Stareyedgirl

Week five! Somewhat better! Yay! Treadmill - 151/150 Strength - 1/15 Cardio - 2/3 Big improvement. I managed more than one in one week! I'm going to really try for 3 this week. Creating - 2/5 Not awesome, but I'm not too upset about this one. I had a lot going on this week, and I needed to spend some time with the things I need to keep up on. This week, I'm hoping for better, though. Fruits & Veggies 14/35? To be honest I'm not sure about this one. I had some bad days, but then I had days where I had like 4 or 5 servings. All in all, I think it's an improvement. My goal for this coming week is to make this week the best week so far. I want to finish up strong.

Week four... meh. Itchy and miserable for the first half, holiday for the second half. I didn't get done everything that I wanted to get done. Treadmill desk 75/150 .... better than last week... still not as good as I'd like Strength 5/15 again, better than last week, but I can do better than that Cardio 1/3 No improvement there. But I'm hopeful for this week. Creative 3/5 ... Not too bad. This week isn't looking too good. I'm teaching a ton of lessons (yay!) and I've got a bunch of editing. Hopefully I'll be able to fit it in! Vegetables 18/35 A few more than last week. I'm still trying to take it easy so the heartburn doesn't come back. This week, so far, vegetables have been really hard. I had a huge dentist appointment yesterday - 6 cavities filled - man is my whole mouth sore. Difficult to want to eat an apple Hopefully I can make up for it near the end of the week. In terms of PMLE, mine has been getting progressively worse year after year. It used to just be in the spring. Then it was the whole summer, but I'd be OK if I put on sunscreen. Then a couple years ago, sunscreen stopped working. HUGE bummer. I tried "hardening" my skin where I would go out for short bursts with no sunscreen to try and build up some natural defense against it. Not super fun, but toward the end of summer I wouldn't get AS itchy. So when I heard about this lotion, I got excited. My first round with the lotion... didn't work at all. I was super disappointed, but the company said I used it wrong. You have to combine it with a broad spectrum sunscreen, which I had not done because I was still in the hardening mindset. So I had to wait for the itchiness to subside so I could try again. I tried it today. I went out for a run, put on the lotion, then the sunscreen and went out for half an hour. It's been nearly 6 hours, and I'M NOT ITCHY AT ALL!!!!!!!! I can't even express what that means for me. First, I could go out for another run tomorrow. I don't have to wait for the itching to subside before I go out again (I never put already irritated skin in the sun - it has the chance to turn into a bout of erythema multiforme, which is AWFUL - like 10 times worse than the PMLE. Seriously, my skin hates me.) Second, I can go out for more than half an hour at a time. When I went out too long before, the itching after would be unbearable. After a day of whale watching where I wore sunscreen the whole time, the next 4 days were so insanely miserable. I wouldn't say it ruined the rest of the vacation, but it definitely made the rest of the vacation much harder. Third, I can go to things like the Rennaissance faire or Great America without being in a sweatshirt or long-sleeved shirt! Fourth, outdoor water parks!! Swimming! You can't do those things in a sweatshirt! This will definitely make the cardio bit easier because I don't have to have forced rest days where I wait for my skin to calm down before I can go outside again. Yes, I know I could do a video or something. That's just an excuse, but in theory, I now have 0 excuses. I think in general it will make activity easier. It's July and I've basically spent like 75% of the summer thus far being itchy and miserable. It saps my energy and makes me SUPER cranky. I suppose we'll see. I'm optimistic for this week and next week. I think I can do even better and finish nice and strong

And because I was so itchy (I have PMLE) I googled around to see if there were any new developments and THERE IS. I found a lotion made just for us, and there's a blog out there that swears it works. I've ordered it and paid exorbitant shipping fees. It will be here in 1-5 business days. *fingers crossed* I really hope it works. I won't lie. I watched people yesterday laying out in the sun and their only worry was that they might burn and I was rabidly jealous. I can't remember the last time I went out in the sun without a long sleeved sweatshirt on without the knowledge that I was going to pay for it later with blotchy red itchiness that would drive me mad. I haven't played tennis in years because there's no such thing as a shaded tennis court and it never seemed worth it for the days of misery that would inevitably follow. Water parks. Oh God, I miss water parks. And Great America. Long bike rides and hiking on trails without cooking myself in a sweatshirt. OK. I'm going to cry if I keep going. I'd better not get my hopes up too high or I'm going to be really disappointed if it doesn't work. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me. Here's to hope!

