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This time of year in my dark time. Odd given that it is still full on summer here. I used to think it had to do with anxiety about impending darkening of the year, yaknow, as anxiety does it's stupid crap preemptively. But I identified the actual trigger. The birds! The birds! The song birds fall quiet August into September, and even insects seem to go quiet. The silence is so very heavy for me. I know this is coming very soon, and I will be ready to face it. Partly this will involve reminding myself that I am part of a larger, wonderful world, regardless of how the silence makes me feel weighed down and small. I had great success being surprised on a daily basis last challenge, so that will continue as it draws me into a greater awareness of all things. Follow through and doing what I tell myself I will is a goal. Especially not getting sucked into stupid internetting. If I get off the computer and stay away from it, I actually do stuff very happily. It's the inertia that is problematic. I'm kind of framing this as a 'little bit of Wen and a little bit of Granny Weatherwax." He was always happy and surprised, she did the job that needed doing. I will try to flesh this out more. But can you imagine if they met? She would think he was such a daft man.

It's time for my third challenge, everyone After powering through challenge no. 2, this time I will be joined by my boyfriend, who will go by Trevor Philips around here (his idea not mine ). Apparently, he was so inspired by all my epicness that he decided he needed come up with some goals for himself (this is the only explanation, don't tell me otherwise). He's been on his quest to Onederland for a while and has found that a low-carbish diet is the best provision for the road, but has been kicked out of the promised land repeatedly due to the seductive powers of starchy foods, his PS4 and Netflix. We'll start our own little deftona-inspired PvP for this challenge. The rules Each of us sets out on 3 quests each week, one diet-related, one exercise-related and a life quest of our own choosing (I labeled them food, fitness and fun, because alliterations). Each quest will reward 67 points if completed to 100% by the end of the week or less according to percentage of completion. The winner will earn a 30 minutes back massage. The loser will have sole responsibility for all litter box related chores for the whole next week *gasp* (this includes, but is not limited to: emptying the litter box several times a day, bringing down the litter-locker trash when it's full, refilling the litter box with new litter, vacuuming as often as possible to keep the litter box's surroundings free of litter, cleaning up in case one of our cats decides that sticking their but out of the litter box opening is a much more empowering way of relieving themselves). I do not want to clean the litter box. After each week, quests may be adjusted and the point counter is reset to 0. So, after some contemplation with friends last night I have come up with an (almost finished) plan for the first round: Briniel's quests Food Quest: Keep doing what I've been doing, avoid white flour, avoid industrial sugar, drink at least 2l of water a day, don't drink my calories. Track what I'm eating with MyFitnessPal. There will be food porn. In addition, there will be one of the following bonus food quests each week, to be determined with a roll of dice: eat fish or seafood 3 times (Week 1)try 10 different kinds of vegetableseat 100g of protein each daytry 5 completely new dishesstay under the caloriecount of MyFitnessPalThere's only five of these because I will have a pretty intense choir practice week October 12th through 18th, where I'll have choir rehearsals from pretty much 12 through 18 . There will be no additional quests for food or fitness that week. I will allow myself 1 bonus meal and 2 bonus snacks (e.g. sweets, dessert or drinks) over the course of the week. This is less than last challenge but will allow more flexibility and will hopefully keep me from over indulging in bonus food (not that it was a big problem last time, but I think I might still like this version better) Fitness Quest: Do some sort of exercise for 30+ minutes 4 times a week. This could be running, badminton, bww, swimming... anything really, as long as I do it for the sake of working out (driving my bike to meet friends doesn't count). Do 10+ minutes of yoga each day. In addition, I will do a different bonus workout challenge each week: move at least 1 hour every day (walking, running, workout, swimming, biking, yoga, whatever)do 300 push-ups (on my knees) over the course of the weeklearn 10 new yoga posesdo 100 burpees (with jumping, without push-ups) over the course of the weekwork on my deep squat 3 hours in total do something good for my joints (mobility work, special yoga sequences and the like) (Week 1)The bonus quests will be counted in percentage of completion to make them comparable over the different weeks. Fun Quest: Again, I've come up with a few different options and will determine which of these to do by rolling a dice. Details on what each of these entails will be posted when they've been rolled. Cats-WeekCleanup-WeekRepair-and-Mend-WeekDo-It-Now-WeekSocialise-WeekReading-WeekThere's 10 points to be earned per quest, divided on several activities, graded by how complicated or daunting that task is. Trevor's quests Food Quest: eat fruit or veggies 4 times a weekeat low-carb or semi low-carb every dayhave breakfast 3 times the first week, 4 times the second week and so onstay under 2000kcal every day Points to be earned each week: 25 Fitness Quest: Use the rowing machine 3 times a week. Do back health exercises 4 times a week. Points to be earned each week: 7 Fun Quest: He has several household chores he wants to do in varying intervals. Weekly ones include laundry and vacuuming. Not sure how we'll count this one.He also wants to better his driving behaviour (including a maximum speed despite no speed limits on the german Autobahn, staying under 6l/100kmh of oil and not being an asshole on the road ). There are 21 points to be earned each week but he'll count it as a win if he gets this 50% of the time, so let's say 10Last but not least he wants to better his sleeping behavior, getting into bed before midnight and getting up 6:30. To not ruin his weekend, this also counts as a win if done 50% of the time which is 7 points. Sexy Virgin Spreadsheet Time! See how neatly it all lines up? It's so pretty! I'll figure out how to count the plus and life quests later. The grading will be as follows: 50%: D - 0,5/3 or 0,5/2 stat points 65%: C - 1/3 or 1/2 stat points 80%: B - 2/3 or 1,5/2 stat points 95%: A - all stat points listed 100%: A+ - all stat points listed and bragging rights >100%; A++ - all stat points listed, bragging rights and a cherry on top So... let the battle begin!! (and may the odds be ever in your favor) Edit: 1 - I did win first place (in north-rhine-westfalia, not for the whole of germany) in Jugend musiziert, but it was with the tenor horn in a quartett and we did not play our own music. So this one's false. 2 - there were some girls that were bothering me and in recess I told my friends, asking them to help me talk to them about it. They misunderstood somehow. There were a lot of girls screaming and scratching each other that day and I had a lot of explaining to do afterwards 3 - this is totally true and has happened several times.