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I took a few months off from challenges, and think I am ready to make my return now. I've also opted to claim this month as "RESTEMBER" and I've alerted all my friends and family that I am 'taking the month off from all standard commitments'. I finished up the last of the plans I'd made before hand, and starting now - have nothing on the radar except for the couple things I really really have hype for. Namely, our still ongoing VtM TTRPG game(s). Since I tend to do a bit better with challenges when I have a theme, I've thrown up a fitting title/theme that ties in what I need to do for myself, with the VtM lore. Iron Heart is one of the powers that some Brujah can wield. - Common among Individualists who quest for self control, Iron Heart fortifies the Brujah against supernatural powers that affect her emotions, her self-control, or her reason, while also allowing her to inspire others to resist such manipulations themselves. I have slacked off so badly with ... everything. My consistency has flown out the window, and so the idea of questing for self control and mastering emotions seems a fitting connection. What I want: Better mood consistency, more energy, returned confidence, better health. What gets me those things: Lifting weights, getting some general movement, and eating like a sane person, and spending time with music and art. I was hoping to hit the ground running on this tomorrow (9/5), but one, it's zero week. Two, it's the start of two weeks being short handed at work. Three -- I'm not feeling 100% today and someone I spent Thur, Fri and Sunday all day with, started feeling sick Sunday night while we were gaming, and tested positive today for the 'vid. So I'm on standby with that. So tomorrow, after some sleep and figuring out what's what - I will come back and set up more measurable goals. But I promised someone to get this up and going today, so here it is!

Yes, I am still so DPB for Vampire: the Masquerade that I am running my challenge theme around it. A fledgling young kindred making her way and trying to survive the nights ahead and make a name for herself. Actually, the stats for the system work REALLY well for my goals too. So without further ado, let's ... sink our teeth into this one, shall we? To survive the nights and avoid pissing off elder kindred, this fledgling will need to follow The Traditions and learn how to user her new powers and disciplines. Do Not Break the Masquerade This happens most often by getting caught feeding, so we need to put some rules in place. Take no more than you need from your prey. [Track calories daily.] Don't give into the beast. [No binges!] Prey Exclusion : Sweets [Limit these, they offer no nourishment.] Clan Brujah. Learn to use Celerity, Potence and Presence Potence ● ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ [Strength Train 2-3x / Week] Celerity ● ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ [Move 2-3x / Week] Presence ● ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ ⚬ [Music and Art / 2 hours each / week] (Piano, Guitar, Bass, Art) These are the things I've been working on, and while the music and stuff has really become a nice habit, the food is the biggest challenge right now. I need to make that the priority! That and putting a little more ... hmm, intention behind my work outs. I have my annual physical in 6 weeks and would like to slide in on a hot streak of being on the good path. This mental motivation to get going comes with an extra complication though - lol. "Where's the fun without complications?" - Beckett Finally ... vampires, for as much as they are now predators, are also oddly social things. The interactions, the politics, the posturing... all of these things become the night in night out routine of their immortal unlives. To that end, I am also adding the Social Goal here of doing much better about checking in, updating my posts and following all of you lovelies.

