juliebarkley

21 hours ago, Severine said:

Poor Farmer Maggot...he just wanted to protect his turnips   

 

I hope you get some good loot soon!

He also complains a lot - his attacks are listed as "moan" three times for 0 damage. I always feel a little bad when he talks about missing his dogs, but they always try to kill me, so really it's his fault.

Me too!

17 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I am really enjoying the game updates   One thing keeps confusing me though: what does it mean when someone is "x levels out of depth"?

Excellent! I was not sure if anyone else would.

Each monster has a specific "native" level where they are meant to appear. If they appear earlier than that, you may be in for a rough time. Let me show you. The hardest dragons Jinjin is regularly running into are mature dragons. Here's one of those:

These are slightly challenging, but if fought smartly, not truly dangerous. By now, he has had many opportunities to get lightning resistance, so that breath is at least halved in damage. I've also got a lot more HP and more armour than an earlier-in-the-dungeon character would have. Those claws can hurt in melee, but the chances of dying to one if not surrounded or otherwise stupidly handled are low. These are native to dungeon level 39. I'm at 44 right now, and it's a bit tricky. But these guys feel like a fair fight.

The next (and final) rank of dragons, though....

These are faster, have double the HP,  hit twice as hard, and can confuse you. Jinjin could fight this if he had to, with a lot of healing items and some temporary resistance and/or a speed potion, if he were faster himself. Maybe. Right now it would be a bad idea. But that's what you would expect; it's native depth is 50.

Note: it is completely normal and expected for out-of-depth monsters to appear in vaults (which is what was pictured earlier). They also have out-of-depth items; it's a high-risk, (potentially) high-reward proposition. Thirty levels out-of-depth is not unusual for a vault. I think the worst I ever got was 50 level out-of-depth with Smaug the Golden once in the early 20s one game. I did not attempt that fight.

Btw, character levels max out at 50. Stat gains from potions/items are also capped. So there comes a point where the monsters are either getting harder or are more frequent, but you aren't (assuming you hit level 50; I normally hit the stat caps long before then). But we are not at that level yet.

5 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Ouch. But still... Jinjin survived, and lived to fight another day.

 

Hopefully a day that drops armor upgrades.  

He ran and lived, because his player has learned that much at least.

Please, oh gods of the RNG, some improved equipment (preferably not guarded by anything extremely deadly)!

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On 9/7/2023 at 10:27 AM, Loveable_Bouncer said:

I REALLY wanted a PBJ English muffin but it didn't make sense with my goals (body wise PBJs are more a treat than actual food due to how my blood sugar crashes even with high fiber bread). 

  If you really like the PB&J flavours but want more protein and less bread, you could try an omelette with PB&J filling.

On 9/8/2023 at 3:13 PM, Loveable_Bouncer said:

Wanted to share for how strong I am and ended up find out Missy made it her show.

You have exercise support cats too! (And a charming laugh. )

On 9/13/2023 at 11:20 AM, Teros said:

I mean, I was ecstatic with getting less than half of that $$$ and the contract I'm in means I'm getting 20% taken out of taxes and that's still a crazy amount of money to me.  It seems...spoiled.  I work at a supermarket as well and make $14/hour so someone telling me that they care about the community and are unwilling to make less than $100/hour just seems fucked up.  Am I wrong in this?

Maybe, maybe not.

The going rate around here is roughly $130-180 Canadian, a little more in the expensive cities. That's roughly $100-150 in US dollars. I assume that from that money they have to pay their office expenses, and that that also covers for research/planning when needed outside of your actual consultation time. Maybe also some time taking on subsidized sessions for targeted populations or community-oriented programs that they do free of charge. If it does indeed cover those things, than it doesn't seem excessively high. If you don't have to pay for your space out of your earnings though, it might be. To not even consider taking on any patients that pay less though, that doesn't seem right at all. It's not exactly starvation wages.

(Note that this is for therapy, not the kind of mental healthcare involving drug prescriptions. There is no public coverage at all for that here. If you have a mental illness and need to see a psychologist, you are facing long wait times rather than a price barrier. And you would need a doctor to refer you, which is also a major barrier when probably 1 in 5 people don't have one. And yes, this all sucks.)

Baby fish!

Didn't take long to switch back from "man, maybe I should just chill and enjoy the fish" to "let's breed us some fishies!".

On 9/4/2023 at 4:12 PM, Stronkey Kong said:

When does life stop getting weirder?

Never, if you're doing it right.

Welcome back!

I hope your goals are going well, but even if they aren't we are here to support you and help support if we can.

I look forward to you staying well and happy.

