juliebarkley

I think this one was two short words that both started with S (or three joined by a short word like and). Hmm. I may have to go a-searching. It is one of the mysteries of the ages. I used to haul rather large amounts of library books with mine. I would never get a bike that couldn't be a workhorse. I still have a trailer, though it is set up with child seats and I would need to get the conversion kit to make it into a proper cargo trailer. Unfortunately, my panniers got thrown out when I moved, as they had been destroyed by road salt from winter riding. The trailer is going to be less useful for a while though, because the major shopping areas currently require travel on a dangerous road lacking a shoulder. There is a construction plan to make this better which includes a full beautiful bike path, but it may take a little while. (I presently move my purchases over long distances on foot with a granny-style shopping trolley). I know, eh? I don't mind it on my thread, but it feels weird to do it. Illusion knitting looks neat, but it's really just knit and purl, no fancy skills. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. More research done, but still not enough to make a final choice. This category is being awkward; the high div yield items all have the lowest diversity of holdings, and vice versa. And of course, I would like both good payments AND diversity. 😠 Purchase things. No. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Once again, I did not leave my house, not even to go to my garage. 3. Finish knitting scarf. Nothing new. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I think I fixed my notifications for the prayer app, though I still feel like I'm only getting half of them. That was true before too though. BUT, the one that I did get when I was available, I got up and washed, and then since it was only two steps over to be on the carpet, I did the prayer too. A good sign. (It did not actually require steps at all before, but I think the visual cue is helpful, and since I've already broken with what I was doing to get up to wash, it is easier to transition to that activity.) Get rid of one thing per day. A single business card. Woo. Exercise every day. Not done. Read and post on NF. I did post. Didn't read much though. Forgot that today was the day I look at all the new books at the library. Didn't really feel like much other reading after that. There was much boring computing today. And I really should get to bed. Must move my butt out of my house tomorrow!

This is a neat idea for a long-term challenge! Are you sticking closely to the badge requirements that Scouts has set out, or tweaking them based on your adult skill level?

Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. I am getting close on the International section but not there yet. I'm still not sure whether to research Canadian ETFs for the US portion or to get something US (since I will be using American dollars). I don't really want to research and then sell it all and switch in a couple of months, but I also don't want to procrastinate and buy nothing at all. Decisions. Purchase things. No more to buy yet. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Okey dokey. This project has been on hold for the entire challenge because no one will get back to me, and that's just dumb. So, new goal. I have a non-electric bike too. Make sure that one is all tuned up and most importantly, is stored in a spot that is easily useable. Make sure I know where all of my necessary equipment is. If I can't get a response from my coworker, well... I know I won't work on that bike once it gets cold, and there's not much of a market in the winter anyway, but it will be a spring plan to get it rideable to sell. I simply do not have the skills to do it justice. I can spend the long cold winter months deciding if I really need another one (answer: probably yes, given that I do not have a car, have public transport, or particularly like asking people for rides, and though my town is well-equipped and highly walkable, it would be nice to be able to easily go to the next town over) and researching that in the winter when there will maybe be sales. Could be a good Black Friday project. 3. Finish knitting scarf. 552/780, and I am just about at the point of needing to join a new ball for one of the colours. I am not sure why it is only one colour and not both. The pattern is a 2 by 2 stripe, identical for both colours. This happened with the first scarf as well, and I just do not understand. I should probably give you guys a picture. This is progress as of about thirty rows ago: It is presently too long to get the whole thing in the picture without showing off the messier areas of the space, but you can see the stripes at the bottom (what you see when looking straight on) and the text that gradually appears when it is looked at from an angle. (The text is the first two lines engraved on the One Ring, in the original Black Speech.) Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. As you can see in my scarf picture, I have laid down my prayer mat. However, my plan to repeat the habit several times to set it ran into a problem. Two actually. One, since the prompt is an app alert sound and the alert is time-based, I'm not sure how to make it repeat on command. Possibly I just need to poke around in its settings. Two, ever since getting this new Apple Watch, my notifications have gone weird. Sometimes I get them on my phone, sometimes only on the watch with a vibration. I do not like this. I do not know why they come through sometimes but not other times. I really do want the sound for that one in particular to come through. I also like how the phone alerts have different sounds, so that I know whether I should actually bother to look at it or not. The vibrations are all very similar, and if this is meant to be a prompt for a habit (and it is!), I can't be watching for two things with a bunch of false alarms. So if anyone knows what setting is making this happen and how I can fix it, please let me know! Get rid of one thing per day. Recipe cards again. Boring, but I had weird recipes for things like stewed gluten. I've never seen gluten in a grocery store, never eaten it, and have no plans to make it. WHY DID I COPY THESE OUT? Exercise every day. I never left the house, so the trigger habit did not activate. Read and post on NF. I did not post. I read a bit, and finally poked into the challenges that came after my own a little. Still lots to look at, but it's something. I am clearly still on a bit of an energy high from the novelty of the new job, because I spent most of the day doing things for work. I can't decide if I should stop that, because I AM working for free, or whether I should take advantage of my current willingness to do this (which will not last) to continue sorting out my decade of files to give myself a good solid foundation that will prevent anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout in future. At the moment, the (nicely itemized) things I need to sort is a controlled project with a clear end, so that might be why I am more willing to do it too - because it CAN'T last forever. (Not that it's short, mind.) A request for assistance from the community: near the beginning of this challenge (or maybe the tail end of the last one but I really think this one), I saw a song in someone's posts. It might have been the third song they posted. They were talking about how it was an unusual rhythm, sounded sort of Arabic to me, and I remember only that either the artist or the title had Soup in their name. I thought that it was @Heidi's challenge, but I was wrong. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I would like to pass it along to my son.

