And because it's starting to get warm again, I'll be doing some smoothies as well. I elected to not track goal stuff all of last week, but I'll get back on tracking this week since I've got actual brain space for that.

That brunch spread looks EPIC!!!! ...I guess the lifting and social stuff are cool, too.

Wow!! Not what I wanted my state to make international news for, but it is that big a story. Yep, it’s been rough. But hearing from others in the state, still doing relatively well - have running water and I don’t need to boil it (gosh, the bar is low). Oh yea, law of large numbers will be my friend. I also like that mine (Apple Watch series 6) has a heart rate monitor that seems to produce intuitively correct results - cooking doesn’t appear to trick it near as much as it would my older one from ~5 years ago (which thought stirring a pot of soup was the most intense workout of any given week). Still not gonna go off the number it spits out to set calorie goals, but a weekly average compared over time should be a reasonable directional read on if my activity levels are increasing, decreasing, or staying flat. Ya, I’m torn if the sleep tracking is especially useful or not. It at least seems to produce few unintuitive results so far, so I’m leaning towards somewhat useful and at least not harmful.

Oooh, now I need to start pressuring you into trying Tinder so we can enjoy online dating stories?

Winter storm stress is exhausting - you're not alone in having it take more out of you more than would normally be expected.

And I have officially learned a new term.

Happy rest day!! Hope it's filled with whatever mix of shenanigans and actual rest felt right in the moment!

I actually had laundry sorted and ready to wash, but then took stock of my laundry situation and realized it could wait until Sunday, my designated "clean the apartment, prep meals, and wash laundry" day. So I put it all back in the hamper and enjoyed knowing I wouldn't be folding anything a few hours later. Yes, all indications are that the grid has stabilized and should stay so as poorly winterized plants get back up and running with increasing temperatures (and the temperatures also lessen the demand on the grid from electric heat). I am no longer nervously refreshing our grid manager's website ad nauseum. I also learned, happily, that my employer managed to keep plants open with almost no weather disruptions (~5% of our capacity was impacted by localized fuel shortages, which I think is outside our direct control - but we did the right thing and did actually have plants ready for the possible range of Texas winter). And with above freezing temperatures plus abundant sunshine today, the snow and ice are starting to melt in earnest - it made my walk this afternoon a bit wet and slushy, but I'll take it if it means better walking conditions on future days.

Week 1, Day 4 (Thu): All in all, not a bad day! I woke up, did some ankle prehab and pilates, and celebrated having power reliably by taking a warm bath and finally running my dishwasher, which has been full since right before I lost power on Monday. Work sorta flew by and I don't remember what I did, but it wasn't especially productive (and honestly, that's ok - it was a hell of a week). Then, after work I hung out with the BF, took a field trip to pick up pizza from the busiest pizza place I've ever seen, and enjoyed a feast, a documentary on the MCU, and some cuddle time when we got home to my place - capped off the night by escorting him home, since the sidewalks were crazy icy and he's never had to walk on an icy or snowy sidewalk in his life (oh, SoCal boys, haha). All in all, a pretty solid week day. Kicked off this morning with a calisthenics workout, and lemme tell y'all, my body has definitely detrained. I'm excited to start grabbing some noob gains by finally being able to do things consistently again!

Oh dang, way to apply what you're learning to getting better at Parkour stuff. Loved the summary of the podcast as well, immediately got my juices flowing on how to apply it to dance practices in the future.

Oof, sorry the school stuff has been so tiring lately for you. Hopefully the body adapts soon!

No. Freakin'. Kidding! Hopefully there aren't many shoes left that could drop and haven't yet. ❤️ thanks tron!! It's really been revolutionary, and it's crazy to realize it hasn't even been a week yet, because it's been the longest week in my life. Haha. I've had power for over 24 hours now, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I can return to safely assuming that the power will flow when I flip the switch. Though my psychological trust hasn't caught up yet to my rational trust of the situation, but hopefully it'll come along soon (though I understand why it's still nervous, it hurts to lose power with no indication when it'll come back). I'm slowly easing back into goals this week. Tomorrow, I'll probably do the morning routine I had planned to test pilot all this week - wake up, take meds, meditate, do a token workout of pilates / ankles or strength, go for a walk, take a shower and get dressed, make / eat breakfast, then get started on the work day. And since my dance plans have been canceled for the weekend (due to a burst pipe), I'll be aiming to do a solo practice of at least an hour or two in each of the next few days to keep that habit alive. But if this week turns into a wash for challenge goals, that's ok, too.