Ongoing Habits:

Exercise: Yup. Bent-arm bear was a lot more fun than yesterday's session. My monkey stall is still not much of a stall, but hey. I try.

Prayer: I don't recall purposely skipping an alarm, but it didn't happen.

NerdFitness: Settling in for this now.

Purging: A little stack of papers. I ended up going down a little genealogy rabbit hole due to one of them, and realizing that I need to drag up the data from an old program to expand my data in FamilySearch. Hopefully then I can link into the Great Tree of Humanity. I am hindered by the fact that on my dad's side, there are too many people named George in the same place at roughly the same time, my grandmother had a complicated history due to being orphaned early, and I've never managed to find official birth or marriage records for either of them.

New Shiny:

Angband: 

Today was primarily a dive day. Made it down to level 37. The fights are starting to feel a little fairer - I can't mindlessly run in and smack any more. (I need to improve my gear. ) I finally have a wand that lets me teleport away troublesome enemies, which will come in very handy when the Bill and Bert show up again.

Notable kills: Lokkak the Ogre Chieftain.

BGA: Nah, I just played familiar things today.

Work: Start of day: 566. End of day: 559.

Long-term: Hoping to get to a bit of this tomorrow.

On 9/14/2023 at 11:00 AM, shaar said:

I also really need to add some more books to my library holds list - I'm down to 3 and hopefully next week I'll have some time to sit down and look through my Goodreads and stuff for more recommendations to add to my list... if any of you have any books you love definitely let me know!!  I'm HUGE into horror/thriller/suspense books, that's my main vibe (i know you're so surprised huh), but I also really enjoy YA and have been known to settle into a good Sci-Fi or Fantasy too..

Sticking to horror. I loved Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin series. I also liked In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt, but that seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it book. If you like dark fairy tales and can tolerate a slow reveal of what is actually going on (with much confusion the whole way through), it might be up your alley.

19 hours ago, Severine said:

Cool, thanks for explaining. As a child who spent some of her happiest hours in libraries, I thank you across time and space. What are you using for your digital organization? I adore Obsidian, which I use with an adapted Johhny Decimal system, but I always like to hear about other people's systems.

I hope that we can put on some really good programs for the community. Right now we need more for teens, and that is going to fall mostly on me.

I'm using Notion. I built a bunch of databases for the big categories of Stuff - storytime books, displays, songs/rhymes, crafts/activities/games, etc. - downloaded a todo list template, made a calendar for future events, built a CRM, made pages for the program descriptions we paste over and over.... Stuff like that. I love how flexible it is to tweak to your needs, how you can embed all different kinds of files in the database fields, and how I can tag the crap out of things and link the databases together to do things like build programs, then have the link to that program's scheduled date in the calendar. I know if I put more time into it, I could make it do a lot more than it is from an automation point of view, but that can come with time. Right now, I just want it to hold my things while I work out the best categories and formats for me, and know that if I need, say, activities for a program for ages 6-8 that has something to do with dogs, I can find that quickly, with the photos, files, and description all right there to hand.

The one thing I don't like so far is that printing from Notion is really bad quality, so anything meant for printing needs to be made into a Word document and linked.

19 hours ago, Severine said:

I am glad you did not kill Farmer Maggot. I mourn for Beorn!

3 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

You killed Beorn!?!? WHY!? 😨

Well...

1. He tried to kill me first! He even brought a pack of bears with him. Dude meant business.

2. Given that I murder many of the townspeople every time I visit town just because they are in my way, I'm guessing I'm not exactly lawful good.

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Ongoing Habits:

Exercise: Yes. I did a round of Vitamin when I got home. It was a really boring session though. Ten minutes of duck walking and little monkey spins.

Prayer: I don't recall ignoring alarms, but also don't recall hearing any.

NerdFitness: Some reading has been done. More after this post.

Purging: A bunch more recipe cards. Mostly because they have ingredients I have never bought or even seen at the store.

New Shiny:

Angband: 

Short but sweet trip into the Mines today. About two rooms in on my foray back to level 30, I read an unknown scroll which turns out to be Teleport Level. Up we go! Bye bye level 30!

On landing on level 29, I am greeted with this message:

Oh my.

Angband levels give you "feelings" when you first enter that roughly correlate to the difficulty of the monsters within. (If you hang around the level long enough, there is one for items too.) They range from 1-9. Omens of death is a rank of 9. Haven't seen one of those for a while. Let's find out what it means! This is when telepathy comes in REALLY handy - if you see something ahead that will wreck you, you can run run run away, hopefully before it sees you.