I do not approve of this tampering. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. No.. Purchase things. No. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. 535/780. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I read my Tiny Habits notes, and I have a few things that I am going to try. I think having a more visual reminder (like @Stronkey Kong's corner) would be helpful, so I have unrolled my rug and plan to leave it out for now to see if it helps. (Might also keep the laundry corralled as a bonus.) My prompts are all they can be, but I could work harder on the "cultivate shine" part, and on reminding myself of my reasons for building this habit while doing it. I think I might also try the rehearsal thing tomorrow, where you do the prompt-action-reward sequence 7-10 times in quick succession to help cement the habit into your mind. Get rid of one thing per day. More recipe cards. I have a lot of recipe cards. Exercise every day. Not done. Read and post on NF. Read, but did not post. I don't like posting if I'm not caught up on a thread, and this one is long and seems to be moving faster than me. Not good, as I have been going back to it rather than visiting new people. So tomorrow, I shall try to branch out to the threads of some of my friends that have been shamefully ignored. Got home from work on a high. It was unusually quiet this evening, so I got a ton of organizational work done. Something about itemizing where I keep all of my stuff, even if I haven't centralized and sorted them out yet, was such a relief that I feel ready to look further ahead in my planning now. Maybe it's seeing files for all the things I have done over the years, so that I know I'll be okay. No exercise as I had less than 15 minutes after getting home before a D&D game and chose to eat instead; first session back after a very long hiatus. It was fun to explore a new place, and by the end my character was melting down as her beloved little brother figure was trapped behind a magical portal. Very good rolls were needed to keep her from fighting her way to the portal to join him. No research today; I decided to do some knitting instead.

Super quick update. A decent amount of stock research done. Not much on the other stuff though. I did get the Elements session I had been avoiding done though! It felt like a good day for leg stretching, and it was. I think I need to focus a little more. I'm letting myself either get distracted, or to focus too much on one thing to the detriment of other things.

I feel like I was really distracted today. I didn't do much goalwise, just a little stock research and buying the REIT and Canada positions (30% invested! Woo!). Got a bunch of other things done though. Got to hang out with my son for a bit. And made some really awesome fried chicken bites for supper.

Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. Nothing. Purchase things. Nothing new. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. 516/780. I will not make my target goal. The recipient does not seem to care, but I do. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I have not made my progress here yet. Get rid of one thing per day. I did some recipe cards today. Nothing on previous days. Exercise every day. I did do this actually. I did only stretches on Friday and Saturday as I was lacking for time when I got home, but I took TWO walks today! Read and post on NF. A little. Not sure if posting happened. Both Friday and Saturday I had TTRPG games, so I decompressed a wee bit after work and did the most urgent things, then went straight to bed after. There was really not a lot of opportunity for anything else. Today I got caught up in a non-challenge work-related thing for several hours, and did not make any significant progress on my goals either. It is what it is. I didn't do nothing.

I'm not dead. But I AM exhausted. I shall fill in what little I have done in the last few days tomorrow.

Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. Canada section is complete. I only have the international and US sections left. Those are the biggest sections though, and I might end up going a different route on the US stuff. (Except, the goal is done not perfect. So perhaps better to pick a US dollar listed item FOR NOW, and do research for something better once SOMETHING is in place, something being better than nothing.) Purchase things. Purchased my preferred share item. (Or rather, put in a limit order for it. I didn't check back to see if it was filled.) I had to move some money to a different account before purchased my REIT selection, and the move did not go through in time to buy that one today. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. None today, but I am sitting down after this post to knit, so it'll show up in the numbers for tomorrow. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. The goal I want to think about is my prayer habits. The main difficulty I have with this is that it feels like it interrupts the flow of what I am doing, and I have trouble with that sort of voluntary task switching. (Also, embarrassingly, the fact that I have to get up from sitting to do it. 🤦‍♀️) I am still not sure how to make this easier, but I think some sort of anticipation or lasting mindset, so that it doesn't feel like a jarring and out-of-place interruption but rather part of a flow, is going to be necessary. I need to think more on this one. I'll have a look at my Tiny Habits notes around identifying obstacles tomorrow. But I might end up with better progress long-term by working on the mindset things around the goal first. Not sure. This is a long-standing Hard Thing for me, so I'm not expecting overnight solutions. Get rid of one thing per day. I had some old DVDs in my pile from a series called Adam's World. It's a little bit like Muslim Sesame Street is the best description I can give. (They're all on YouTube. My favourite is Assalamu Aleikum, because it has a guest appearance Dawud Wharnsby Ali, an English-language nasheed artist,. He sings a bunch of his songs and is quite funny and clearly having fun). I used to have a bunch of these on VHS, but they went in the first move. Not sure why I kept these, but since my son is almost an adult, I think I can let them go now. 😄 Exercise every day. Dropped off my laundry and made it all the way back upstairs before thinking "why do I have my phone in my hand?", remembered why, and WENT BACK DOWNSTAIRS to exercise! Success! Still didn't feel like the Elements session, so I did Literal Immortality instead (which was probably harder tbh). Read and post on NF. I'm pretty sure I posted. I know I read. I really can't think of anything noteworthy that I didn't already note and am willing to share. Took a walk in between rain showers, and it was lovely. Picked out some things to return to the library. Like, really not noteworthy stuff. But life is made of such moments. It's been a good day.

Fish tasks be exciting! (I know nothing about fish tanks, but like looking at them and reading about your setup.) Very curious about what this is. Are you complaining that you have lots of toys to play with?? With your schedule all uprooted right now, it's not gonna be your priority. But between the running around, you can always think of why your walking hasn't been happening, and how you can set yourself up to fix that in the near future. I don't know if this would work with potatoes, but veg stock concentrate (cubes or liquid) is a great addition to rice to spruce up the flavour. I wonder if it would do a similar thing for mashed potatoes; sort of a temporary butter substitute? Congrats on the debt consolidation! A good gift to future you.