Well my second week is done. Kind of a good news/bad news situation. Good news - my creating was awesome and my heartburn is under control! Bad news? My activity was not awesome. I pushed too hard in my first workout of the week and was sore most of the rest of the week, I went out of town for a day, I was afraid of my heartburn coming back, the sun made me itchy and miserable etc. etc. I could give a BUNCH of excuses, but it boils down to I was cranky, bloated, itchy, and I pretty much turtled up and watched the extended cut of LOTR for the last half of the week instead of being active. But like I said, on the upside, I was super creative and did a lot of happy life stuff instead. Wrote some song bits, finished transferring over my new blog domain, did cross-stitch, went to an art museum, and then I spent a lot of time with my husband, which is rare during the summer, and spent a bunch of time with my parents. Creating 5/5 Cardio 1/3 Strength 0/15 Ouch. Treadmill desk 36/150 Veggies 16/35 So I suppose this week I'm going to try to do both areas at the same time and see if I can get a little further in that regard.

Well you only go between 1 and 2 mph. After a while, I forget I'm even moving until I'm like, hey, why do my legs hurt? My husband, though, forgets to walk when he's thinking really hard. He has to stop when he's trying to solve a difficult problem. I think it's hilarious. Him, not so much. I think I actually think better when I'm on the treadmill... like I'm actually powering my brain with my feet. But I like to do a lot of thinking when I take walks, so maybe I just have a lot of practice.

My current treadmill desk is a lifespan that I bought from a Second Wind exercise equipment place. They delivered it and set it up for me. The desktop is spacious and wonderful. I have a blog post about my previous treadmill desk that shows pictures of the ridiculous thing It was literally held together by socks and good thoughts. I have another post... also including my cat... that shows the newer treadmill desk. I'm working on moving everything over to my very own domain. www.mymotherhadmechecked.com I've got it all set up, but when I imported my posts all my pictures got screwed up, so I've had to go back through ALL 54 POSTS and fix the pictures. UGH. Annoying. I'm almost done, though. I have about 9 or 10 more posts to go through. I'm hoping to have it up and running this week or next week and I can finally take down that coming soon page. [Fingers Crossed]

I love my treadmill desk. I had one cobbled together with an old treadmill and some melamine and then last year, we decided to get an actual treadmill desk. Most amazing purchase ever. I highly recommend it for anyone who has to type a lot. Well week 1... well I suppose it's actually week 2 is finished. I face planted a little. My big diet shift caused some major heartburn problems. I've loaded up on the probiotics, water, and I'm trying to push through this bout with just the probiotics. I hate taking the 14-day course of prilosec. I'm reasonably certain that my heartburn isn't caused by excess acid and so taking something to reduce the acid is really just a temporary relief measure and ultimately not super good for me long-term. It's settled down a lot since a few days ago, so I'm optimistic that I won't have to do it this time. Fingers crossed. Either way - here is my results from the first week. Treadmill desk - Goal met I got myself back up there and put in 2.5 hours. Yay! Cardio - I only got 1 out of 3 planned workouts. Heartburn... vigorous activity... nope. Strength - 7/15 sets completed. Not too terrible considering. Food - I'm dropping my target to 4 a day instead of 5. I averaged about 2 a day for this week. Not awesome, but not terrible for me, believe it or not. Plus we put together a bunch of meals for the future and I found some really great frozen veggie meals that use organic antibiotic-free meat. Yay! I think this will go much better next week now that the heartburn appears to be settling down a bit. Creative Endeavors - Ugh. 1/5. I don't even have an excuse. I just didn't do it. Next week, I'm going to be on it. Period. All in all some success but I can do better next week.

