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Hello and happy Week One of the Autumn Vibes challenges. I spent Week Zero recovering from a cold that tried to kill me over Labor Day Weekend. Feelin' sorry for Cidran - he had the symptoms pretty badly last night. I managed to meet both of my unsaid goals this morning: I did some editing on my book, and for the first time in months I did a set of the NF beginner bodyweight exercises. Even with just one set, my shoulder got a spike of pain, so I also did Hinge stretches on my lunch break, and I'll do them again tomorrow morning. After my two-goal challenge last month, I really want a third challenge. It being the month of Bilbo Baggin's birthday (albeit not with the excellent party from last year), maybe I should feature my hobbit food goals of enjoying produce from raiding Farmer Maggot's fields. Surprise goal: I want to bike to the mall at least once a week. If I have the energy in the evening, that's good. If I have to go on the weekend, that's fine. And for doing so, I get to stop by Hot Topic and get a pin. 😉 Week 1: 💪 - success 📝 - success Tonight is game night sans a player, and I never told y'all how last week went. 😅

Happy New Year, Rebels! I will be challenging myself to give attention to the four aspects of my own activities in the same way that my story needs to have some balanced perspective of its four protagonists. Barbarian/Ekaterina: ⚡🌩🌥☀ I need to be doing my bodyweight exercises because I want to continue improving my strength before the time comes for my efforts to be rewarded with my original long-term goal of buying a bike. Ranger/Varsha: 🌳🌿🌱🍃 I need to keep a daily activity level going as well so it's not as hard to get up and do my exercises on my body weight exercise days. I know I don't want to walk, but maybe I can do more GMB movement exercises to improve my mobility. Wizard/Paige: 📚📕📖📋 I have written a book that must undergo my own scrutiny and revision before it's ready for sharing with outsiders for spotting problems I'm too close to see. I want to use the first long weekend to read it for the first time like a reader who's seen nothing but a back-cover synopsis. Fingers crossed that I'll find a lot to love about it. 🤞 Artificer/Alidavai: 🛠🔧🔨📏 I have crafts that are partly done, and I want to give them time and attention in order to make progress and potentially finish them. This includes the rainbow scarf which now has about 75-80% of a skein left to add, the next bite of my pixel quilt for which I need to prepare the four nibbles' pieces, a drawing of Ekaterina that's been waiting nearly three months for me to continue coloring it, and a Vox Machina puzzle I got for Cidran that I suggested we should do together the next time the table gets cleared. I want to pick up one of these tasks every night instead of getting stuck on my phone. I've got four emojis for each so I can attribute a rating of 0%, 50%, 100%, and 110% when I go above and beyond. (Why are the barbarian's emojis stormy weather? Because she's a storm aura barbarian! 😃) That sums up my goals for this challenge. I'm excited about this, and hope my guild choices inspire others I've seen use these five-week challenges for non-athletic goals. 😉 Thanks for your company and support in this coming year! Sincerely, Maerad

It’s the beginning of a new year and I need to get back into my fitness and eating routine. Happy New Year! Main Quest To live a healthy and balanced life by exercising and trying to eat healthy. My Motivation I've successfully dropped weight by counting calories so my diet will mostly be staying the same with 1200 calories per day M-F and then blow meals on the weekends. Although I’m going to try to limit it to one day, rather than both Saturday and Sunday. I enjoy doing themed workouts and for this challenge it will be Star Wars in conjunction with the release of The Last Jedi (which I loved!). May the Force be with you! Smaller Quests 1. "Do Or Do Not. There Is No Try." - Yoda Walking When I'm in Europe I’ll be walking everywhere, so I need time to get into proper walking shape. This challenge will be heavily focused on walking as many miles as possible. I usually do 2 miles at a stretch, several times a week on a treadmill. For this challenge, I’m upping that to adding in another walk early in the mornings before work. While space travel and transport on planets was likely done by some type of vehicle, there’s no doubt that training to be a Jedi involves a lot of physical activity, which includes walking. Rey herself walked a lot on both Jakku and in searching for Luke, in addition to her other Jedi training. Scoring: x/50 miles in 5 weeks Reward: +3 to STA & +3 to DEX 2. "Help me DuoLingo (Obi-Wan Kenobi). You’re My Only Hope!" - Princess Leia French I’m going to Europe soon so I need to get back to practicing French. Since I found it difficult, I know I need to practice every day. I want to practice at least three DuoLingo sessions each day, once a day. I also find that I practice more regularly in conjunction with a challenge here. As a member of the Rebel Alliance, I would encounter many other species and cultures. Although despite something like either translator microbes or the babel fish being available, still being able to speak and understand another language would be useful in the Outer Rim Territories. Scoring: /35 Reward: +3 to WIS 3. "Never Tell Me the Odds" - Han Solo Editing Edit ‘Bonita Blue’, my 2017 NaNoWriMo win, once a week by getting through 3-4 chapters at a time. The story currently has 18 chapters so this seems reasonable. Scoring: x/5 weeks Reward: +3 to CHA 4. "I'll Never Turn to the Dark Side!" - Luke Skywalker Sweet Treats I have a terrible sweet tooth, particularly where processed sugars are concerned. And since, over the holidays, there were tasty things everywhere, I need to focus on less sugar in my daily diet, especially as I move into the new year and getting back into more exercise and healthy eating again. It’s a good goal to have for the first challenge in 2018. Because of my blow meals on weekends, I’m going to try to only have sweet treats 2-3 times per week, Monday through Friday. Eat healthier by cutting down on the sweet treats to 2-3 times in the 5 day week. Scoring: /15 days Reward: +3 to CON