I don't know about "tech savvy" (mostly I am just good at research), but I know why the people in this thread with M1 Macs are out of luck (unless they emulate) and why I would not be (I kept the OS version I am using for this reason). I would still be hesitant to buy something listed as Windows only in the shop though. Don't want to waste my money. (Though I could probably use it to learn how Wine works if I wanted it real bad.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. I am almost, but not quite, done the Canada section. Purchase things. Tomorrow! 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) - this was meant to be temporarily on hold, not dead. Sigh. Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. None today. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. Still did not forget, rather chose to ignore for the day. This is the first day in a good week when I have been feeling healthy and content, and I chose to enjoy that today rather than puzzle about how I could be better at something I'm not doing so well at. Get rid of one thing per day. More paper. Random not-very-interesting things. Exercise every day. Got back to my little downstairs exercise space, now that the worst of the mess is cleared up. I just didn't feel like what Elements was offering me today, so I did the next session of Vitamin instead. Wowza. It was something called the "coffee grinder". I cannot exactly claim that my moves would have been impressive on the dance floor, but I was able to do it, if awkwardly and slowly. My control in these unaccustomed movements needs work (which is the whole point of Vitamin). Gave my arms a good workout too. Read and post on NF. I did read, AND post! I may yet read some more. (I haven't gotten to a single person who started their challenge after I started mine yet. Sorry guys.) I am kind of just enjoying not being in pain, not being sick, and not wallowing in self-hatred and low self-worth. Just being comfortable and happy. Working on things that I felt like working on. And just hanging out with some fun stuff too. It's been nice.

So glad you are back! How is progress on level 2? And relaxation on demand? And Filipino backyard karaoke?

That's a good idea. I can't do it with my bookshelves unfortunately. The ceiling is only about the height of a standard door frame, so they are already right at the ceiling. But the unit with the board games might benefit. The feet on the bottom of the bookshelves was luckily high enough... this time anyway. My mohair would make both baby and parent hate me. My "small amounts" are mostly single full balls of things that were probably on sale and that I thought looked pretty at the time. It's just a collection of oddities. It does, which is why I can let it go with an easy heart. Icewind Dale 2 does not seem to have a Mac edition though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is another reporting-in-early-because-achievement-will-be-minimal post. Been fighting a headache all day, AGAIN. I swear I haven't had a day this week when I was right in both body and brain. My thoughts are just confuzzled enough that I don't trust myself to count my moneys and set up limit orders correctly, or to make actual important decisions. And I think staring at a screen for long periods, which is necessary to read my knitting pattern, is also not a great idea. Nor is exercise, given that I feel queasy and dizzy as well. So where does that leave me? I'm going to pick away at some of the niggling things that tend to pile up. That's what my short tasks list is for. The joy of it when you're feeling crap is that because the tasks are all like five minutes or less (or can be if you do only a little), you can do just one and then rest. And it's easier to motivate yourself to actually do something. So while this can be a kind of procrastinating on a good day, because none of the things on this list are all that important or urgent compared to other things that need doing, on a rough day, it is a way to do SOMETHING useful. And that has value.

Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. More research on the Canadian equities portion. This will be done tomorrow at this rate. Purchase things. No. Explanation below. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. Just a little. 501/720. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. Did not forget. I looked everything up to remind myself what needs working on, but didn't make any decisions. Get rid of one thing per day. A physical copy of Icewind Dale for PC, with one expansion. I do not have a PC, so I would have to mess around with Wine to make this work. But it's available in enhanced edition on GOG, with the other expansion included and presumably tweaked to run better on newer systems. That sounds more attractive than trying to force the copy I have to work. Exercise every day. Took another walk with my son and learned many things. Read and post on NF. I read some, but I do not believe I posted. Too tired to do it now. My plan was to buy my selected stocks today, but this did not happen. I didn't sleep well last night - both got to bed late and also woke up far too much, so I was very tired when I got up. I had a dentist's appointment early in the day to get set up for a crown on a tooth that was at high risk of needing a root canal if not dealt with ASAP. I really didn't know what to expect for that. It took almost two hours and more doses of freezing than I was expecting - a small bit of the tooth just didn't seem to freeze, to the puzzlement of the dentist. Otherwise, everything proceeded well and it seems to be a success. (The crack did not extend further down; hooray!) The freezing was intense though; when I went to put my glasses back on, I thought I was doing it wrong. Turns out that there was so much numbing that it extended all the way up to my temple. I got home and collapsed into bed, partly from exhaustion, and partly in anticipation of pain as the freezing wore off. (I had A LOT of teeth pulled as a child, so that part is not new to me.) The pain didn't really materialize. There's been a low aching which I'm hoping is just from everything being poked and vibrated and angried up, but that's it. I think it's getting better. Fingers crossed. But I didn't get up until 4pm - too late to get on with the buying plan. Oh well.