Lammis, I never thought of it like that before. I will have to keep that in mind since my biggest barrier to cooking with nice fresh ingredients is that I feel like I don't have the time. Or I suppose if I'm honest, I would rather look at Reddit than cook. Thanks for the cheering, Sandylion Mini update on how the first week is going: Fitness and activity goals, so far, so good. I found a fun new app called The Walk by the same people that made Zombies, Run! It's a neat idea. It's basically a pedometer app for your iPhone, but you have "episodes" that you play. Each episode has a map with bits of an audio play scattered along your route that you unlock with a certain number of minutes of walking or activity. You can collect items along the route as well. The story seems well done so far, but I would expect nothing less since it's the same writer that did Zombies, Run! which has a fantastic story line. Creating... not so great. I can make up for lost time, but I haven't been vigilent about setting aside those two hours and blocking them off from other stuff. It's just a matter of making it a priority. It's hard, because I do freelance transcription editing, and when there is transcription just sitting there, ready to be done, money is just waiting to be earned. It's hard to be like, no. I'm going to spend 2 full hours doing something that will make me 0 monies instead of something that will make me... more than 0 monies. But this is why I work from home. To give myself the time and freedom to create. Yes, our finances aren't the best, but they're good enough for right now and those 10 hours a week aren't going to change our financial situation by that much. Food. Ugh. So. Much. Heartburn. I did not take into account the fact that up until Sunday I had been averaging 0 fruits and vegetables a day. And then I ate more than 0 fruits and vegetables a day and my stomach is like, hey, what are you doing? I was expecting pizza, nice easily-digestible pizza. What is this crap? Do you know how much work it is to digest broccoli??? I'm going on strike until you bring me a doughnut. And a rootbeer float. And BBQ pork mac and cheese. I'll adjust. (I hope I'll adjust) But it's possible that starting with 5 right off the bat might have been too big of a change to do all at once. So I'm going to back off to 2 or 3 a day for the first bit and see if my stomach can adjust... unless maybe I should just stick with it and hope I adjust anyway? I don't know. I'm on the fence about that one.

