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I'm tired and need a breather, y'all. I've been adding new habits and goals and things to my life at a terrific rate, and they have all been positive changes and I'm super happy about them and all, but now I feel like it is the part of the story where I need to slow the pace, consider some backstory and character motivations, heal (!!!!), and get myself into a better place, head-and-bodywise, before charging off wildly on my next adventure so carelessly that I forget my pocket-handkerchief. Heal From My Injuries: Today marks the three-month anniversary of my hand and arm surgery, and the only obvious residual effect is that the palm of my hand is still very sore when I OHP or bench press. I want to be more diligent about doing the PT exercises with the silly-putty stuff and massaging sore-muscle salve into the area - at least 5 days/week. Get Some Inner Peace: Prayer journal at least once per day. Bonus points for twice (morning and evening). Set Off on the Right Foot: Continue with/solidify my already established and (thus far pretty successful and beneficial) morning routine of Bible study Duolingo practice Headspace meditation 15 oz. water before coffee and healthy breakfast Bonus Goal (NO PRESSURE IF I DON'T GET THIS RIGHT!!!!) One Lift to Rule Them All: Now that I am back to about 75% of my pre-surgery strength in all my main lifts, and my grip is so far holding up fine in the deadlift, I feel like I should get back to what was always fitness priority #1 - I want an unassisted pull-up!!!!! So, the goal = at least 5 days out of every week, do something to move me towards pull-ups. Lat pulldowns, negatives, assisted, inverted rows, hollow rockers - but at least one thing specifically targeted towards that one big goal that I keep letting myself get sidetracked from (this is the goal that actually got me into the gym 2+ years ago, but I keep dropping it and chasing butterflies or something...) Heal Injuries: 0/20 Get Inner Peace: 0/28; bonus points 0/28 Right Foot: 0/28 One Lift: 0/20 Full disclosure: I am recycling my gif theme from last time because I did not finish the art piece for the library that I was working on. It's a drawing of Smaug on a weathered wood board, with the Gandalf quote "I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging." My plan was to coordinate my challenge themes to my library decor, but distractions happened so I'm still here.

Don't Turn to Stone I have all the mobility stuff ... foam rollers, lacrosse ball, miracle ball. Do I use it? Nope. Never even think about it. I'm pretty flexi-bendy for my age, years of dance, martial arts, and forced yoga marches had a lasting effect. Still, though, I am older than I was, and I do have aches and pains and stiffnesses. Challenge Goal: Work on mobility, mostly cervical spine but other areas as needed, at least 5 min/night at least 5 nights/week. 25 points possible Enjoy Second Breakfast Challenge Goal: This one is simple - I am now on week three of my gym's three-month Nutrition Transformation Challenge - continue to comply with coach's meal plan. Bonus points: streamline meal prep down to 5 hours (currently about 7). 5 points possible (one point per week, including zero week) Walk to Mordor According to my often-ignored fitness tracker, I average about 6k steps per day. Challenge: Walk 7,000 steps per day at least 28 of the 35 challenge days (counting zero week) A Hobbit Hole Means Comfort I've made some dents in the library/junk room/cavern. I'll take pics when I'm home during daylight (probably weekend). Time to buckle down and get this library party started! Goal: Get rid of enough junk that I can move the remainder to the center, leaving room around the perimeter to start prepping the walls for paint. Scoring is simple pass/fail Don't Turn to Stone 0/25 Enjoy Second Breakfast 0/5 Walk to Mordor 0/28 A Hobbit Hole Means Comfort 0/1

December of 2017 was my first time in 51 years of life doing a formal year-end inventory, and I am using the data I gleaned from that experience to formulate my goals for 2018. I modified the categories from Level 10 Life, and came up with what I want to focus my attention on for this year. I'm stashing these here so I have a place to look for inspiration to create my four-week challenge goals more intentionally vice haphazardly as I have been doing. Spirituality: Add a daily prayer focus to the beginning of every day; add a brief gratitude bullet at the end of every day (record in BuJo) Re-boot prayer journalling habit, using The Power of Prayer Journal because that actually worked out great for me when I used to use it Physical Health: Participate in my gym's annual 3-month nutrition Transformation Challenge, starting Jan 13 Figure out what my actual maintenance calories are Learn to do unassisted chin-ups Squat my bodyweight Add HIIT sessions to strength workouts 3x/week Marriage: Verbally express gratitude/appreciation at least daily Environment: Convert horribly cluttered and neglected bonus room/junk storage room to cozy, welcoming Hobbit Hole/library/writer's sanctuary Incorporate Weekly Home Blessings into weekly routine (FlyLady quickie whole-house-cleaning) Commit at least 15 minutes/day to de-cluttering and tidying up using combination of FlyLady and Marie Kondo methods Relationships: Commit at least two days a month to face-to-face time with friends (women's ministry events, coffee dates, Wednesday studies) Call at least two out-of-town family members (mom, one of the sisters, eldest) every month Career: Schedule specific daily times for records maintenance and reporting Use Pomodoro technique for mundane tasks Finances: Pay of three smallest of remaining student loans using snowball method Replenish emergency savings used during recent emergency veterinary surgery Pay off medical/veterinary bills by July Helping: Volunteer at domestic violence shelter Take supplies to DV shelter at least monthly Buy at least one thing for food pantry at every weekly grocery trip Mental: Take another Coursera course, possibly Stanford's "Mathematical Thinking" Learn contact juggling "Butterfly" Finish Duolingo French, start Duolingo Welsh Complete BookRiot 2018 Read Harder challenge Read 120 books (Goodreads goal) Emotional/Personal Development: Continue daily meditation Write Morning Pages Finish rough draft of novel The BIG THREE goals for the year are officially: Finish novel Create library/writer's sanctuary Pay off three student loans I plan to re-visit these at least quarterly, modify or add to as needed.

There aren't many qualities common to all rangers. As a matter of fact, I can only think of one: the drive to constantly be improving at something. This thread is an attempt to collect a list of books, web-based references, and other learning materials about any topic of rangerly interest. There are just three rules: 1) Please include enough information (e.g. Title+author, Title+ISBN, a link) for another person to both locate the item, and be confident that what they found is the version referred to in this thread. 2) Please provide a description of what the resource covers, its intended audience, and what you think it is good/bad for. 3) Please don't repeat a previous mention, unless you have additions in terms of suggested uses or description (or you disagree with the description and would like to provide another point of view). Have at it! I'll post a few of mine soon. EDIT: There's also a Ranger Goodreads group. However, I'm continuing to maintain this thread as 1) the GR group requires separate registration and 2) the GR interface isn't very helpful for including non-book resources such as blogs and web pages.

A collection of tips and tools.