Your challenge needs a content warning to not show up hungry.

Still haven't checked for electrical damage! 40mph is pretty darn fast for a bicycle. Not sure for the US, but I think anything that can do that speed would be legally classed as a motorcycle and you would need to go through the usual licensing process. It would absolutely no longer be allowed to use bike paths or multi-use paths, because it would be too dangerous. It's perfectly legal to ride a regular bicycle on most roads though. Anything that's not a restricted highway (or whatever the equivalent to that is where you are). Safe... well, that depends on the road AND the skill of the rider. You do need to choose your route differently than you would for a car, and look out for different things. But you will also have access to paths that you would not in a car, which can be a very useful thing or completely useless, depending on your town. So it really does depend on your use case. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yesterday was not a good day for mental health. So not as much was done as I would have hoped. Therefore, two updates in one. Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. I have chosen my purchases for the REIT and preferred share categories, and have begun researching the Canadian dividend equity portion. Purchase things. Not yet. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. No new additions. Kind of disappointing, because I really want to find out what happens next in my podcast. Spoilers in case anyone else listens to Tale of the Manticore (you should!) and hasn't made it to episode 60 or so. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. Forgot AGAIN. Get rid of one thing per day. Yesterday's was my old Chinese knockoff Fitbit-style watch. The electronics still work, but the band has now been superglued perhaps a dozen times, and is splitting in a couple of new places now. However, my new-to-me Apple Watch from eBay arrived, so I am not watchless. And the strap on this is replaceable, so no more throwing out perfectly good electronics! Today, a cycling map that isn't very good and therefore I will never use. Exercise every day. Took a longish walk in town yesterday. Not today though. Read and post on NF. Working on it now. Definitely read yesterday, but not sure about posting. No posting yet today either. Today I helped set my son up for a trip he's taking. He discovered a few months ago that by complete coincidence, three bands he likes are playing at the same venue on consecutive nights. So he and his girlfriend are going on a mini road trip to the US for a few days, staying at a campsite, looking for local attractions (and American businesses to take photos in front of) during the day, then driving up to the concert venue in the evening. He's pretty excited. I made sure he had travel medical insurance and some idea of how to set up a tent. And I gave him a box of American change to spend.

Thanks! So far so good. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. Did preferred shares today. Tomorrow I will whittle down the two I have done to my final choices. That will give me something to buy on Monday. Purchase things. Not yet. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. No new additions. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. Crap. Forgot to choose a thing. Get rid of one thing per day. I sorted through the books that got wet and will be getting rid of many. That took a couple of hours, so I called it my contribution to this for the day. Exercise every day. Crap again. Read and post on NF. I feel like I did something, but can't remember what it was. Maybe I didn't do anything. My main job today was dealing with the damaged books. They had to be checked for saleability (almost all are no longer saleable), removed from my online inventory, separated into potentially donateable (we have a local book sale coming up in a week or so) and lost causes, arranged to finish drying, and tallied up for valuing the financial loss (roughly $200 in amount paid - painful, but could have been worse). The robot vacuum seems to be no worse for its little swim. Haven't yet checked the electronics where the cords were in the water (but the devices were not) and my son got a shock when going nearby to unplug them. Hoping nothing shorted there. 🤞