Hello everyone! It's been a year and a half! Eep. So a couple weeks ago, I was doing a yoga routine, and it was ... um ... well, it was kind of sad to tell the truth. My stomach - which has ... um... expanded somewhat - was in my way. I couldn't hold a couple of the poses, because my stupid stomach was too big. Definitely time for another challenge. I know the challenge started a week ago, but I'm going to start today and do 5 weeks because something is better than nothing. Life is going well. We've had some great times and some really tough times this year, but we're hanging in there and still kicking. The really rough times are made easier by the fact that both my husband and I are pursuing things professionally that we genuinely care about and enjoy doing. It makes a big difference. What could have spiraled into something really dark and bad for me was still hard, but it's much easier to face the day when you're doing something that you look forward to doing. When I started working from home nearly two years ago, my biggest concern was that I would not be as active. When I was in grad school, I walked everywhere - at least 2 miles a day the majority of days. But I'm a creature of necessity and efficiency. If I don't have to do something, I'm not going to do it. So when you work from home parked in front of a computer or a piano all day, you don't have to do much of anything. So I haven't. Oops. That's not to say I haven't worked out here and there, but it's been pretty lax, all in all. I've actually gained some strength in my upper body, and so through my inactivity, my back is holding up, but I don't want to push it. Back pain is horrible and I'm tempting fate by not making activity a priority. So my main goal is simple: Get moving again! To reach that goal, I will focus on 3 smaller measurable goals. Goal #1: At least a half hour on the treadmill desk per weekday. I have a treadmill desk. I spend a good chunk of time on the computer editing, writing, coding. There's no excuse for why I need to by laying on the couch or in bed doing those things instead of on my treadmill desk. There are so many things I can do on that treadmill desk. Heck. If I just spent the time I spend on reddit on the treadmill desk, I'd put in a couple miles in no time at all Goal #2: Just 6 Weeks. I did a brief stint with p90x and I really liked it, I got much stronger and that was nice, but it's kind of a big commitment for me right now and I don't feel like I can do that 6 days a week. Especially with how poorly I've been eating. So in terms of keeping my strength up, I'm going to be doing an app called Just 6 Weeks. It's push ups, pull ups, sit ups, dips and squats. 3 days a week. If it's anything like these programs that I've done in the past, I'll get stuck somewhere in the middle, because these programs ramp up too fast for me, but who cares? I'll be doing it, which is the important thing. Goal #3: Vigorous Activity 3 times a week. I want to get my heart rate up and really push the cardio a few times a week. Doesn't matter if it's yoga, Zombies, Run! or jumping rope. I want to improve my cardiovascular fitness, because right now my slothlike tendencies have definitely gotten the better of me and I worry about my health. I'm not overweight, but cardiovascular fitness is the number one predictor of heart disease regardless of weight. My life goal for this challenge will be to make creating a priority. I have a strong belief that we ought to create at least as much as we consume, if not more. This is something that I've been good at in the past, but I've let it slide a little in the last 6 months. The last 6 months have been very hard for me, and I've been focused on other things. So I've found myself plopped in front of Netflix watching Star Trek, reading Reddit, zoning out on Facebook, and just generally lazily consuming, consuming instead of making something awesome myself. I'm not even being mindful about it at this point; I don't even enjoy it. I'm just blankly staring at whichever screen I happen to be in front of. Enough is enough. I will commit 2 solid hours, in one sitting, with no breaks, every week day for creating something. Whether it's working on drawing, writing a song, writing a story, coding an app. What I'm working on is irrelevant. The important thing is the act of creation, and it needs to be a more important part of my life again. Food. Oh man has my eating been horrible. I've come to the realization that I've been toeing the line that separates disordered eating from non-disordered eating for long time, now. So I've stopped restricting calories. I've stopped counting calories. I stopped tracking every morsel that enters my mouth, because I had become obsessed. It was bad. With the calories taken out of the picture, I've been a little adrift. How will I know what to eat if I don't add up all the numbers? I literally don't know how to eat healthy anymore. But I do know that fruits and vegetables are healthy. And I don't eat enough of them. Water is healthy. And I don't drink enough of it. So instead of reducing, reducing, cutting, cutting, depriving, tracking, etc., I'm going to add foods to my diet. Namely, fruits and vegetables. 5 servings of vegetables or fruits a day. I did this goal once before, but I hated the way I did it. I didn't incorporate vegetables into what I was eating, I just mowed down 3 servings of carrot sticks had an apple and a banana and then whatever else I was going to eat anyway that day (a la pizza and McDonalds) and called it a day and felt good about it because I ate fruits and vegetables. Granted, it's better than not, but still missing the point. This time around, I want to make a point of eating foods with the vegetables playing an actual role in my meals. My husband and I have worked hard to gather a bunch of meals where vegetables play a more prominent role. I like those foods. It's just a matter of making those foods available instead of falling back on a fishy sammy and chocolate chip cookies from McDonalds because we're too lazy and can't be assed to actually cook. I'm going to add the grading portion to it later, I just need to post this right now because if I don't, I'm not going to do it.

It's been a while since I last posted, so... progress! I've been doing really well on making activity a daily thing. As a matter of fact, I did 7 days in a row, which is a record for me. I did strength (whenever I wasn't feeling sore... which was like 2 days) and I bumped my heart rate to my target zone for 30 minutes every day. So if I couldn't strengthen, at least I was doing something. And I gained 4 pounds. Oh yeah, I remember why I hate working out every day. People say they love how they feel when they're working out regularly. They're all like, "I have so much energy and I feel great!". Really? I feel bloated, tired, and hungry - and sore. SO sore. Makes me think I'm doing it wrong... but I'm committed, though. I'm going to keep going and hope that that whole feeling gross, fat and sore thing is just temporary. Anyway, so my cardio numbers have come up so I'm on track for an A for cardio. Yay Pushups. I think I'm looking at a C for pushups. I'm also stuck. I've been doing the same 24 pushups for a week and a half now. Although I'm less sore every time I do it, so... progress? I'm going to do them tonight and then I think I'll move on to the next session next time. Finishing before 9. I have been struggling this week, but I was pretty strong through the challenge so I think I can still get a B, but I think my A is gone. That's ok, this goal has helped me immensely and it's helped me focus. Daily yoga. I'm killing the daily yoga. Yesterday was my 31st day. I'm 4 days away from my 35 day streak. I find that I really enjoy doing the yoga every day. It gives me a chance to stretch out the kinks, and my back has been in better shape since I started doing this.