2018 Challenge 1 After mostly completing the Design Your Destiny workshop, I feel like I have a handle on what I want 2018 to bring me, so I'm ready to jump in, tie up some loose ends, and get this year started with a bang, so I'm diving right in. That will make it a six week challenge for me, so while this seems like a lot, I've got plenty of time to accomplish it all. Elimination diet I'm curious to see how food affects my body so I'm going to follow the elimination diet, not because I think I have allergies per se, but because I want to know what makes me feel good and what doesn't, I ordered the book but haven't gotten it yet, so this will become more specific when I have the book Follow the diet Record my findings Lymphedema Exercises I'm trying to manage my primary lymphedema (swelling of the extremities) so I'm doing specific exercises to see what effect they have, it's hard to find specific workout routines so this is all cobbled together based on a lot of internet research. Later this year I'll be working with a therapist for more devoted help I hope, so this is just trying to build the habits 1 yoga workout/week (6) (specific exercises identified as good for moving lymph, 20 minute session min.) 1 strength workout/week (upper/lower body Darebee workout, level 1) (6) 1 aerobic workout/week (6) (2o minute session min. again specific aerobic exercises identified) Breathing exercises - working up to 4 times/day, 1/day counts for this challenge Week 1 - 3 days/week Week 2 - 4 days/week Week 3 - 5 days/week Week 4 - 6 days/week Week 5 & 6 - 7 days/week Personas This is a work related task but it's become important to me that I treat my work the way I treat my own personal growth so I can see progress, so this is my starting point. FLY Lady Baby Steps (31) I am tired of CHAOS in my bedroom specifically, so I'm going to follow the program, but focus on my bedroom only to start with. With a master bathroom, a closet, a sleeping area, it's like a small apartment so I think I can make it work. The exact steps are in spoiler because it's 31 items and long... Submit manuscript to WOTA I need to finish this and call it done, even if it means I work on it every single day, which at this rate I may have to. Even if I don't ever write another story, I want to have finished this all the way through. So I have a lot of revision left. Critiques and more revision. Then FINALLY submission to the anthology, so wish me luck! Bonus List of Doom - complete something off the list PO Learning - substantive learning; an exercise based on an article/blog, notes from a webinar shared with team, etc. Idea to Draft class - complete a module Healthy, Not Boring - post or engage in group Tracking Habits 5 habits to track, step count goal (avg 4,500 steps/day) and one post in forums 3x/wk (at least one is a full update) It seems so much simpler on my grid! To date Committed Reached Elimination diet 0 33 0% Lymphedema Exercises 0 50 0% Personas 0 11 0% Baby Steps 0 31 0% Submit to WOTA 0 30 0% Bonus List of Doom 0 0 PO Learning 0 0 Idea to Draft class 0 0 Healthy, Not Boring 0 0 Daily grade Habit tracker Sole 0 0 Meds 0 0 Steps/Amerithon #DIV/0! Avg Steps Forum 0 18 0% Write 0 0 The last year was about getting in the habit of working on habits. This year is about actually solidifying the good habits and retraining the bad habits, and maybe leveling up a level or two. Onward!