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Welcome! I’m the married parent of 4 kids aged 0-7. I’m ultimately an adventurer at heart, though I train similar to a lot of Rangers (and I’m something of a Druid Paladin which is also something of an equivalent to a Ranger). I love hiking, exploring, traveling, and other fun things with the family. Since shortly before joining Nerdfitness, my physical training is typically built around injury rehabilitation (which happens a bit more often due to autoimmune arthritis) and training to be able to travel, explore, and play with my family. I have a pretty effective Disney World training system, and try to ensure that at any point I’m strong enough to carry my whole family somewhere. That has become more difficult as the years go on but I can still do it for the most part. I am also an enthusiastic suburban homesteader bent on establishing an orchard and vegetable garden, so things can get pretty out-doorsy depending on my goals. My needs mean I do a variety of types of training, and my earliest two physical training goals were “run fast” and “be able to competitively play any sport I come across.” I prefer to avoid gyms and do a lot of body weight training. We recently welcomed baby 4 into the family, my cat was recently diagnosed with feline dementia, and I am still on parental leave. We discovered some nearby bakeries for sale, a way to give a physical location to our small cottage bakery, and are intensely investigating those. I am off work for this whole challenge. I am also halfway through an intensive therapy round that seems to be helping quite a lot, as well as possibly having been egregiously misdiagnosed for most of my life. This challenge, we are going forward with business/kitchen buying due diligence, we move back into full planting mode at the suburban homestead, and we are continuing with eating a ketosis diet that has been quite helpful for us. I am working back into my calisthenics routine and may or may not start back with running. I am also continuing to work through the house, organizing and cleaning Goals: 1. Sleep. As best as possible. I’m a nonfunctional mess without sleep and can sacrifice it for a few days ok but then I have to make it a super high priority to regain it. With le bébé here and being off work, this is a lot easier than it was. 2. My basic calisthenics routine with Woody and Rex and Bo Peep. As well as spending some individual time with each kid exploring the neighborhood area, Just Dance sessions, and running or walking stairs or carrying sandbags up and down them. We started geocaching at the local park as well as fishing, thought the Mickey Mouse rod requires repair. 3. Take one concrete step forward per day. This had a great effect on my mental health last challenge and also helped me to do at least one tangible, visible thing to make life better. This ranged from things as small as “dig out the replacement toaster” to as big as “reorganize the playroom.” I don’t have to complete the bigger ones as long as I make progress. 4. Take one concrete step forward per day career-wise. I need my job but I’m not satisfied in it and otherwise need a change. I need to hone/adapt skills and look for other opportunities. -> Currently, this involves working towards dramatically expanding a part-time business into a full-time business, which would have Jessie running that business full-time and likely have me also working it full time within the next few years. 5. It’s planting time. I have a raised vegetable bed to dig in, another to level, drainage to install, and permanent cinderblock sides to install. I have anti-deer fences to put in around my fruit trees as well, and I’d like to start a bunch of seeds. Also, some of my experimental seed fruit trees may have actually survived and those I need to get into the ground at the back of the yard. It’s too early now, but I also have my grandma’s Japanese yellow rose to place somewhere too and a second decorative pot to put in with paver stones in the front. I also want to finish off the fencing (connecting neighbor fences to our house and installing a gate) so I can let the dogs out/delegate that job to someone else. 6. Therapy. I have a lot of goals for the therapy. I won’t accomplish all of them in the three remaining intensive weeks BUT I’ve already come a long way and I believe I can get the framework I need to live a happier, healthier, and more interpersonally effective life. It’s actually fun and rewarding, particularly in light of my personal discoveries and the fact that I was able to get my sister away from a doctor who was awful and caused a bad situation for her over and into my doctor on short notice. My little sister is one of my favorite people and she deserves quality care from a doctor who validates her. For tomorrow, we have a meeting re: the bakery to sign paperwork and gain additional due diligence paperwork. I want to take care of the shoe problem or what is necessary for the raised bed as well. It’ll be a busy day. In any case, that’s going to require sleep so I bid y’all adieu.

Last challenge went pretty well, mostly. I gotta work on chilling out. I’ve been somewhere between frustrated. And raging mad with work stuff. I have been cranky with everyone around me and that’s not cool. It’s gotta change. Goals: 1. Sleep 2. Manage anxiety and mental health. This has been going through the roof. Largely due to overwork; I took my first days off since the beginning of March and they weren’t even PTO. I just didn’t work from wake to sleep over the weekend. 3. Stay home and social distance but work outside on my suburban homestead developing my orchard trees and bushes, the veggie plots, and the flower corner. 4. Make working from home look good to my company; maybe they will still let us work remotely after all this is over 5. Enjoy quality time with the kids and with Jessie, including figuring out a way to have us time without grandparent help or the ability to go somewhere. 6. Keep exercising. We started the 21-Day Fix Real Time from Beach Body together and today is day 9. It’s been fun and good conditioning. I do miss the barre workouts though. 7. Help educate the kiddos. I’m in charge of Rex’s work, Jessie is in charge of Woody (the more work intensive kid) and we sort of share Bo Peep. 8. Ensure the passing of up-to-date and accurate information online. May the Fourth be with you all.

The 30-day county stay-at-home order went into effect today. The kids go “back to school” as their spring break is over and the real online classes begin. Jessie begins her spring break by teaching our children. I have 3-5 more days of utter work insanity before things have a prayer of slowing down. Cases of COVID-19 tripled yesterday in our county. We’re reasonably stocked on medicine, food, and supplies as well as materials for some of the projects we’ve really wanted to tackle. Now we keep going with the routine we’ve established and hope against hope that none of us were infected prior to the lockdown. Jessie went out yesterday, so -maybe- two weeks from now my anxiety will begin to abate. Being at home? No big deal. Very happy to do it and could probably do it forever at this rate. Not knowing about exposure and confirmed community transitions taking place? Hell. Goals: 1. Sleep 2. Manage anxiety 3. Stay home and social distance but work outside on my suburban homestead developing my orchard trees and bushes, the veggie plots, and the flower corner. 4. Make working from home look good to my company; maybe they will still let us work remotely after all this is over 5. Enjoy quality time with the kids and with Jessie, including figuring out a way to have us time without grandparent help or the ability to go somewhere. 6. Keep exercising. I want to stay fit, and I want us to start up the barre classes on the iPad again. 7. Help educate the kiddos 8. Build those bunkbeds 9. Ensure the passing of up-to-date and accurate information online Maybe this is too much. I usually do better with focused goals (don’t we all). Health and family are top priority, all else is secondary. Work will likely continue to be crazy but start to drop off at the end of this week and work with more flexible deadlines comes up. I need a plan of attack on managing the anxiety. Jessie’s last trip out was yesterday to Home Depot, which was a series of nightmares to the point I think we regret even going. She didn’t make contact and has washed and disinfected meticulously but we can’t be sure any of us weren’t exposed while out. Three of us had last contact on Friday the 13th, Woody was out 3/21 with Jessie though I think that outing had a very very low chance of infection due to the almost nonexistent contact with people or things, and Jessie went out yesterday. So at best we’ll know we’re in the clear or not by 4/6. On a happier note, I’ve included a picture of the growth on my Lapin cherry tree and another photo that shows the little fence (that is as invisible as I can make it) that I put up to keep bunnies out and Daschunds in. It’s green, and invisible/strong enough that the bigger dog ran into it and bounced off.