Well, I didn't meet my goal of doing pushups 4 times this week, but that was a long shot anyway - I think I'm looking at a C for the pushup portion of the challenge, but that's ok. I did however up my commitment to working out. As of yesterday, my goal is to spend 30 minutes with my heart rate elevated to at least the fat burning zone every single day (with the 7th day in a row being a stretch day). I'm still going to do 15 minutes of yoga every day (I hit my 25 day streak! I'm up to a B for the challenge! Woot!) So that's a total of 45 minutes per day. I know that there will be days I'll miss, but I really want to change my mindset from "Am I going to work out today?" to "When am I going to work out today?" I want not working out to be the exception, not the rule. I'm also sick of being a weakling. I'm sick of everything feeling like so much work. I'm frustrated because I'm so small that weight loss program's calorie counts don't go low enough for me to lose weight any faster than ~ .50 pounds/week (if that, and one good splurge and there goes all of the progress that I made that week). In order to lose a pound a week, I would have to eat 1200 calories (because you shouldn't go any lower than that) per day AND about 400 calories worth of exercise - so THAT'S not going to happen. When I eat only 1200 calories, I am CRANKY. I look at what my husband gets to eat and I'm like, "Screw this teeny tiny piece of fish. I want yours. And a brownie." So I eat more than 1200 hundred calories, and I exercise a few times a week, but I do not lose weight (Ok ok, I did lose 5 pounds, but it took 6 months and I fought for those 5 pounds). Because it's not enough to just limit food. I like being a teeny person for a variety of reasons. Couches are more comfortable. My shoes are ADORABLE, and they never sell out of my size. Airplanes and movie theaters have enough leg room for me. However, portion control is a nightmare! I don't want tiny-sized meals just because I'm tiny-sized! I want to match my husband (who is half again my size) bite for bite. (I'm not competitive, what are you talking about?) It's problematic. So I need to increase my capacity for activity and make it a daily routine or I'm going to be stuck eating children's meals for the rest of my life. I've been working my way up to this for a long time, but this is the first time that I feel like it's doable to make it part of my day. So here goes nothing!

I would LOVE a G+ yoga session! That would be so much fun Looks like you're doing really well on the challenge, keep it going!

Amen to ALL of these! Reading about your challenges is always inspiring. I haven't had a lot of time to browse the threads during this challenge, but I thought I'd check in. It looks like you're doing great! Keep up the good work.