Turns out that this level had not one, but two graveyards - rooms with every square filled with undead monsters. Nearly all of these were out of depth as well. A shame that my weapon is cold branded, and the undead are resistant to cold. But no matter! Jinjin chooses a good position in a corridor and begins to smack things. When things get a little dicey, he phase doors away to get better enemy positioning or some healing. Before hitting the second graveyard, he finds a weapon with an extra-powerful Slay Undead rune, which is the kind of thing that really helps. He cleans out both graveyards.

But here's the thing about the undead - many of them drain either stats or experience. (Melee gets less simple the deeper you go.) Poor Jinjin had his CON drained quite a bit (this got fixed on level up though), and over the course of these two piles of enemies, lost enough over 50,000xp and dropped SIX character levels to level 23. Ouch. Fortunately, town had a potion of Restore Life Levels, so at the end of the adventure he was none the worse for wear. But that was enough excitement for one day.

Notable kills: None today.

BGA: I got a game going in one of the games I learned yesterday. I lost, badly, but that's to be expected. I also had a nice chat with the player I lost to, who was sharing basic strategy tips so that I could play better next time. So sweet.

Work: Start of day: 571. End of day: 566.

Long-term: Nope. That was never going to be on the cards for today.

Had a random language-related lightbulb moment today. I was reading my French book, and suddenly noticed how the third person past tense in this verb has "ar" in its construction. Reminds me of Spanish, I think. Wait. I look at a few other examples. Of course. The passé simple in French is very very similar to the way that the past tense in Spanish works. I never noticed this because although I see the passé simple in books all the time, I just gloss over it - it is obsolete in daily life and only used in literature, so I never learned it. Not so in Spanish though, it seems!

This is not actually going to help my language learning (unless I want to learn how to conjugate the passé simple), but it was still a neat thing to discover.

On 9/11/2023 at 8:57 AM, Darciana said:

I ended up spending too much money this weekend. Apparently the Man put my card on file as a backup at the winery and since his is no longer active, they processed a wine pickup to my card without warning. That's $200 of extra spend I was not accounting for. I guess I won't be putting any extra towards debt this month. I'm going to have to tell the Man to cancel that or put it back on his card. He doesn't drink the wine, I only do on occassion so I'm fine with it being canceled, especially if it comes out of my account. I'd much rather pay off debt than pay for a few bottles of wine that won't get touched for the next several months. In addition to the wine thing, which I just discovered this morning, I had to order more coffee (once again, the Man decides he needs this fancy machine and then I'm the one who has to buy the coffee which is $100 every 3 weeks for the two of us... You'd think that I'm the one who makes all the money but no.... I make half of what he does). Then coffee yesterday morning in the town we were in was $30 for 3 coffees! Jeez. But we'd all be pretty cranky without it and I know they'd be super mad if I went and got coffee while they slept in and didn't bring any back for them. I'm going to be in the yellow just from the remaining bills that come out this paycheck, not even accounting for any money I'll have to spend this weekend at the football game (though I'm excited to see my Alma Mater for the first time since I was a student. I wish it wasn't back to back event weekends, though).

Your partner seems quite free with your money, especially given he earns more than you do. It sounds like your spending goals are not aligned, and this is both annoying you and sabotaging your plans. Hypothetically, what would happen if you were to, say, point out that if he wants the expensive coffee machine, that means he's also down for the fancy coffee? Or that if he wants expensive wine that you don't really need or use, that you are not okay with paying for that? Or that you would like to sit out a Thursday to save money?

Ongoing Habits:

Exercise: No. I had very little time to cook before my son had to leave for work, so it was not possible.

Prayer: Yes. I ignored one alarm, but I responded to the other one.

NerdFitness: Finished the initial checking process, and starting in on the reading part.

Purging: Two music CDs, neither of which I even remember having.

New Shiny:

Angband: 

We are now at character level 29 and 1500' (dungeon level 30). I thought this would be a very boring update as it was a lot like yesterday: drop a bit, gather items that need ID, ferry them to town. (The game has a rune-based ID system, so once you ID "slay troll" or "paralysis curse" or whatever, you know it for all future items). Nothing much exciting, other than starting to run into stat gain potions and some fights disenchanting uniques, who junked all of my equipment. But then I jumped in just before posting, and had a heck of a level.