Creeping, lurking ... ready to devour. Hanging over every minute, every hour. My foe is there, but victory's mine, Remember my light - and let it shine. Stealing a bit of Vampire the Masquerade Floon for this one. I am still super hyped and into that game and using that for inspiration here. The Beast - for vampires, it's the monster within. For me, it's the gloom of autumn and winter, combined with growing feelings of being stuck where I am. I have to re-frame this perspective because if I keep focusing on the negatives, and the "not yet's", or the not where I wanted to be's, I fail to see what I do have. Comparison to other perceived 'better' views is a joy stealer. And I want to stop doing this. Goals are going to be largely based on mental and emotional health this time around. Sure I'll have my other things to keep track of because seeing consistency is GOOD for my brain. And I am still very much thriving on the music endeavors, so that's been great and I want to keep up with that. (The #backtomusic2022 has lasted, ALL year, so this feels legit!) Goal 1: Use Gratitude App Daily - Follow prompts. Make time. Do it. No excuses. The point is to get it done daily to teach your mind how to look past the negatives. If I do it only when I feel good and have a thing immediately come to mind to be thankful for, then I am not learning a new perspective, I am letting the old one dictate my choices. Daily Gratitude on App Goal 2: Track Calories - but Stop Being So Militant about it! - Tracking has worked great the past 6 weeks, and I dropped about 4-5 pounds. I have to stop freaking out for those occasions where I can't really track them. Because that's making me a tyrant. No one wants a raging calorie tracker at an outing. 😛 Track Daily (except for untrackable outings, just enjoy those on occasion) Goal 3: Create! It brings Joy! - I found a really coo, tracker called TimeLog - and it lets me keep track of the hours I spend on various hobbies. I originally did it to keep track of music specifically, but I've also used it for art. Keep doing the music and art. I had it set for 4x a week each thing. And that almost happens. But I find that even if it's 4x/week - I almost always get 2 hours a week on each thing. Which is 4 x 30 minutes. So 4x or 2 hours / week is a doable amount on my stuff. So I'll keep it there for now. 4x / Week or 2 Hours Each Minimum: Bass - Guitar - Piano - Art Goal Eh: Keep exercising. - I thought to take this off as a goal because I am in such a good routine with it, but with winter here it will actually be harder for me to get my move days in - so this might serve as a reminder to focus on the effort. 2-3 Strength / week 2-3 Move / week Finally, a challenge long list of things I want to remember to try and get done. We're calling it a Side Quest list. Side Quests Oil Change Tire Rotation Purge Unused Items from Closet Reorganize Closet Purge Unused Items from TV Stand Cabinet Purge Unused Items from all Drawers in Room Go through Clothes, Donate Items no longer Worn Find Room Arrangement to Allow for easier Creative Outlets (might require getting rid of some furnishings / replacing with new ideas) Research music recording software. Research music notation software. Purchase / ask for Christmas - items needed for above. Look up theory classes to brush up on music theory. Bass lessons? Look into this. Continue watching house market / look at ones that might be doable. Make appt with financial advisor / budget helper. Finish Dad/Daughter Pic

In honor of Halloween the Scout mini will be monster themed What? You were expecting this? Nope - we'll be trying to conquer our monsters! so strap on your runners and let's get hunting!

When I started my first challenge, I didn't see the point of battle logs. In my mind i thought you already have your challenge thread, why not just keep that active until the next one starts, then transition over. During my time here people have told me that they use their battle log to keep track of all of the things that would clutter up their challenge threads with too much detail. That made sense but didn't apply to me, i write long and rambling posts and probably give way too much information. A medical condition (gallstones) forced me out of this current challenge cycle, now I'm glad this section is here. During the week between challenges and the first few days of this challenge, I have either been in pain, in the hospital, or at home recouperating. So working out has pretty much been a no-no, but i had plenty of time to work on my other goals, but i did nothing. This week I decided to just go for a 5mile walk each day instead of working out, to let my body ease back into it. I went out Monday, but couldn't be bothered yesterday and took a 4 hour bath instead. today i didn't feel like walking either. I decided that i need to go back to making myself accountable, even if no one ever reads this, i need it to be here to keep me on track. With that decision made I decided to start Darebee's 90 days of Action Looking at the routine it looked simple and easy, i decided to go for the full 7 sets of level 3. The routine is simple, but I definitely didn't find it easy. I'm happy that i underestimated the routine though, because that made me decide in advance to do 7 sets. Had I just started doing sets and seeing how I felt I probably would have stopped at 3, there is a small chance I would have pushed to 5, but don't thing i would have carried on to 7. I did the routine as it is written, the only thing I wasn't sure on was whether it was 10 lunges, or 10 lunges per leg, so I did the 10 per leg to be on the safe side. i used the sites timer to give myself 30 seconds break between each set. Unfortunately I didn't think to time how long the full workout took me, it would be nice to know how long I was at it. During my last challenge cycle I did the Inhome parkour fitness program from the Tapp brothers. It was a good course and I plan on doing it again, it kicked my arse at times and made me really work. But today's workout pushed me harder than any of those training days and made me sweat more. So I think this Darebee program is going to prove to be worthwhile. I usually end each post with a motivational/inspirational picture. This one doesn't quite fit, but this week has been a bad one for all of my family (I ended up in hospital twice, My nan died, My brothers girlfriend almost lost an eye in a work accident-she's healing now and my dad's elderly dog died-It hit him and his wife harder than they thought it would) and I wanted something that would be a reminder that we can't always control what life throws at us, we just control how we deal with it and move forward.

