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Ahoy fellow assassins! That is me saluting you from the straps. No really, I swear I'm not talking on the phone that's someone else's arm behind me. I am back and for once I have some enthusiasm and direction! I know, it's amazing! To recap, I am a quirky 40something year old aerialist and mom, but the last 6 months of my life has been super disrupted assisting my mom through cancer treatment. I've kept up with my fitness, but not really had the energy or enthusiasm to make gains or level up in other areas of my life. Sometimes you just gotta stop and take care of people and then kinda wake up and re-reflect on where you've ended up. However, I'm finally pulling myself back together and getting some direction. Part of that this challenge means taking on a life goal. An actual challenging life goal! So... here goes nothing... Life goal: To put together a boutique accessory collection. Yeah. This is an actual stretch, but hear me out. Now I'm not your average cutesy fashion blogger or anything, but I do have tons of informal costuming experience. Some for halloween costumes, some for ren faire, some for burning man. But I'm really good at taking something creative in my mind and turning it into an actual thing out of fabric. After my last major aerial showcase, (where I did the costume design for myself and my partner) I've been tossing around the idea of doing a faux fur accessory collection. Small scale pieces for performers and other fabulous people. Only hitch? I don't draw very well at all... I pretty much have to sit down and actually MAKE the things and then photograph them to communicate what's in my head. So I've decided to just go ahead and do it. Create like a 5-8 piece capsule collection, probably in two or three color family options and then see if it's something people would be interested in (either through Etsy, through the local boutique market or maybe other channels). But step one is simply to do the basic development and see where it gets me. As a measurable goal this works out to doing a minimum of 1 hour of work on the line 5 days a week. I will very likely have days where I spend more like 3-5 hours on it, but I need to get in the habit of doing regular work turning schematic sketches into reality on a daily basis, rather than hammering out something insane in one day and then not doing anything else for a week. OK... now on to fitness goals.... Goal 1: Ye Olde Training Program. Yup. This again. I've done some more research and started a Strong Curves, which is a lower body/glute training regimen that's consistent with my functional goals. And so far it's been paying off since I can actually get into the front balance shown above (as messy as it is). I've been struggling with that move for months. So that's 3 days a week of strength training and then straps training 2 days a week (or other circus/BW strength training if I'm unable to get to a class). Goal 2: Splits, splits, splits. I'm doing a splits challenge on facebook and it's 5 days a week of splits, both fronts and middles, with photos posted to the group. A few of my circus friends are in the challenge too, so I've got lots of support. Right now I have a small oversplit on my left leg, and I'm literally 3" off the ground on my right leg, so really I'm working more on correcting that difference on my tight left side than anything else. I recently had a breakthrough in training my middle splits, so I'm hoping to get them down to the ground by the end of the challenge. Goal 3: Conditioning. Ugh. Dreaded and boring. So I've recently found a consistent weak spot in my straps work, it's bringing my feet up and over through the straps with my arms straight. I pretty much cheat it one way or another (often by doing a pull-up). I really want to fix it. So, three times a week, I'm going to do a set of 5 leg lifts on my pull-up bar. Doesn't need to go up and over, I just need to build the strength to get my feet up to the level of the bar. OK... now off to watch Sylph's performance video... whee!

One of my life goals has been to get a novel published. Well, this evening (November 6, 2013) I launched my kickstarter project with a thirty day window to fund the printing and distribution of a completed novel. But, there is a catch. The catch is I cannot complete this life goal without help. The only way I can publish the novel is to come up with the project funding and reach my pledge goal on the kickstarter project. I cannot do that without you. Please go visit the kickstarter project found HERE or paste this link in to your browser and check out the details http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1163624572/rise-of-the-herald-the-debut-novel-by-mark-e-malco . Thanks for your time.