Artemis Prime

Thanks, I genuinely appreciate this. The puppy sold over the weekend, and I'm really not that disappointed, except for the flood of messages from my coworkers who were upset I didn't get it. They were sort of joking, but also sort of not and I was just kind of over it. Them pushing so hard for me to get it actually made me want it less, because I dislike being told what to do. And now we're back on the original plan, which is to maybe get a dog next year. And, to @Sepherina's point, I do prefer getting shelter dogs. I kind of love it for me too. I ended up missing 1 lift and 2 cardio workouts last week, and the Dread Warrior rolled terribly and missed me on all three attacks, which I'm taking as a sign that even the dice acknowledge I needed an easy week.

I'm so sorry things are this hard right now, Sal. I'm glad you have a quiet place to go for a few days. I do, however, want to push back a little on how you're holding things in. I understand not wanting to worry people, but you deserve love and support and people can't give it to you if they don't know you're hurting. Reach out Sal. You've got people who love you. Let them help you.

This made me laugh. Excellent mindset progress here.

I don't know the little ins and outs of the city that well, mostly how to get where I'm going and get back out again. Lots of good places in the Strip, though, it's hard to go wrong there. I deliberately withheld pictures because I really don't need more people encouraging me to get this dog, but since you asked, I can't resist. Look at her!

Thanks for checking in! The week's gone pretty well, though with not much to report. I've been blazing through zero weeks with no regard for their existence, and suddenly felt a bit worn out, so I decided to take this week as a deload for my challenge. Quick recap/plan: Monday - beautiful weather. Did some barn work after work work. Tuesday - did a tiny bit more barn work, then went to my sister's. She has the flu, so I made her soup, we hung out for a bit, I went home. Wednesday - horrid weather day. Temps dropped all day with some miserable winds. Went over to my neighbor's for a little bit and then chilled. Thursday - only at work for half a day today. Hoping to get a workout in this afternoon, then this evening down to Pittsburgh for a diocesan conference. Friday - going to be a late night tonight, so I took tomorrow off. Lift and/or cardio, maybe barn work if the weather is nice. Back to Pittsburgh in the evening for part 2 of the conference. Saturday - two late nights followed by an early morning, but have to head back down to Pittsburgh yet again for a full day of the conference. Thought about getting a hotel room Friday night and staying down there, but I found someone to carpool with and would rather spend the night at home. Conference should be all wrapped up and home by dinner time. Probably going to spend the evening recuperating. Sunday - dinner following church. Probably family stuff later. Maybe sneak in another lift or cardio session. I have been keeping up with my class reading, though still have a bit more to do. Currently sitting at 44 points for the week. Going to get lots of Ceremony points this weekend, but not really fussed about it one way or the other. This week I'm just feeling my way and trying to give myself what I need. So far, that's been a lot of leisure reading and Critical Role watching. A big focus of last year for me was learning to be gentle with other people. Gentleness is not something that comes naturally to me, nor something I saw modeled much in my family (We have many great traits, I don't want to give the mistaken idea that we were awful to each other. Just not particularly gentle. The mindset behind it seemed to be, "the world's not a gentle place, you've got to toughen up.) Anyways, point being, I've put a lot of work into learning how to be gentle with others, and I appear to have reached the point where I can be gentle with myself. For a long time, I took pride in the fact that I was tough enough to not require gentle handling, but it turns out that just because I don't need it doesn't mean I don't enjoy it from time to time. It's been a good week, and I'm looking forward to hitting next week hard again, so my challenge deload looks like it's working exactly as intended. In other life news, my mom has a hyperactive parathyroid and I'm driving her down to Pittsburgh on March 11 to get it removed. Should be a very minor surgery with a quick recovery time, but she's starting to feel a bit anxious about it. And in other other life news, I have fallen in love with a puppy that my coworker is selling. After some arguing with myself and my parents over whether this is really a great time for me to add to our household, we have decided to suspend discussions until after my mom's surgery. If she bounces back as quickly as her doctor is predicting, she is willing to take on some puppy duties and we will most likely get the dog. If it turns into a longer recovery process, we really don't need a puppy in the house. And if someone else buys it in the next two weeks, then it wasn't meant to be.