I spawned on level 30 right next to Tom, the Stone Troll. Now, Tom always appears with his brothers, Bert and Bill. No problem, I think. I smack them! And I tried. But Tom all by himself was a match for me. I had to use a Speed potion in order to wear him down, and then his brother showed up. 😡These guys can throw boulders for a lot of damage, and I was not going to be able to fight two of them together. I finished the whole level before managing to get Tom by himself so I could kill him. Bert and Bill were too buddy-buddy, so I had to leave them for another time. I was out of Speed potions by then anyway, and running low on healing. Time to leave. But just before taking off, I found a scroll of Identify Rune, and the the new Broad Axe of Gondolin I found? It has telepathy! (This lets you detect most enemies a short distance away, which is HUGE. I previously had no way to detect at all.) Sadly, the weapon itself sucks, but telepathy!

Notable kills: Smeágol, Lugdush the Uruk, Uglúk the Uruk, Khîm Son of Mim, Mîm Betrayer of Turin, Beorn the Shape-Changer, Uldor the Accursed, Tom the Stone Troll

BGA: I learned the rules for two new games, but couldn't get a game going in either.

Work: Start of day: 577. End of day: 571.

Long-term: Nope.

I need to tell about the supper I made tonight, because I'm quite proud of it. Such plans as I had kept going wrong, but I ended up with a dish that got an "I could live off that stuff!" response from my son.

I knew I had to get food on the table by 6:30 at the latest so that he could get to work. I am NOT a speedy cook. I had an appointment that ended at 5, so my plan was to pick up some stuffed pasta at the grocery store on the way home and do a simple pasta-with-sauce-and-some-vegetables-mixed-in. Picked up some rocket just inside the entrance. Excellent I think; veg achieved. Now to get pasta, and we are golden!

There are only two stuffed pastas available. One I can't eat, the other looks unappetizing (mushroom lovers, bleh). Okay, so let's do penne with a few extra things thrown in. Some cheese would be good. I am tempted by some herbed mozzarella, but the meltiness will not go with my rocket. Goat cheese feta it is! And maybe pieces of sausage for protein! That sounds good... but the store does not have any sausage that is neither pork nor hot dogs. Crap. I don't have time to thaw meat, and I don't want to buy any when we have lots at home, so... hardboiled eggs I guess. And for sauce? The sauces just don't seem to go with my rocket (and are a bit expensive). I almost end up with an alfredo, but in the end decide to do caramelized onions in browned butter. Okay. Hope this works!

Get home, chop up a couple of onions, press some garlic (the farmer's market garlic is so juicy it just bursts!), and throw that in a pan with some butter to do its thing. Put four eggs in the toaster to do their thing. Chop up the rocket, grab some garlic chives and a bit of parsley from the garden and chop them too, cube the feta. And that's somehow all the prep. Boil water for pasta. Discover that someone has put vinegar in the kettle after the water has boiled. Throw out pot of water, boil new one. The onions and butter are done now and look amazing. I go to toast some pine nuts and learn I have none. Oh well. Put on pasta for real this time. Fetch the eggs, shell them, cut them each in 8. Wait for pasta to cook, drain, stir it into the onions, add the rocket until wilted, then add the rest (I left out the eggs so they wouldn't crumble; they just got put in each person's bowl). Done.

It really was very nice. The onions brought sweetness, the garlic fit in great, the feta brought a touch of sour, and the egg a bit of richness to go with the butter. Filling and easy and cheap and delicious. Pretty good for a meal made of plan Bs.

On 9/13/2023 at 1:25 AM, Scaly Freak said:

I fully support the approach of charging through dungeon obstacles by hitting them hard with swords and clubs and other weapons.  Melee is fun!

Melee is fun, but overly successful melee makes you inattentive after a while, and then your people die. At least, that is my experience.

23 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Nice, I am all in for a dungeon delving, gaming challenge  

That is good, because it is all I could think of (and it wasn't even my idea!).

22 hours ago, Severine said:

This is a fun challenge, and it seems like you're off to a strong (and smashy melee) start   

 

I'm a little confused about why you're having to do work tasks at home - is it for your job, or is it like, personal stuff that feels like work? I hope your employer is not exploiting you!

Yes! We smash!

It is less of a have to. I started a new job role (children's programmer at the library) at the beginning of July, but didn't start actually doing the job until August. I have done it before though. Over the years, I have prepped displays, activities, storytimes, booklists, etc, and it wasn't until I went to put together a basic storytime that I realized that my lists of favourite books were scatters in a half dozen places, and many of the books on the lists are no longer in the system. I spent way too long trying to find things I know that I have somewhere. And while picking through it, I found all sorts of things I'd forgotten about but will be useful for all the crap I have to plan. I find it extremely freeing and stress-relieving to know that I have ideas fleshed out that I could pull out and use if I don't come up with anything else.