Hi! Weekly update! Well, after several days of 10-12 hours of sleep, I'm back on my feet and December is off to an awesome start This week I only did cardio and pushups twice because of the whole being sick thing, but both went swimmingly. For cardio I did jump rope, because it's the easiest indoor cardio workout I can think of. If anyone else has any ideas of indoor cardio that doesn't require too much space and that I can watch TV during, feel free to suggest. I might get sick of jump rope at some point this winter... although if the weather keeps going the way it has been, I might be able to walk outside some as well! It's 60 degrees today... we're close to record highs for December. Either way, the breaks to bring my heart rate down are much shorter than they used to be before. I'm hoping that someday I can just jump continuously with no breaks for my heart rate to settle. I would love that. Pushups! I did 22 during my last set. It was hard, and my low/mid back really didn't like me yesterday, but I have to think that it's getting stronger and push-ups are one of the fastest way to strengthen my core/back/upper body all at once. And that's my goal, so onward. More pushups! I'm going to try to get them in 4 times this week to see if I can make up for ones that I haven't done, so that means doing them Mon, Wed, Fri, & Sun. 23 is the set I'm going to do today, which is only one more, but for the first time, one of my sets is 6! (Actually 2 sets). We'll see how it goes. So far, I haven't had to repeat any workouts, but I have a feeling that will be coming soon. Not procrastinating. This is going really well, and I'm SO glad I made this a goal this time around. It's probably the most helpful goal I've made. I have had so much TIME. I'm doing all the things I need to do, and I have TIME to watch some TV, cross-stitch, hang out with my husband, see friends & family. It's freaking awesome. Nano is over. I didn't "win", but I'm not really bummed about it, because I had an inkling that I probably wouldn't finish the first couple of weeks in. Namely, because I don't like to write a ton over the weekend. That's my time to spend with my friends and family and husband and to do stuff around the house. I work on my novel every day, but I usually only put down like 500 words on a weekend day versus 1000-2000 on a week day. When I was in school, I spent enough time ducking out on social stuff because "I had work to do" or "I was too busy" and I spent all of my time in a frantic "must go faster" pace so that when the semester was over I collapsed onto my couch as a puddle of goo for the duration of winter break. I genuinely hope that phase of my life is over - it sucked. Moderation, here I come! As it was, I didn't do to shabby. I've got about 40k words of my first draft, and a very good idea of where the book and it's sequel are headed. It's got a long road ahead of it. If I had to guess, I'd say that I was looking at about 150k for the entire shebang, and then there's the rewrites... Well. Yoga. Did it. Every day. Even when I was sick (thank goodness for restorative yoga). Yesterday was my 21st day in a row! I've officially got a C for the challenge. 4 more days till I hit B! Go me!

Haven't written for a while, but I'm still doing stuff! I haven't broken my yoga streak yet. Today will be day 15 or 16, I don't remember which. Cardio and Pushups might have fallen by the wayside over Thanksgiving... oops. I did them yesterday, 16 pushups and 1000 jump ropes. My cardio is really coming along nicely, even if I did take a week off. Today should probably be another cardio and push-up day, but I'm feeling so sick and icky, I don't think that's going to happen. I think there will probably be Mucinex and Nyquil in my near future. I've been doing a fairly good job of finishing everything but an hour before 9, not perfect, but most days I manage to get it all done. Because of that, I've had a ton more free time. I finished a crochet sweater and I'm working on finishing up a cross-stitch that I've been working on for forever. I'm looking forward to crossing it off my list - the stitching is all done, now I'm just going back through and doing the back stitching, which is my favorite part. I like to do my crafts while watching British television shows - don't know why, but there you are. I watched the Pride & Prejudice miniseries with Colin Firth, and now I've been making my way through Doc Martin. I still have to catch up on the most recent season of Doctor Who, and someday I'm going to finish Torchwood. I love netflix. Well that's all from me for now. I'm going to go finish up my work for the day and then try to get some sleep. I hate feeling sick.

