Sepherina

This is not a small stupid thing and I am proud of you for taking such a big step. Great Job and let us know how we can help support you in this step forward.

Happy Monday everyone! Things are still super busy in my world and right now I am just trying to maintain current habits. Mostly successful on this front, but I have felt overwhelmed at times with the crazy work and home life stuff. I feel like this challenge is a bit of a wash between getting sick and then all the current chaos. How I am doing: 🏋️‍♀️ I am back to 2 days a week at the gym. On the other 5 days I either rest or we have yard/garden work. Maple walks are also daily occurrences. Food wise I am just trying to make sure I get food in. Lunches in the past have been a struggle, but so far I am managing to eat that before 2 PM. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑This is where our calendar has gotten busy. Lots of social events with the weather improving. I feel like every other day/night we have something going on. This has been hard at times as an introvert, as I have had little time to recharge my social battery. 💸 This has been tough. We put some money back on the main credit card for an AirBnb to celebrate our 20 year anniversary in a few weeks and some of the major yard work has required several trips to the hardware/garden store for materials/supplies. These add up. As does all the social gatherings (between supplying food or eating out). I am hoping we can slow our pace a bit here and find some more creative solutions for doing things. 🌻 Lots of things going on in this space. If we are not socializing after work or at the gym we are doing yard work. The hubs is working on a retaining wall and I am still ripping out things from the south side of the house. This weekend was busy with social things and also fairly chilly so it we didn’t get much done. Today I will be trying to take out another stump and then migrate over 2 blueberry bushes and our strawberries. And of course our favorite girl being her sassy self.

Wow! It sounds super busy, and I am glad you are finding some positives in all the busy. Great job too on the PR!

I am sorry Sal. Sending a big hug and love this morning. I hope you can find some peace. Maybe a quick walk with Bronze…or even just pets and some play time? Dogs are really good at helping us combat stress/anxiety.

Why everyone is really here: Maple this morning with her favorite colored ball. She only rips the fabric off the blue ones. They are well loved and bald, and she prefers them over the yellow and red ones.

Quick update before sleep. The last week has been insanely busy. Still making gym days and getting walks in with Maple. Non gym days also include gardening/yard work. We have a lot we are trying to get done. Most of this work counts towards the creative end of my challenge. I also have made time for some side writing for world creation (Gygax challenge). We also have been doing a lot of social time with friends so by evening most nights I am tired and asleep before 10:30 pm. It has made posting here (and tracking meals) hard. I do try to carve out some time during the mornings to read up on all y’all’s posts. You are all doing great things and I am proud of you all. Hope you all have a nice rest tonight and that Wednesday finds you refreshed.

Games like this frustrate me. Sometimes we need to put stuff down and come back to it and this need to “be on “ all the time is a bit insane. Good job though on your lists. You are making great progress forward.

Crossing all the things for you!

I love this idea! We do a creative group meet up once a month as well. We use it more to enjoy our bouncing off ideas (most of us are writers, game designers or film people), and to hold our selves accountable for the personal projects we want to do.

Be careful!

Happy Tuesday everyone! I am sore and tired today but my heart is happy and my soul content. Yesterday was a whirlwind of fun and travel. I hopped on to the highway around 9:30 AM with the hubs, minion #3 and Maple….we didn’t get out of Pittsburgh proper until almost 10:30AM. Our normal hour 45 minute trek to see minion #1 turned into around 3 hours with a stop for Maple. Once there we enjoyed junkie food truck food and then watched the eclipse. Maple solicited free belly rubs from as many people as possible, chased squirrels and birds and generally tried to beg food from anyone. She was the good-est girl despite this being her first time at a very large event (4000 - 5000 people). A side note. After seeing a total eclipse a second time, it is just as stunning and amazing as the first time. I implore anyone to try and see a total eclipse at least once in your life if you can. The experience is worth it. Post eclipse we hung around with minion #1 and had ice cream with her, her boyfriend and room mates, with hopes that most of the traffic would clear in a few hours so we could trek home….Yeah….this didn’t happen as planned. Our trek home was much longer. Total we were on the road 5 hours (it’s about 120 miles from home to minion #1’s university). The entire stretch of the highway was bumper to bumper moving at no more than 25 miles per hour. Past me would have been very annoyed and frustrated at this. But the roads everywhere were clogged and we had anticipated that this may happen. There are some certain joys to spending a long time in the car moving soo slowly. You find happiness when you pass exits that you normally fly by, and you have more time to focus on your surroundings that you just don’t see. One thing that took us by surprise was our ability to hear the frogs as we slowly rolled past their homes. A small detail that we miss in our everyday rush to get somewhere else, but a lovely reminder to live here in the moment now. We only have now. I also now empathize with older drivers. When you spend nearly 4.5 hours going no more than 25 miles per hour, 40 feels really fast, and 60…man you are flying! This packed roadway probably could have served as a good social experiment to get people to slow down when they drive. The speed limit on this highway is 70 miles per hour and most cruise at around 80 mph; however due to the sheer volume of cars on the road the max speed was around 40 in some places and much less than 30 in most. We noticed as we approached Pittsburgh, that the normal tendency of the drivers to fly down 279 South at 65-70 mph (the posted limit is 50 - 55 mph….general rule in Pittsburgh is if you are not going at least 10 mph over…you are too slow…) was non existant, and most stayed within the 45-50 mph range. It was a curiosity to see as well. I hope today you find frogs to sing to you. And if you don’t here is a YouTube video for you to listen to them.

And 2 for 2! Great Job!

Sounds like a perfect reason to stay outside. This is really cool and I hope you have a future scientist in your family. Kids are the best at loving the most amazing things about our world.

Popping on here before the rest of the day gets away from me. We are trekking north to visit minion #1 at college. They are in the totality zone for the eclipse (south of Erie, PA) and we thought we would make a whole day of it. Send good thoughts as we brave crowded roads and silly inpatient drivers. Also the skies are slated to be mostly cloudy (boo…) so lets hope we get at least some clearing by 3ish today. If we don’t it will be disappointing, but we will be spending a good amount with our oldest minion who we only see during college breaks. Yesterday as noted above by the pictures was a very busy and productive day. In total it probably took us 6 hours of work to get this far. I am happy with the work we have done and am really feeling motivated to get the whole job done. As for goals, I made a concerted effort to eat and drink regularly. This garden work fits well into staying fit and creating beauty in my life. It also allowed me to spend time with minion #2, who I rarely see during the week with their college schedule. Family time is the best time. Thanks to Everstorm for the flower/plant suggestions. We have a trellis on the far side of the house (can kinda be seen in the pictures). I think we are going to try for the clematis and rose combination there to give us some more cover. I did decide that I am going to plant a lilac bush out front, near the front porch. They are one of my favorite flowers and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. But seeing the purple yesterday in the pictures above really reminded me that these would be fantastic for that space. As for the cough and congestion, it is slowly fading. I hope by the end of this month I will be clear. Hoping today that you get to peek your head out of the normal daily grind of life and enjoy our lovely planet. If you are going to watch the eclipse make sure to wear proper eye protection and if you don’t have that, don’t look directly at the eclipse.

Soo happy and proud of you! You deserve a trophy for all your hard work!