My digital organization is presently awful, in other words, and if I want to use my decade of past work to help Future Me be less stressed, I need to organize it. However, Me On Work Hours needs to do more immediate short-term planning until I can get myself a little bit ahead (ha!), along with things that can only be done in-branch, which leaves this non-mission critical stuff for (mostly) outside of work hours since it is possible to do at home.

13 hours ago, JuiceeTarget said:

Dungeon delving as an allegory for life. I can get behind that. "I've used up all of my health potions, so I have to be careful opening the door to the next room."

True. And don't travel without escapes. Backup plans make everything better!

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Ongoing Habits:

Exercise: No. I was completely dead and in desperate need of sleep when I got home from work, so I did that instead. (Did not sleep well last night.)

Prayer: No. I heard one alarm and ignored it. I did not have a good excuse.

NerdFitness: Started sorting through the new challenges.

Purging: Forgot about this! Will do after posting.

New Shiny:

Angband: Jinjin is now at character level 26, and has dropped to 1050' (dungeon level 21). He smacked his way through an entire room's worth of various p's, and that was mostly the flavour of the day. Mostly challengeless melee, even the uniques. He did drop to double digits a couple of times (gasp!) but he was never in any real danger. He now has 390HP, which really helps. He did junk a bunch of equipment by fighting gelatinous cubes though - acid attacks be rough on armour. It was a fairly chill day for him of collecting stuff that needed an ID (Identify Rune scrolls have been thin on the ground) and ferrying them back to town to get then IDed. I picked up a few nice things (thank the heavens, I finally got the Phial of Galadriel and don't have to mess around in dark rooms!), but my pile of gear still has a lot of room for improvement. Found a couple of these on level 21 which was the biggest excitement of the day:

That is a teensy vault (the red asterisks are items I have detected). These usually contain both good items and out-of-depth monsters. These ones were pretty tame, but I was still happy to find them.

Notable kills: Wormtongue Agent of Saruman, Ulfast Son of Ulfang, Nár the Dwarf, Gorbag the Orc Captain, Old Man Willow, Shagrat the Orc Captain, Bolg Son of Azog, Angamaitë of Umbar, Sangahyando of Umbar. I chased Farmer Maggot around a bit, but he always ran and hid. This makes 17/100 uniques killed so far. (I have only ever seen 83.)

BGA: Nope.

Work: Start of day: 576. End of day: 577. I did do things. I just also added some stuff to the list, and some of the things I did didn't remove anything as it was a large item and not completed.

Long-term: Nope.

My time was on the limited side today, and I lacked energy after work (it was busy, and I learned a lot!) So accomplishments are modest.

Ongoing Habits:

Exercise: Yes! It was very minimal as I both forgot my phone AND made it all the way back upstairs before remembering (I had brought down another thing to do and it didn't go as planned)

Prayer: Also yes. I dragged myself up at the alarm, and ended up with a full prayer.

NerdFitness: No reading today. Brain was fuzzy and I was more focused on my work tasks.

Purging: Got rid of a CD and a strategy book for a game I do not even own.

New Shiny:

Angband: I started my new character today: Jinjin the Half-Troll Warrior. I am tired of losing delicate wizards, and just wanted to smack things this time around.

Clearly I am a looker with a bright college future ahead of me.

Skipped the first level as I found a down staircase right away. Second level, I levelled up on my first kill () and was level 6 before I descended. I kept descending and smacking things until they died with complete ease until 700' (dungeon level 14). This level had six uniques in close proximity (at one point, I had four after me at the same time). The first one I met (Boldor, King of the Yeeks) also confused me, slowed me, then teleported me into a very dangerous situation. I survived and eventually killed everyone, but at the cost of all of my healing potions and almost all of my escapes. Must needs be a little more cautious in my smacking from here on out. I returned to town to restock. Final status as seen in screenshot. (So much HP....)

Killed today: Farmer Maggot's Dogs Fang and Grip, Bullroarer the Hobbit, Brodda the Easterling, Grishnákh the Hill Orc, Golfimbul the Hill Orc Chief, Boldor King of the Yeeks, Orfax Son of Boldor.

BGA: Nope. This is only for when I don't have to cram it into limited time (thereby producing MORE stress; the opposite of fun). Today was not going to work.

Work: Start of day: 578. End of day: 576. And I did add some things too, so yay!

Long-term: Nope.

I've been having a hard time coming up with a good goal for this challenge round, hence the lateness. However, I think I've found it.

I've spent the last couple of weeks spending most of my spare time working on work tasks. Mostly, organizing a large pile of information accumulated over a decade into a better, more searchable, and easier-to-use form.