Things are going well this week! I'm off to a pretty good start. I did cardio yesterday - jump rope. I would like to say this: When we did the jump rope challenge, I was still doing the heart rate cardio thing. To have my heart rate stay in my target zone, I was able to do 500 jumps in a half hour, because I had to keep stopping and waiting for my heart rate to come back down to earth. Seriously, it was like - do 15 jumps - w a i t w a i t w a i t, drink some water, look at the heart rate monitor - ok Jump! do 15 jumps rinse repeat. Yesterday? Half an hour - 800 jumps!!! What? That's awesome. I definitely felt like I had to jump more because my heart rate plummeted every time I stopped. At one point, I had to switch the netflix show I was watching because I tried the first episode of the Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations and I HATED IT. I couldn't even stand to finish the first episode - The description clearly stated that the show was about food, but it wasn't even about food, he spent like half an hour pretending that he was hallucinating because he drank absinthe. >.< Ugh. Either way, when I switched the episode, my heart rate fell all the way out of the range almost back to what it was before I even started working out. I had hardly any rest time between "sets". I was barely done with one before I had to quick do some more to keep from falling. Soon I'll be able to just jump forever! (until my calves give out that is, they are a little sore today - not too bad.) Pushups! I did 12 on Sunday night. And honest to God every single time I do a real pushup, I get down to the bottom and I'm like, 'Holy crap. There's no way I can get all the way back up there'. And yet somehow I do... it's going to be a while before I make progress on this one. I did the pushups Sunday night, and my deep core muscles are still angry with me. During my daily yoga, my up dog & cobra are full of ouch. (not the bad kind, the good but painful kind... I'm not explaining that well. It feels good to stretch it, but the muscles are still sore? That's sort of better.) My next set is slated to be 16. Not sure I'm going to make it, but I'll keep chipping away at it. I'm hoping I can get up to 25 by the end of the challenge. Daily yoga. Doing it! Loving it. Today will be day .. 9! I'll officially have gotten a D for the challenge - then 8 more days to go before I get a C Because I've been writing so much lately and I can't do it all on my treadmill desk, my upper-mid back and neck have been killing me. Then after I'm done writing for the evening, I stretch out all the kinks and get back to feeling like a person again, instead of a crunched up ball of pain. I'm working on increasing my time at my treadmill desk, but that makes my hips hurt. Stupid twisty spine mucks everything up. I've been doing very well getting everything but an hour's worth done by 9. And I have had SO MUCH FREE TIME because of it. I almost feel guilty because I have an actual work day and then downtime with the hubby and then a little me-time before bed. I'm in HEAVEN. I've been reading so much, and I've been getting to play Glitch to say farewell to a lovely quirky game, and I'm putting a crap ton of words onto the page, I've written some songs, the house looks cleaner, I'm getting in exercise, AND I'm learning a ton of new songs to just play and sing. Heaven. Seriously. Things with my story are clicking on all cylinders, it's taking me much less time to write my words lately, because I have a really clear picture of how things are going to play out at least for the next couple of days, so I'm trying to take advantage of that to catch up a little. I'm still not sure if I'll make it to 50,000 by the end of November because Thanksgiving is coming up - tis the season of talking & laughing, eating & drinking with friends and family. Not as much work gets done, but I think it's a worthy trade Even if I don't make it all the way, I'll be darn close. Well that's it for me for now!

I've been feeling pretty good the last couple of days. I think I'm coming out of my mini-funk I'm almost caught up on my nano words, I just really needed to sit down and to some outlining and planning and now I'm doing pretty good. I'm still sad that Glitch is shutting down, but they're not officially pulling the plug until the 9th of December, and in the mean time, they're releasing all of the material they had been working on, they've given everyone pretty much unlimited access to paid content, and they've reduced learning time for skills so that everyone will get to experience as much of the game as possible in the last couple of weeks. So I'm sad to see it go, but at least we can give it a proper send-off! I only managed 2 cardio sessions so far this week, I'm not sure if I'll do another cardio session today. I kind of want to, but I might have stayed up until... way to late playing games. Oops. So today I have a headache and my back is killing me. I have 2 push up sessions so far this week, but I'm planning on doing a third yet today - why doing pushups seems like so much less work than doing a cardio session, I have no idea. I've done yoga every day this week, today will be my 7th day - only a couple more days until I have a D for that goal for the challenge So so far so good on that front! I did 5 days so far of not procrastinating and getting everything but an hour's of work done before 9. I missed 1 day, but that's ok. For the days that I did it, I felt less stressed and more able to relax and enjoy the time that I'm not working, which is the whole point

As to reading the book... don't hold your breath. It will be going through at least a few drafts before anyone but me and my husband reads it. Rule #1 of writing. Never show anyone your first draft, and only show your second draft to someone who loves you enough to be nice to you while they tell you which parts totally make no sense and aren't as funny/sad/happy/interesting as you thought they were when you typed them at 3 in the morning But I'll say that I really like this story, and if I can make it work at all, I'll probably let people read it eventually