That really is what it felt like, now you mention it. Like a migraine without the pain. Heavy body, disjointed thoughts with little ability to focus, zoning out, and just not feeling fully connected to reality. Fortunately, everything is better now. Yeah. Most of the casualties were not very interesting, but I lost a couple of unusual AD&D books, and a really lovely copy of Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake (better known for the Gormenghast trilogy) was damaged. Water really is a terrible enemy of books. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bike: I nudged the person I've been communicating with. It's all I can do right now. Money: Nothing. I've been doing lots of research for work, and didn't want to do more at home today. Knitting: Now on row 489/780. I really just wanted to relax after work, so this was a welcome chance to do something I needed to as well. Habit project: I think this week is a loss for this project; there simply isn't time to play around with anything. But I can tack it onto next week's item and make it a long week of sorts. I'll have to pick a thing tomorrow. Posting: Yes, done. Getting rid of a thing: Also done; a Paganini CD which is nothing special. If I want to listen, I'll hit up Spotify or YouTube, not this CD. Exercise: My exercise area is still full of things propped up to dry and the general untidiness of things moved around for better air circulation and checking for trapped water. I did do a little stretching and bear walked across the length of the floor through the narrow passage that was available. I may have to focus more on walking for a while. This is a shame, as I was just starting to get that habit in place. As is typical when you are sick, every time I felt like I was getting better, I would try to do something that quickly showed me I was wrong. So I did nothing yesterday. I did a lot of stare-at-the-ceiling-for-20-minutes-before-rallying-to-do-a-simple-thing. The complete absence of mental chatter was unnerving; I think that's the goal of meditation, quieting the mind, but it felt more like an absence, like in that moment you are in some way just not existing. Anyway, despite that, I was somehow still able to do cryptograms, so I did a bunch of those as my only "accomplishment" for the day. Today I was feeling the weight of pushing through the last couple of days. I started to get myself back on track, but also needed to rest and recover a little, so it is not as much as it could have been. The past few days feel like lost ones, but I don't know how it could have been otherwise. I think I did the best I could with what I had available to me. I don't have work again till Tuesday, so hopefully the next four days will find me rejuvenated again and my home mostly mended.

Most things can be replaced if they are missed. Just don't forget your important papers (like your cashier's check)! Or the basic keys/phone/wallet combo. In 48 hours (if my math is right), this rush rush stress will be over and you will be in Reno. And you will be alive, and okay. You can do this.

How are things going, @JuiceeTarget?

Better sump pump is now installed. We also got a fan that is designed for basement floors. Both rugs are basically dried out now after being propped up with fans underneath. A few of the books from the fell-in-the-water pile are miraculously dry, and a few might be salvageable for donation at least. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't like to do this, but I think I have to call a bye for today as well. I was developing a headache when I got home, so I fell into bed rather than run through my usual laundry/exercise routine. Now that I am awake, I am not in pain, but am having trouble walking and standing (super shaky) and keep just staring at a wall for several minutes. Not sure what's going on, but I'm in no shape to push myself to anything. If things change and I do end up doing something, I will come back and edit. Otherwise, until tomorrow.

I am exhausted. This will be a bye day in which nothing challenge-related gets done. Just as I was going to bed, I heard a loud, high-pitched noise. It might have been going for a while, but it wasn't until I left the room that I realized it wasn't just a ringing in my ears. I tried to pinpoint the source but failed. (This is not my strong suit.) So I chalked it up to the stairlift, which does make noise if there's a blip in the power but which I don't know how to disable, and kept getting ready for bed. Shortly afterward, my son came upstairs to report that his trip to the bathroom was a little more ... puddly than usual. Went downstairs and found the whole place flooded in a good centimetre of water. So alarm identified - sump pump. It was still running, but I guess either weak or overwhelmed by the rain. So I spent my night, until 6am, bailing out the basement by hand with a dustpan. (Extremely effective tool, by the way, if you end up with a flood. If you have the right technique, it's like a shovel for water!) Went to bed with achy back and shoulders (so I did get my exercise in after all 🙃), then worked a full shift today. I am ready to collapse. I unfortunately lost a whole bunch of books that were being prepped for shipping and were in boxes on the floor, and some more sale books that were propped on cardboard boxes to keep them off the floor, but whose boxes collapsed once wet. The ones propped on milk crates were fine. (Lesson learned here.) We might have lost some electronics, such as the robot vacuum; we haven't tested them yet. I think that is the extent of our losses though. Fortunately the water didn't rise any higher. One more centimetre would have destroyed an awful lot as it would have breached bookshelves, storage shelves, etc. I am just grateful that the water was just rainwater/groundwater and not sewage, that this happened in the summer and not the more usual freezing cold early spring, and that we were home to deal with it (son who sleeps down there just got back a few days ago, fortunately for all of us).