+1 for everything raptron said - having concrete next best options that you'd also be stoked to move into might help it feel less like moving into this particular unit is an all-or-nothing thing. Also, if it helps (and doesn't sound totally insane), you can try imagining professional negotiator you as representing personal life you as a client? And then advocate for yourself the same way you would advocate for a client who hired you? No idea how well that'd work, but it might help you let your professional skills loose.

Here for you!!

Seconding this. Love a good nap, raptron takes an enviable number of them.

Haha if I had outdoors space, yes! Currently, we haven't seen an above freezing temperature since 02/13 (and even then, that's been the only day since 02/10). And we won't see one until Friday, 02/19 - though thankfully over the weekend my area will start staying consistently above freezing and that'll hopefully help the power grid restabilize from this fiasco. Thankfully, I ran a lean-ish fridge and wasn't needing to open it much (and my apartment was cold enough to begin with, nothing's gone bad so far). Good news, y'all - I've had power since 10 pm last night (though I spent the night elsewhere). I expect it may fail again tonight or this afternoon, but so far my BF has been lucky and has not been subject to any outages aside from one brief overnight one at his apartment (and he's been kind enough to invite me over whenever I need a backup location for power and running water). Assuming that trend holds (which is an assumption), I've got a good backup location when they need to cut off my power (which, based on our grid manager's forecast supply and demand for the evening, seems like a near certainty). Other NF-y things can wait (like working on challenge goals), but I hope all of you are staying safe and warm and hopefully even getting to pursue some self-actualization instead of just shelter and warm food!

Hey, glad you’re back, and here to cheer on your comeback! +1 for what Paul said, but I’d also add that if you want to check your credit score, you can use a bunch of free tools (Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, probably a few others that aren’t banks, plus at least one of Discover, Chase, Citi, and Capital One has started offering their credit tracking tool to anyone, not just customers, but I forget which one(s)). Technically, these all offer a Vantage Score which is similar to, but not the exact same as, a FICO score (but regardless, paying your card on time every month and not carrying much of a balance, if any, are the number one things you can and should do to improve your score). That all being said, I still imagine you’ll be able to get a place of your own as long as you make at least 3x the rent and you don’t have a prior eviction or something similar as a bad mark on your record (even then, you might get approved but with a heftier deposit).

Well, y’all, because apparently I haven’t caught a break yet, more news! Texas is having *major* electrical grid issues with a recent winter storm, so I’ve been without power at my place since ~9:00 am Monday, minus two bursts yesterday (and one that lasted <5 minutes today). Needless to say, the lack of reliability has upended lots of my goals, and I’m gonna consider them untracked days while I’m spending more mental effort addressing stuff lower on Maslow’s hierarchy than improving myself (namely, finding a warm place to go and spend some time). Thankfully, I’ve got a deep friend network locally and have places to go, but I’m still grumpy because losing power with no indication of when you’ll get it back blows. The upshot is, the lack of other good options is encouraging me to get into my reading backlog better than I otherwise would.

Sounds about right for apartment inspections - I’ve typically been told mine was “great” when there was definitely some neglected cleaning and/or holes on the walls. Were you able to negotiate the rent down on the bigger unit? Not a great frying suggestion, but you could try indulging your inner kindergartner with homemade chicken nugget and/or mozzarella sticks?

In defense of my adopted homeland - it's not cost-effective to maintain massive amounts of capital (snow plows, salt trucks, places to store them when not in use) for snowstorms that only occur once every few years (and this is actually one of the most severe we've ever had, temperature and snowfall wise). So the best course of action for the city is for everyone to shut down nonessential businesses when a storm hits that would be NBD somewhere where it's common and therefore the local government is prepared. Analogously, it's not worth it for most texans to own proper winter coats (heck, my BF currently doesn't own gloves).

Yay!! I was about a day away from tagging you in your old thread! How’re you doing with all the snow? Texas is completely shut down since Saturday night.

Ah gotcha - well rock on with the math learning, then!