This is not how "spare time at home" is meant to go. There is meant to be time for actual fun and personal projects and the like. So I am going to inject some fun, even if I have to schedule it, while still allowing myself to chip away at my digital chaos.

Ongoing habits:

These all need care and feeding.

Exercise after my coming-home laundry routine

Washing and prayer on hearing my alarm (if I am home and able)

Reading NerdFitness when.... I still don't have a good habit here, but read it!

Get rid of one thing every day

New shiny things for this challenge:

I have played a game called Angband on and off since 1999. In the game, you are a character descending through the 100 levels of the Mines of Moria to kill Morgoth. I have never won, and the closest I've ever been is about 20 levels from the bottom. I just killed my latest character today, so I'm going to make a new one and see how far I can get.

I also play on BoardGameArena, and they are forever putting up new games that I don't take the time to try out. Goal here is to try one per day on days where this is a realistic thing to do. (Reading rules takes time!)

I have a pile of work tasks consisting of Stuff that needs to be sorted into my new organizational system. There are currently 578 items on that list. (I split the tasks up a lot, so most of these are fairly small.) Some more will be added as time passes (as I find new things, or break, say, a pile of links in an email into a bunch of smaller tasks), but obviously the goal is to have that number be smaller at the end of the day than at the start.

I may also try to work on things that will improve things for me long-term, like my stock research and buying of last challenge. I am thinking of figuring out a good way to organize recipes to easily make meals. But this is more of a bonus item.

Okay, feels like a challenge. Let's go!

Goals

1. Sort out my investments.

1. Finish moving money. Done!
2. Research categories. Mostly done! The research on US section went much faster than expected because it turns out there is almost nothing decent available on the Canadian market. I am going to have to peek into the US-listed end of the market before I make final choices.
3. Purchase things. It's the weekend, so no purchasing occurred.

2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) - this was meant to be temporarily on hold, not dead.  Sigh.

Nope.

3. Finish knitting scarf.

Still much nothing.

Habits

Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I have been out and about all weekend, so this was basically not an option.

Get rid of one thing per day. I did do this today! (Just recipe cards.)

Exercise every day. Also did this. SO MUCH of this.

Read and post on NF. Nothing at all. Comes with having company over.

My brother and his girlfriend dropped in for the long weekend just over an hour after I got home from work on Friday, so I have been spending very little time on my computer and more time with them. And we have been Doing Stuff.

On Saturday, we went straight from my work to an all-you-can-eat chain that they were very excited to introduce us to. As one does at such places, we all ate too much, but I think we all also tried everything we wanted to, so that was good. However, I realized that there was a problem almost as soon as I stood up: I was starting to have serious doubts about keeping all of my food down. I have never thrown up from eating too much before. That is no longer true. I am now the butt of my family's jokes for having "transitional soup".

Today, we attempted to go spelunking at the Lusk Cave in Gatineau Park. I even put on jeans for the first time in almost fifteen years for the occasion. (My son took a picture for posterity. ) Unfortunately, too many other people had the same idea. The road up to the shortest entrance was closed, because the lot was full. We navigated to a different parking lot on a much longer path that would still get us there (8km still sounded doable), but my brother's girlfriend was wearing borrowed shoes for some reason, and she had a bad enough blister at about the 2km mark that we had to turn back. So we failed at cave exploration today. We also failed at a later trail walk that we did closer to home, because it was dark and a bit buggy and that put the guests off.

But we did have a consolation prize. On the way home, we stopped at T&T (a large Asian grocery store). My brother's girlfriend is Vietnamese, and she decided to teach us how to make fresh spring rolls. (She says this is how Vietnamese parents trick their children into eating vegetables.) The only thing we needed was rice paper. But of course, that is not all we bought, because it is a fun place to explore and full of unexpected and interesting things to try. (I still want to know why they are selling 1kg hula hoops, and who is paying $32 for this AT THE GROCERY STORE.) I ended up with a freezer full of dumplings and wontons, and we picked up a few kinds of instant ramen despite my purposely avoiding the ramen aisle so that I didn't buy one of everything. (Another time. ) The spring rolls were messy and fun, and also super easy. We had many ideas for how to change up the flavours. We are definitely going to be making those again.

So in the end, I did a ton of exercise this weekend. Friday I did a session of Literal Immortality on GMB, because I felt like something bouncier that the usual Elements. Saturday, even after the eating too much and everyone ending up in bed for a while when we got home, I still went out for a short walk. And today we got in a 4km hike and then another shorter walk too.

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This challenge almost summarizes itself because of its goal-setting structure. I didn't finish any of the three goals I set, which I'm a little sad about. But I did know that one was overly ambitious, and one I kind of lost control of. The last one, I feel like I've done fairly well, as it's almost done. By the official start of next challenge, it will be complete.