It's very soothing to do from time to time. It is very nice to have him back! Thanks! It does look good so far, but that is partly because the bike project fell through. Yeah. I only tend to think of it when I am about to post on my own, and then I'm on my way to bed. So the reading hasn't been happening regularly. I was just talking with someone who said that the guilt of not posting or reading drove them away from the forums altogether. That's just sad, because that's not what it's supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about providing mutual support, in whatever way you can right now. And no one ever complains that so-and-so isn't supportive enough; they are just happy for whatever you can give. But I understand how they feel. I don't want to be driven away by the guilt, and I don't want that to happen to you either. So we must try to not feel guilty for what we are not doing perfectly and just do what we can do right now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I really should chase up the person I messaged about my bike. Then I will know how I should proceed. I spent a goodly chunk of the day weeding my ETF list. First the obvious will-never-invest items, such as leveraged ETFs and such. Then I started in on the REIT ETFs, collecting data and eliminated the ones that didn't meed minimum criteria. Now I have a shorter list to pick from, and data to help me make that choice. When I am done this list, I will do the preferred shares, as it is the next shortest. No knitting today. Didn't end up getting rid of an item today. The items I picked ended up staying (though I did get to learn how to make my computer run a program it is not supposed to be able to run!), and I don't have time to keep going on it now. Didn't exercise either actually. I didn't go out today, so my laundry-and-exercise routine was not triggered, and it was raining quite hard for most of the day, so I did not go walking. I did post though.

I'm going to make a small completely unsolicited suggestion. It's the kind of thing that would reduce my stress in your situation. If it wouldn't for you, please do ignore. You've established that you very probably cannot get everything sorted before you have to leave at this point, everything is chaos, and on top of the major life changes this is all understandably extremely stressful. It is also, barring a large outlay of money, simply reality that will not be changed in the next week. And you have said that the house will still be here, no one is moving in imminently, and you are planning to come back for Labour Day, so while this is obviously FAR from ideal it's also not a hair-on-fire emergency if stuff gets left. So my completely unsolicited advice is: make priority one getting the things packed (or at least, identified, found, and set aside) that you will absolutely need to survive in Reno. This is probably a lot less than you might think. Clothes for at least a week, appropriate for the weather. Dishes, utensils, and a handful of pots and pans. Your important papers. Anything that you will need at school. The most crucial furniture (probably your bed and a small amount of linen - the bed can also be a chair if need be. Maybe also a table if you are not up to eating on the bed.). Computer stuff. A small number of hobby items. Essential toiletries perhaps. A list of what food or other small items not worth moving should be bought immediately on arrival. The idea being that with that stuff found and secured and safe, even if everything else gets left, YOU ARE GOING TO BE OKAY. The other stuff will still need to be done and yes it will suck, but you will be able to leave knowing that YOU will be okay, and you have taken care of yourself by making sure you have what you need to succeed in the next part of your life. There might be less stress crying (and just less overall stress) over the rest of the stuff knowing that, I hope.

Goals 1. Sort out my investments. Finish moving money. Done! Research categories. No. Purchase things. Not yet. 2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) Fix the battery. No. Fix the tires. No. General maintenance spruce-up. No. 3. Finish knitting scarf. I have now reached row 455/780. Habits Play with the parameters of one goal per week. Tweak remains a good fit. I think this is a keeper. Get rid of one thing per day. Another old game. This one a game of old games (a bunch of Atari games on a DS cartridge). Exercise every day. I forgot to bring my phone with me when I took the laundry down (there were distractions on the way). But I realized this while standing on the rug that is my new exercise location, so it did trigger anyway. Instead of going back upstairs to get it (and perhaps not making it back), I did a few stretches and physio exercises and called it good. Read and post on NF. I did. Still need to read more and all. The eternal struggle. <---remains accurate. I spent the day running errands, reading email, and doing small tasks rather than challenge tasks. But over the last couple of days, I got quite a bit of knitting done, and I should be able to get at least one of my ETF categories sorted out tomorrow. So feeling good about the challenge thus far.