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So, I went over to the Mini and realized that the challenge was already underway. Somehow, I thought the challenge started this coming Saturday... I've continued my same exercise program from the last challenge and will continue it while I get a new challenge together. I have some other goals, too, and an update which may shed some light on how I managed to lose a week somewhere. I feel like an absent-minded professor who got caught in a time warp!

AAAARGGGHH! I missed the cn3wton's Return of NERDHAMMER!!!!!!!! I knew I'd been away too long, but oh that hurts... Soooo, I thought I'd be back in mid-April. Best laid plans of mice and shadowlions... A lot has changed. In mid-May, I left both businesses I was involved in, for several reasons, but foremost among them was the fact that the stress was doing bad things to my health. It was a really hard thing to walk away. However, I couldn't keep going the way I was going. I've spent the last month looking for a "real job" and start at one I am really excited about this coming Monday. I'll be working the full stack of a web-based healthcare product, on everything from what a user interacts with in the browser on the front end, to the database and cloud server on the back end, plus doing associated data visualization and reporting. It's something that I wouldn't have been able to do a year ago, not at that level, anyway. It will be a great opportunity to use and expand my existing skill set and I'm really looking forward to working on the team they have in place! That is the frame around this challenge. I'll be adapting to a regular, M-F, 8-5, commuter schedule and to working in a mid-sized corporation at the same time I am coming back to Nerd Fitness. I plan to ease back in with some modest goals and, well, NerdHammer!!!! Four goals: (I'll be filling in the remaining details later tonight, 7/5) Walking - lots of it. I will know more next week on whether I will have a treadmill desk or not! It's one of the listed options/benefits, but I don't know if that will happen immediately or not and I will need to ramp up my efforts as I see how I respond to it. Goal is to go from at least 10 miles of walking in Week One to 15 miles of walking by Week Four. BW strength training - ease back in... Goal from Week One break in week of two light, easy workouts of one set of 2 - 4 exercises each, to Week Four, three workouts of one plus set of 4 to 6 exercises each. Food - Eat healthy lunches all through the work week. Plan to pack lunches at least 4, preferably five, times per week. Not sure what team culture will be at new job, though. Hoping I can eat in all the time, but may need to adapt that. Will count a carefully chosen, health-conscious meal out as a win. Keep food log to verify. Classes - I have a Python programming course and a nature illustration course that I am taking online. Python deadline is July 21. I have until August 9 on the art class. Going to aim for Aug. 5 to coincide with challenge.

This: I've been contemplating this challenge, this year, this life, for quite some time now and this is the direction I want to go. In this case, music trumps language. There is a lot I can't put into words, but... The interweaving of the instruments and the various themes is how I want the various facets of my life to play together and support and harmonize with one another. The overall calmness, as the melody moves through various states of resolution and moods, is how I want to approach the uncertainties in my life right now. I hear definite echoes of what I am writing about in morning pages and in novels, in blog posts and in code. For me, the Adagio creates an open and reflective mood that counters so much of the hurry and busyness that I struggle with, and the scenes of nature in this video centers me and soothes my soul. I had already determined that this challenge would be a continuation of last one's "Sisu" theme," and that I would be revisiting "STEAMS," and "Stupid Simple," (among others) again. Then, I realized I could alliterate. Win! Sisu, the Second - ShadowLion's Systematic, Sustainable, STEAMS Six S's... STOP!!! Start simplifying, ShadowLion! That makes sense. So, I settled for a subtler signifier. Alliteration I resolved to routinely eschew. Rhyming, instead, I would try to pursue. Surely not as sophisticated as true Haiku... Hey! I'm a Shadow Lion, What'd you expect me to do? Sisu...2 (Ssssongwriting?) This is certainly a silly start for a such a salubrious subject. Seems to be a side-effect of significant stress and simply too much sitting in front of a screen - slumped, staring, and slack-jawed - still seeking some elusive synthesis of sinew, synapse, and soul. Expect this cycle to showcase similar semantic excursions (sins, perchance?) as those seen thus far. (ShadowLion fancies herself a scrivener, she does.) She has set up a schedule centered upon the spewing and scribbling of significant sums of words, side by side with a series of simple, structured scenarios designed to foster sustainable success! Okay. Time to get serious... Sisu, by way of another definition: Sisu runs even deeper than grit. It is a type of mental toughness that allows you to bear the burden of your responsibilities, whatever they happen to be, with a will and perseverance that is unbreakable. It is the ability to sustain your action and fight against extreme odds. Sisu extends beyond perseverance. It is what you rely on when you feel like you have nothing left. ~James ClearInterestingly enough, Emilia Lahti, a noted researcher specializing in "sisu" and grit, has reworked her blog since the beginning of the last challenge and has