Why do we have Mondays, guys? Just, why? The weekend was actually really good. I had such a great Saturday. I got a workout done, played the piano, did a bunch of reading, groomed my horses, did a bit of barn work, watched some Critical Role, and got a 20 minute jump rope interval workout done for cardio. Oh, and some cleaning. And I did it all with a nice, relaxed mindset, not the frenetic need to be doing more. And I enjoyed it, even the parts that weren't really fun, like washing the living room blankets and taking out the trash. A nice reminder of how much I can do and how pleasant I find it when I fully engage with my life instead of living half of it in my phone. Like I just remembered - I also ordered a bunch of fence supplies I need to add a hot line to the top of my fence and busted out the solo D&D game I've been ignoring for a while. That set me up for a good Sunday - I usually feel like the weekend is slipping through my fingers, but it turns out when I use Saturday well, I don't mind my family taking up large chunks of Sunday. Had a good church service and a good Sunday school class, Then spent the afternoon with my brother and his kids. Played a Disney trivia game with them, which was absolutely unfair because the game is from before they were born, so they didn't know most of the old movies in it. My nephew tends to be a poor loser, though, so when he started trying to cheat to get ahead, I bore down hard and smoked him, showing no mercy. My niece took it well though and enjoyed the game. Then my sister and I watched the Penguins game, which started out slow but turned into a very exciting game. Then we had dinner and I read until bedtime. I broke my new rule and lay down on the couch, which meant I woke up at 1:30 still on the couch, but it doesn't appear to have thrown me off too much. I did not get around to any class reading this weekend. Other than that, a darn good couple of days. Ended week 2 with 170 points, which I'm very happy with. This morning, got up on time and did Morning Prayer, so 2 cantrip points right off the bat. My new farrier came at 8 and we got my horses' hooves done, so Aid points as well. My quarter horse was very well behaved, which is good because I told them he would be. My mustang...not so much. Part of it is the arthritis, part of it is that he was so overdue for a trim, part of it is just him always being kind of difficult. We got through it, though, and hopefully now that I am on his regular rotation and won't have to do so much trimming at once things will go smoother on future visits. It put me behind on my day, which obviously I knew it would and let work know last week that I'd be arriving late today, but holy cow did it throw me off my groove. I'm settling in now, but I was very out of sorts when I got to my desk and couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be working on. So note for future self - maybe try to avoid Monday morning appointments. I need my routine to ease me into the week. Anyways, tonight should be a workout night, but the weather is gorgeous, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I might do barn work tonight and lift tomorrow. Also, I really should get to some class reading tonight, although next week is a reading week, so I have some cushion there.

Yay! And double yay for bonus side effects!

I'm sorry you are struggling, Sal. Maybe you and Bronze can get out for a walk and some quiet.

If my time zone math is correct, you are hopefully about halfway home right now. Wishing you safe travels and a cozy homecoming!

It will come back, but it seems that constantly comparing your present lifts to your past PRs could prove too demoralizing in the long run. Perhaps a nice Jason Bourne themed challenge where you develop amnesia in the gym? No memory of how you learned these movements, only a certainty that you are capable of them, if you continue to feel your way forward slowly and with caution?

ouch! Fun stuff! What kind of races are you signed up for? Any obstacle runs? Heck yeah! Super impressive. Hmmm...an improvement over skipping entirely, to be sure. Perhaps you could prioritize it earlier in the day today to make sure you have the time/energy to give it the focus it deserves?

We all have those weeks. No apologies necessarily. Yes!!!!! Most excellent. A+ I think after you've been in a relationship with someone that long, it's easy to assume that you know what they're thinking, or feel like they should know what you are thinking without you have to say it. Very good job airing grievances to head off festering. Woohoo vacation time! May it be fulfilling and restorative.