This challenge - elemhh – Slays the slayers. When I set up my profile I decided that my race would be vampire. I have loved vampire stories since I was a kid and when left to my own devices my sleep routine levels eventually has me going to bed around 7am and getting up around noon. Even though there are lots of fandoms I would like to play in, it seemed appropriate that my first two themed challenges be vampire related. So this challenge is me slaying the would-be vampire slayers before they can come for me. Each slayer will represent an area that I am working on. I set my previous challenge up to be a pass or fail, I had to work on it every day or fail the whole challenge. I will be doing a slightly less strict version of it this time too. Rather than missing one session making me fail the whole challenge, this time it would only make me fail the quest relating to the activity that I've missed. It may seem like I have a lot of quests, but 3 of them are just continuing on from my last one. Each quest will be represented by a vampire slayer that will need to be defeated in order for me to be successful. Quest 1 – Strength For this quest I will be continuing to work on my push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and squats. I will be alternating days. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be Sit-up & Squat days. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday will be Push-up and Pull-ups days. During my last quest I set a number of reps that I had to achieve in order to pass the quest. This time I am not setting a number, just working on improving. As long as my number of reps at the end is better than when I started, I'll consider it a win. Strength represented by Blade. Quest 2 – Dexterity I will be continuing my flexibility work. During the first challenge I worked on Elements from GMB. During this quest I will be redoing some of the Elements sessions or using Gravity yoga to continue getting more flexible. Dexterity represented by Buffy Quest 3 – Stamina For this one I will be working on a general fitness course Tapp Brothers: In-home parkour fitness. It is a 6 week course, five days a week. Stamina represented by Werewolves (The vampires natural enemy). Quest 4 – Constitution Daily calorie limit of 1,800 (max). I will be carrying on with my Lose it app, following the calorie limit given (but can go up to 1,800 without failing). If my weight loss continues to slow or freeze, I will up my calorie allowance to see if I am eating too little and putting my body into calorie efficiency mode. Represented by Raziel Quest 5 – Intelligence (I don't have an INT stat, so the points for this quest will be split between CHA & WIS) Learning a new skill will be my intelligence quest. I recently got a cheap keyboard and plan on teaching myself to play. I only need to practice for 5 minutes a day (although any day that I feel like doing more than that is a plus) to be successful at this quest. It would be nice if I could play a recognizable tune by the end of the challenge. Represented by Van Helsing Quest 6 – Charisma My charisma quest will be writing. Like my intelligence quest, I don’t need to do much work to pass this one. The emphasis on these two quests is building the habit of doing them daily. I need to write 100 words per day to pass. The last time I started writing 100 words a day, I quickly started building up my word count more each day, the more I got into what I was writing. Within a couple of months I was writing 1,700 words per day. I'm not expecting that to happen again now, but if I do start writing something that I have fun wuth, I do think my word count will end up increasing. Represented by The Frog Brothers (Ok, not the epitome of charisma, but how can I have a vampire themed challenge and leave out The Lost Boys?) Quests completed - Wisdom At the end of the quest I will be facing Harry Keogh from The Necroscope. I chose him because he had to exercise strong control over himself by book 5 of the series. If I manage to complete this challenge successfully, I will have exercised control over my own worse side. Current Stats To be filled in day one of the quest Ongoing tasks Additional to my increased reps for my strength goal, I will also be using some of the progressions in Convict Conditioning to further increase my strength. Running 3 mornings per week. Walking (+ running) to Mordor. Trying to improve my sleep habits.

Seriously, though. With all things I want to change in my life and all the goals I want to pursue, I feel like there is literally not enough available days in one lifetime. I'm coming at this from a pretty exhausted place. I just recently just a full time job at Leslie's Pool Supplies as an assistant manager. As thankful as I am to have the job after months of a fruitless job hunt post-graduation last summer, it's really kicking my ass and I'm frustrated because my dream is to work on set--not sell buckets of chlorine and test pool water. I think back when I was in school. Studying full time while working on and off part time. I had so much energy to get things accomplished and even when I didn't I naturally went into "auto mode" and got it done regardless. Honestly there were many times when I was walking to or from the subway and wondering how I managed to muster up the energy to stay on my feet. I don't nearly have as many responsibilities now as I did back then. My main focus right now is to save up money for a car because I'm pretty stagnant at the moment and I'm going a little mental solely going to and from work and my mum's house everyday. I come home and immediately take a nap when I should be either working out, doing tai chi, yoga, practicing new hair braiding styles (I decided recently to make this my side hustle to help save up for a car AND try and pay off my gargantuan amount of student loan debt), studying anatomy, developing my graphic novel idea, or finishing my way over due short film. When I think of all the things I could or should be doing, it makes me even more exhausted... especially now that my free time is limited. Sorry for the rant, but does anyone else feel this way? What did you do to overcome?