dubbed 2015 "The Year of Sisu." I discovered this when I was thinking about how to frame my challenges for the rest of the year. Sisynchronicity. Click on the picture to go to her site... In the spirit of challenges past, I have created an acronym to help me focus on specific aspects of this year's theme: Small (yet significant) Increments, Sustainable (in spite of) Uncertainty Last challenge was fairly successful and it jolted me out of a rut. I decided that I wanted to continue exploring "sisu, " while I look for a “bigger box†in which to put my challenges. I often have trouble determining the optimum scope of my challenges (work and life goals, too, for that matter), stuffing too many things into too small of a box and then getting frustrated, losing focus, or getting injured from trying to do too much. This time I am going for a more spacious container with fewer things in it. I am also breaking out of the usual order, categories and “weighting†of goals, even playing a bit fast and loose with the grading system. I've fallen into a bit of a negative, "I need to fix it NOW†mentality, which I suspect has had something to do with the amount of injuries I have sustained. I'm going to experiment with a more inspirational approach. More carrot, less stick. Let’s see how it works! Disclaimer: This is my 13th challenge and I have followed the challenge rules pretty closely to date. I don't recommend what I am trying unless you have successfully done a number of challenges and have a specific reason to alter your approach. (I am quite open to the possibility I may fail or need to go back to the tried and true method before this is all over...) To help me maintain my focus, I am dividing my challenge into four parts, each with it’s own goal and particular approach or mindset. This is based on the particular spiritual path I follow, where a person is seen as having the following four aspects: Body - The body and it’s various energies and systems and qualities, intimately connected to the earth/environment; one’s vehicle of action, expression; the extension/carrier/reflection of consciousness Mind - The intellect and the emotions; memory; learning; basic waking consciousness Soul - The seat of intuition, imagination and creativity; the synthesizer of experience; the point where individual consciousness and the collective unconscious meet Spirit - The still point within; transcendent wisdom; unitive consciousness Along with these (somewhat artificial and arbitrary) divisions, there are also four major ways of encountering the world. I'm going to gamify those and call them "Warrior," "Scholar," "Magician," and "Healer." For ease of focus and experiment's sake, I am going to put one aspect and one approach in each "box," then turn the usual westernized hierarchical approach to being upside down and inside out. Let's see the boxes as overlapping circles, or - better yet - connected spheres, each relating to the others in various ways, without one or another taking precedence. Each interacts and effects all the others. Still with me? Good. This is Nerdville with a capital N, and a big dose of string theory and mysticism thrown in! Now that the theoretical matrix is decided, and SISU kept in mind, on to the Goals... emphasis on the inside, the attitude, the approach. 1) Spirit/Warrior - Single-mindedness. 2 minutes per day, every single day, structured meditation. 42 days straight. Simple. Hard. 2) Soul/Magician - Average 500 words per day of the challenge. (This would result in ~21,000 words written.) These can be morning pages, blog posts, whatever. Additional words or novel writing = bonus. Every day. 3) Mind/Scholar - 10 minutes per day practicing a skill requiring intellectual or emotional exertion. 42 days straight. Additional time or skill = bonus. 4) Body/Healer - 5 minutes per day/5 days per week of outdoor exercise. Yoga, tai chi, bellydance, and/or rehab/prehab work count. Extras/bonuses can be more time on any of the things listed, and/or strength or endurance exercises related to fire fitness. I have not given up on my fire fitness goals. I am just taking a different approach this time. Likewise, I am still committed to the same goal weight and body fat percentage as previous challenges. The results of this challenge should let me get back to those in a new, more effective way next challenge. (I hope.) I can do more, but I must do the minimum as set forth. To count, the above must be entered in my journal/spread sheet daily and updates posted here at least twice per week. For purposes of this experiment, I will take my weight and measurements as per usual to track if I continue on the desired trajectory, and at what pace, while I change up my methods.This will allow me to alter the above structure mid-course, if needed. I am not going to grade by the usual measuring stick. I am setting a single (!) baseline habit per category. It is all or nothing. Each tiny habit, each day, just as I would brush my teeth, take a shower, eat. This is about absolute consistency. While I am not leaving wiggle room on the consistency, I am being realistic about time and building in variety. I hope that I have that balance right! This baseline is intentionally set quite low in order to incentivize further action and encourage exploration without setting me off on a course where I push too hard and injure myself again. The indicator that I may be on to something is that I had an awful time setting my requirements. Everything felt far too low and I had a great deal of resistance to it, especially picking only one thing per category. Oh, and since St. Paddy's Day will fall within this challenge and we must have cats on this thread....