I was not always, but I am learning. D&D was good last night. It meant a late night, compared to my usual, but I slept well and feel good this morning, so that's another data point in the "lying all the couch all evening is a contributing factor to logginess" column. Also though, it's Saturday, which means I could get up at 7, which seems to be my innate alarm clock's preferred time. Results: inconclusive. More testing needed. I have no plans today, which happens very seldom. Usually even if I'm not going anywhere, I have a list of things I need to get to here. And I do, of course, have a list, but there is no set time on any of these and if I don't get to all of them, that's okay. So, things I definitely want to do at some point: lift and class reading. Things I might do depending on how my mood strikes: cardio and barn work. Other things I can fill my day with: piano practice, cross stitch, reading, walking, horse grooming, house cleaning, knitting practice, writing, D&D - the point here is not to work through these like a to-do list (which I say more to remind myself than any of you) but to go through the checklist of options and at least try to get started on one of them before I just hop on my phone and kill time with mindless games. I hope you are free to use your Saturdays as you wish, and if you must be committed to something, may it be a satisfying pursuit.

Yeah, it's a valid question, but I'd still like to figure out a better answer than "wait for Spring." Did stairs on my lunch break yesterday and lifted after work. Also finally killed a Dread Warrior, for some extra points. Last night's experiment was sort of a success, managed to not fall asleep on the couch, instead went up to bed early and watched Critical Role for an hour. Felt like improved sleep quality, although I once again ended up snoozing this morning. Still, didn't expect it to be an immediate fix, and hopefully once I break the habit of couch diving I can do more with my evenings. Speaking of immediate fixes, my mustang is responding super well to his new arthritis meds. I expected it to take a couple of weeks to tell the difference, but he's feeling good and bouncing around. Actually took a little gallop around the pasture yesterday. I joked about getting him the good drugs, but damn, I really did. I want some of whatever he's having. Oh yeah, today's plans. Not much, actually. Heading over to Stations of the Cross on my lunch break and have D&D tonight. And that's it. No plans tomorrow either, and my parents have dinner plans, so I'll have a little solo Saturday evening which I'm very much looking forward to.

Ugh, that is rough. Does getting caught up mean you get to quit work early?

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but they're actually easier to benchpress when agitated. It makes them stiff and more barbell-like. Relaxed eels are impossible to press. Much too squiggly.

Ah, that makes sense. It is such a delicately balanced ecosystem - hard to predict sometimes how changes in one area will affect neighboring populations. Wise to go slowly and not change too much all at once.

I know you're probably buried in data right now, but don't forget to come up for air occasionally!

Hey, flea, how is this week going for you?

Hi! How is your first challenge going? Get any more puzzling (literal or metaphorical) done?

Greetings, nerds! Not a ton to report from Wednesday. Spiritual Direction went well, as always. Meals on Wheels was a bit loud, though, so think I'm going to return to using the library for our calls. Went to my neighbor's after work, so that's Bless points. And that's about it. Struggled to get up again this morning, so no Light or Word of Radiance points. Pondering what I can do to change this, and I think it might go back to the night before. I have been doing pretty well at not being on my phone after 9, but laying on the couch until I move to bed in the middle of the night is not good for quality rest. And I think a lot of it is that I have conditioned myself to fall asleep on the couch in the evenings, so even when I don't feel that tired, as soon as I lay down I'm not moving again. So I'm going to try one simple rule to see what difference it makes: I am not allowed to lay down on the couch after dinner. I can sit on the couch, but if I start to lie down, instead I'll get up, pace around a little, move to a chair, just go ahead and go to bed, whatever, as long as it doesn't involve lying on the couch. No plans for tonight. Raining, so I'm going to do stairs on my lunchbreak. I might lift after work. Going to print out a knitting pattern and see if I remember how to cast on.

Very nice! Although this is what pops into my head when I think "bouldering"

Dragons can be hard creatures to predict, frequently engaging in what appears to be erratic patterns of behavior. This is good information to have, though, and hopefully will reveal deeper insights into the interactions between draconis sucrose and draconis fructose. Haven't heard much about draconis alba. How is that population doing?

Congrats on the climb! And I wouldn't say the physio wasn't positive - I understand it wasn't what you wanted to hear, but it sounds like things are progressing as he expected them to, which isn't bad. And well done getting the physio exercises in even when you were feeling down about it. Oh - and a translation for the American please - the hob is... your stovetop?

This can be a tricky line to walk. If you figure it out, share the secret!