And so a reluctant hero is born…… I have a recurring dream. I’m walking along a midway, clouds threaten the sky, just a few drops of rain intermittently hitting the dirty pavement. I look ahead and see the side of an old circular ride. Something that moves rapidly up and down, around and around, two per car. The muffled screams from the ride settle over the humid air. I notice a pale, thin, brunette carefully following me as I saunter through the ring toss games. Suddenly I become aware that I’m running, running, running from that strange brunette. Because this is a dream, it becomes evident that brunette is a vampire, nearly lifting herself off the ground as she chases me. My breath is short, can’t breathe, she keeps gaining on me, I get to the circular ride and look behind me. Heaving, pains in my side –dammit, I should jog more! That freak vampire is going to kill me and I can’t bother to do a stupid push up once in a while. If only I wasn't so, so, so 40 pounds overweight maybe I could outrun a tiny vampire. She’s silently standing and staring me in my face. That's when I awaken to the two green glowing eyes of our cat - Gustavo. Well, if that doesn't get me motivated to get more exercise I don’t know what will. Geez, a vampire chasing me through an ominous amusement park, and all I do is suck wind. Motivation: Paraphrasing a quote I saw the other day, "if you always do the same your results will never change. I've never participated in a random fitness online forum before. So let’s see how it works." - said by a poster somewhere online Epic quest – Lose post college and post honeymoon extra lbs. Main quest - Lose 15 Lbs (baby steps I mean it's only a 6 week challenge) Steps to lose the lbs Focus on pre-planned meals with portion control 20 minutes of cardio 3 times a weak Do squats, push ups, and sits ups once a day Life Quest – Mind level Up 3X · Read Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden (Escobar was boss…so I hear) · Read Interview with a vampire by Anne Rice (got to know the competition to beat them) · Read First Family by Joseph Ellis (John Adams crafted the third president of the US, maybe I can pick up a few tips for my kids) Fitness side quest 1 of 3 - Hike on South mountain (2 mile trail) 3 times Fitness side quest 2 of 3 - Do 50 squats, 50 push ups, and 50 sit ups as the first thing I do every morning Fitness Side quest part 3 of 3 - Get back to running 2 consecutive miles in under 20 minutes Grading scale A = 15 lbs B = 12 C = 8 D = 4 F = 0 Specs - Sorry, I didn't do all the fancy measurements. Weight - 220 Height - 5' 8'' (I know yikes) I'll post more baseline measurements later. Thanks for reading my post.

Who are you? I'm a Zoë. We tend to be a local, vivid bunch and this particular one is Gothy and thinks of herself as more of a he. I'm working on making a living with writing, practicing Aikido, figuring out cooking, raising chickens and GMing when I have the time. Somewhere in the there is yoga, cleaning, sleeping and picking up and dropping off an art habit. What's your current status? Um....better. In March I ripped my mcl (the tendon on the inside of your knee) in an Aikido practice. I spent a lot of time off getting back to just walking and went up to basically a size 18 from size 14. I came back to Aikido in midJune and now am working towards my brown belt test in October. Also I'm down to fitting into the size 16 clothes again. Where do you see trouble coming from ? Trying to write enough to have enough to eat, balancing time, and oh yes, my boyfriend probably has Celiac's so now I have to figure out gluten-free baking and cooking. I also seem to lose weight horridly but at least gain muscle well (for a female). When do you think you'll be a "vampire"? Not ever since I don't think they actually exist. But the idea of a vampire is seductive as a goal to me, more than describing myself as a warrior or a monk. Vampires can be protagonists in stories now, often fighting against their own self-destructive urges. They are also very strong, very fast, and very mentally flexible. If they come up against something stronger than them, they don't insist on having an arm wrestling contest. They use their speed and flexibility to beat them. They aren't one trick ponies; they are clever demons. Plus vampires put off a predator vibe. Other things avoid them and respect them. In Aikido, we think the ability to avoid a fight is a wonderful thing. A vampire avoids having to fight by just being scary powerful (and sometimes smooth talking their way out of a corner.) Why Level One? Because in some games you start at level zero. Zip, nothing, nada. And then you go thru the game guide, kill a rat or two and then get to add a stat point or two and find a twig to equip yourself with. Ya, that's how I feel after my injury. I have a stick- fear me! How are you going to run this log? More reflection based. I'm going to aim to post the day after recapping the highlights. Sometimes I'll just put out food lists and exercise lists when I have nothing better to add. But I'd like to put in recipes, reflections and more journal posts when I have the time.