My usual habit of getting rid of a thing was mostly successful.

Posting and reading was more successful than last time, but that's not saying a lot. This still needs work.

Tweaking habits didn't happen as often as I had planned, but the exercise tweak I made worked REALLY well, and I haven't tested and played with the prayer one enough to know for sure how it will go because I have had so many problems just sorting out the tech, and then people came over.

And that's about it really. I feel like I made some progress. Not as much as I'd hoped, but more than I would have without the challenge. Which is fairly average.

I do like having this goal structure in place - it gives me a clear target to shoot for, and even if I don't make it, I make some headway on something I may have been ignoring, and that's a very good thing. Still got to find the balance, but I will probably keep at least one goal on the list for next time.

16 hours ago, Heidi said:

And this is exactly why I haven't knit one yet.  

 

Hope you got some rest.

For what it's worth, I think you're doing parenting right.

❤️

That is fair. Some of us like meditative, relaxing knitting. Others like hard and experimental things that go wrong and make us want to throw them out the window.

And thank you. I certainly hope so.

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Goals

1. Sort out my investments.

1. Finish moving money. Done!
2. Research categories. The international section is done. I ended up picking four different ETFs because there was so little overlap between them, none of them individually had enough diversity to make me completely comfortable, and the world is a big enough place that this makes sense to me.
3. Purchase things. Worked on it. More work needs doing.

2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD) - this was meant to be temporarily on hold, not dead.  Sigh.

Nothing. I really just need to test my bike in the spot my son suggested and see if it works for me (and I actually use it).

3. Finish knitting scarf.

None today.

Habits

Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I was not both at home and available the two times I heard the alarm go off. I should have heard it go off four times though. I do not know if I am just tuning it out, or if the notifications are weird. Probably a little of both, but leaning to the latter.

Get rid of one thing per day. Oh shoot. Forgot all about this.

Exercise every day. Did do this though. Which is kind of awesome as I was not planning to go out, and also didn't really feel like it before starting.

Read and post on NF. I read promiscuously - just a little here and there. Definitely did not post.

I spent the afternoon narrowing down my international choices. Just as I was getting into the buying phase though (and selling old things to enable the buying), I got a call from the dentist's office (I had left a message earlier in the day about needing a crown adjusted). Could I be there in half an hour? The dentist was going on vacation and this was his last day. Yikes. The dentist is half an hour away. So I dropped everything and left on the spot, and have a more comfortable crown. But it meant that the markets were closed when I got back, and while I could have placed a bunch of limit orders, I just didn't feel like it.

I mostly read my book through the evening and did a few little tasks. Nothing terribly memorable or noteworthy. Should do my wee purging task too.

Oh, and I found the song I was looking for! It was on @Severine's thread. It was Soap not Soup (Soap & Skin). I can relax. 😄

On 8/29/2023 at 7:01 AM, Everstorm said:

I attended a dojang (taekwondo) for several years that had family classes so I could practice along with my boys and other parents.  I really enjoyed it.

My son is 17, so he should be welcome in adult classes. Hopefully. And if he doesn't want to do it, that's okay too.

On 8/29/2023 at 8:16 AM, Heidi said:

I love illusion scarfs, but i have never knit one, and yours is just lovely!

Thanks! The only thing I don't like about it is that there is zero repeating in it, so you can't memorize and get in a flow. You have to carefully track your pattern. REALLY carefully track it, because if you aren't sure what line you are on, it is not easy to find it again!

On 8/29/2023 at 10:24 AM, Jarric said:

That is incredibly cool - both the choice of text and that it's hidden when you look directly at it.

 

I usually read a couple of days, but this is basically my approach. I'd like to catch up properly with everyone, but my forum time and my reading speed just don't allow for it.

I cannot take too much credit as I didn't write the pattern. But I love the illusion effect too.

I do the less-good technique of letting your reading list slowly build up because you'll get to it "someday" (you won't).

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I am very tired (this is what happens when you have long conversations with your child when you really should be going to bed), so this will be short.

I had a headache yesterday (just a regular headache for once!) when I got back from work, but I still exercised. I just made sure to pick something that didn't look bouncy or upsidedowny. I'm proud of getting that done. I also exercised today at the appropriate time.

I have done some research, but not enough. Cannot continue tonight as I will make poor decisions.

That's about it, to be honest.

On 8/28/2023 at 10:16 PM, Severine said:

I am investigating other possible local places to volunteer, and will apply to those that seem like a good fit.