Thanks everyone for the kind words and support! At this moment, I'm feeling much better. I'm not sure why... today pretty much sucked. While doing yoga yesterday, I caught a glimpse of my stomach in the mirror and it was... well, it didn't make me feel better, that's for sure. Today, my back was super painful and I feel like it's my fault for not doing enough/the right kind of activity. I found out that an online game that I've been playing for like 3 YEARS that I love love love is ending and my poor little character Paige Turner is going to be gone forever And finally, at the end of the day, when I was feeling most miserable, one of my cats peed on the floor. I think it was when I was cleaning up the cat pee on the floor that I was like, "Ok, Ok, I get it, universe. The lesson for today is that things can always get worse, I'll stop moping and get to work! Sheesh." And then I did.

Well, luckily... or unluckily depending on your perspective, my friend had someone with her who needed to leave after about an hour an half. If she hadn't, we totally would have gone and seen Skyfall. She hasn't seen it, and since I thought it was the best movie ever, I would have gone and seen it again But alas, no Bond for me. Got everything done though! Today isn't going so well. I'm at a point in my nano story where I'm not exactly sure how my characters are going to get from point B to point C... so I think I'm probably going to produce 2000 words of total crap today and it's probably going to take me forever to do it. Not looking forward to it, but who knows. Maybe it will fix itself. I think my major problem today is that I'm tired. I have great books that I've been reading, and I keep staying up too late to finish them. Then I wake up tired and have a mantra of "I don't wanna" running through my head all day. Well, I think I probably just need to swallow the frog. Sit down and write out my 2000 probably-crappy words and move on to other things Tonight is definitely a night for stabbing the British (Assassins Creed III - not actual British people )

Yay! Way to be

So far so good! Yesterday I finished just before 9. I thought I was doing good on time, but then my doorbell rang at 5:30. I had completely forgotten that I had a student coming! Whoops. So there went a half hour. Did some cardio and a 1/2 hour of yoga afterward. My back has really been giving me problems, and I'm not sure if it's from too much sitting or the fact that I've started yoga again... I'm hoping after a couple of days of yoga my neck and back will settle down. Today is my first big challenge for finishing before 9. My best friend called and wants to do coffee. Coffee when we get together often stretches into hey let's go see a movie, have dinner, talk for 4 hours. So... well we'll see. I've got a good jump on the day, so we'll see where it leads... I'm hoping that this challenge, I can be a little more involved in other people's challenges. That's what I'm going to work on next week

Yay for daily yoga! We're going to rock it out! Totally agree. I think this website - more than anything else, has really helped me to focus on what I want out of my life and how I can work towards getting it. I think the majority of the benefit I've gotten hasn't had much to do with fitness at all! This is ok with me, though First day: Well, my first day went really well! I'm back on the Weight Watchers wagon, so that's good news. I finished all but about 45 minutes of work by 9pm and then had a relaxing evening reading and chatting with the hubby. Then some TV & crocheting. Finished my work and did some more reading. So far, I'm LOVING this whole not leaving all of my work until the last minute thing - and that was after getting a late start because I had been writing up my goals! I did about 20 minutes of yoga yesterday. It was the first time in a long time and boy oh boy was I stiff. I'm glad I'm making this my daily fitness habit! I put on my heart rate monitor just to see if any of my yoga sessions would be able to count for cardio. I only made it into the fat burning zone for a couple of minutes, and I was preoccupied by looking at my phone to look at my HR the whole time so I think I'm just going to make it a point to do cardio separately - maybe before my yoga sessions. Today, I got a good start on my work, so maybe I'll even finish a little early and spend some quality time stabbing British soldiers (Assassin's Creed III).

Did my baseline for real pushups. And the grand total of the maximum pushups I can do in one set IS: 5. When I start the program officially, my first day's pushups will be a grand total of 12. A far cry from the 18 I could do in one set for modified and the 60 total, but hey. You've got to start somewhere

Love your goals! Welcome back