Kids Help Phone is always looking for volunteers. Most of their volunteer positions are text-based crisis responders, which can be done from home at literally any hours you wish (though late night availability is the most helpful). I get the impression that a lot of counsellors use it as a way to get experience while they are students. The phone positions are held by paid counsellors I believe.

On 8/28/2023 at 10:16 PM, Severine said:

Vancouver doesn't seem like an easy place to make friends

Is anywhere an easy place for an adult to make friends though?

19 hours ago, KeysMcGee said:

Same. Depending on what's going on, I've taken to just reading two or three of the previous posts for context and then saying something anyway if I have something to say or just "liking" things if I want to show support but can't think of anything to add to the conversation.

I do almost no liking (mostly just if the person said something I really liked, or had a really good moment to share, or I want to basically "me too" their post), but I think using it to show "I am here" when you don't have much to say is really common and rather nice.

14 hours ago, Mistr said:

Your scarf is gorgeous!

Thanks! It's not hard and the pattern is free if you ever want your own!

12 hours ago, Everstorm said:

No judgement here.  I make it a personal goal not to change out of my pajamas on Sundays lol

I have pyjama days on a lot of my non-work days though....

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Goals

1. Sort out my investments.

1. Finish moving money. Done!
2. Research categories. Nothing.
3. Purchase things. No.

2. Fix my bicycle. (ON HOLD)

I talked to my son to see where he thinks is a good place to store my bike, because I wasn't coming up with anything good and he used his bike for daily transport fairly recently. He gave me a thing to try. So I may see how it will fit there.

3. Finish knitting scarf.

Nothing new.

Habits

Play with the parameters of one goal per week. I was not home for the two notifications I heard, and I am not sure if the other ones sounded or not. I am okay with not responding to things when I am not home at this point in time. Low hanging fruit first.

Get rid of one thing per day. I had done nothing on this until I was "invited" downstairs. Twice actually. The first summon followed an, ahem, manly shriek. (My son had discovered yoghurt with big red splotches in it that was not fruit in the bottom, and he needed help disposing of it.) The second was to deal with a whole pile of stuff. My son's bonus job is to take things that we are getting rid of, see if they are saleable, and put them up for sale if they are. He had a pile of stuff that had been up for a while with no bites, so it was going to the charity shop if I didn't want any of it. I picked out a few things that had made their way into his piles by mistake, or his personal discards that I wanted for myself or the library, and we now have a few boxes of stuff all ready for a thrift shop run.

Exercise every day. I did a bunch of walking today.

Read and post on NF. I read AND posted!

It was a busy day today. I got a crown installed (it should take only ten minutes, but there were problems and it took an hour of adjusting to make it fit). I made a successful Dollarama run and am now stocked up with noodle cups (but not their plain kettle chips, much sad). I started looking into martial arts for small people, as there are like half a dozen martial arts studios in town, many do adult classes, and that sounds both like a fun activity and like a good way to meet people. I went on a long walk with my son, and then talked to him for three hours. I started reading a book that I have been meaning to read for ages.

So it was a good day.

On 8/16/2023 at 12:42 AM, Scaly Freak said:

So I have been binge watching videos on curly hair, dismissing 90% of content creators until I found someone with fine and wavy hair like mine, and dove down the rabbit hole. It's fun!  

  Please to share your discovery? My fine hair should be wavy curly, but lately has been frizzy and lifeless and bleh. I need a haircut, but also better ideas on how to make the most of it.

Kinder World sounds interesting; will give it a try!

You are sounding happy in your life, much happier than before the job change. And with many wonderful happy moments. This is a lovely thing to see.

Congrats on your certification, and for what sounds like a wonderful weekend!

18 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Maybe the difference is created by whatever technique you are using to make the words appear?  Like changing the stitch changes the amount of yarn used?

🤦‍♀️ I was going to say that the two colours have stripes that are exactly the same and so it can't be, but I realized that's not true. They are mirrors of each other - where one purls, the other knits. So probably my purl uses slightly more yarn than my knit. It makes perfect sense.

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I completely ignored my investments and knitting today to work on a non-challenge project.

There was supposed to be D&D but it was cancelled, so since I was already dressed (don't judge), I decided to walk up to Dollarama to buy some noodle cups for work lunches. I arrived at 5:02. They closed at 5. 😠 I will have to go again tomorrow as I am completely out.

It got me out of the house and moving though, so not a total loss. And since my exercise habit triggered on the way in the door, I did that too. No GMB as I was already a bit sweaty and didn't want to, so I did some leg lifts that I'm pretty sure I will feel tomorrow. And I went for a night walk later on too.

I read on NF, but did not post.