Raxie Enters Weirdmageddon

[Raxie]

Just realized I forgot to update with my summary of last week. Before I forget I'll just do a quick Tapatalk dump. My insomnia was really a jerk for like 3 days in a row and then my social calendar got kinda busy so my lifting suffered. Hmf. Everything else I did though. Here's my Habit Bull record.

[rowan]

Hooray for the week!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DarK_RaideR]

But where are the tall tales of Raxie the dragonborn sorcerer?

[thekatisalie]

Whatcha using for that app???

[raptron]

Holiday season social calendar is legit sometimes crushing, even as someone who LOVES doing things.

[Starpuck]

18 hours ago, Raxie said:

Hawaii is the besttttttt.  I went with some people from CNF a few years back on a "Nerdcation".  Would totally repeat.

 

Um, as a person who is half way through her quest of visiting all 59 US National Parks, I need to go to Hawaii, and my sister won't fly over the ocean that long!    Also - as someone who loves sight seeing and adventure, but has some height edge fears, going with supportive, and fit people would SO be helpful!    I could get on board this train.

 

 

[Jittersthe.Clown]

 

Looking forward to the adventures of Raxie

[Raxie]

15 hours ago, rowan said:

Hooray for the week!

 

Thanks! Just one week at a time...

 

12 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

But where are the tall tales of Raxie the dragonborn sorcerer?

 

Oh right! I did say I'd post a summary of my D&D-ventures didn't I? I'll do that in my update shortly! And we're meeting again this weekend so I should have more next week too

 

5 hours ago, therealkat said:

Whatcha using for that app???

 

Habit Bull.  I love it - I tried Habitica for a bit, it was super fun but it was too complicated for me to want to use in the long term.  I love this one because it's literally just "did you do this today, y/n" and shows your results super simply and cleanly.

 

5 hours ago, raptron said:

Holiday season social calendar is legit sometimes crushing, even as someone who LOVES doing things.

 

Yeah, especially since I think I was having a delayed-social hangover from thanksgiving which may have been what caused the insomnia. Oh well, it is a new week!

 

4 hours ago, Starpuck said:

 

Um, as a person who is half way through her quest of visiting all 59 US National Parks, I need to go to Hawaii, and my sister won't fly over the ocean that long!    Also - as someone who loves sight seeing and adventure, but has some height edge fears, going with supportive, and fit people would SO be helpful!    I could get on board this train.

 

 

 

Have we discussed this before? I feel like we haven't and it's weird because I too am trying to visit all the national parks!! Squee!  I don't know where we'll end up going this upcoming year but it's almost always NP-adjacent (so far we've done Hawaii, Montana, and NOLA).  We have a facebook group for the planning and such if you want me to add you to it? We basically JUST got back from NOLA so there hasn't been much planning for 2019 yet but things usually pick up after the new year.  There's usually like a vote for when-where-etc and then the planning commences. It's so weird because it's all NF people and I end up meeting new people every year but everyone just clicks together so well... nerds gonna nerd I suppose.

 

4 hours ago, Jittersthe.Clown said:

Looking forward to the adventures of Raxie

 

Yay thanks for the encouragement!

 

[Starpuck]

1 hour ago, Raxie said:

Have we discussed this before? I feel like we haven't and it's weird because I too am trying to visit all the national parks!!

Omg... you are too?!  That's soooo awesome!  We must collaborate at some point because now that we know we're even MORE mind twins... it needs to happen.

 

I have this calendar at work, with little marker dots I put on it every time I visit another one!  Blue's are NP's proper.   And Black Dots are National Monuments.   Do you know the difference?  I learned this at Wind Cave!   National Parks are voted in by Congress.  National Monuments are a President Direct shindig.    And yes, I am super partial to the southwest.   Mmmmm.

 

 

 

[Raxie]

2 minutes ago, Starpuck said:

Omg... you are too?!  That's soooo awesome!  We must collaborate at some point because now that we know we're even MORE mind twins... it needs to happen.

 

I have this calendar at work, with little marker dots I put on it every time I visit another one!  Blue's are NP's proper.   And Black Dots are National Monuments.   Do you know the difference?  I learned this at Wind Cave!   National Parks are voted in by Congress.  National Monuments are a President Direct shindig.    And yes, I am super partial to the southwest.   Mmmmm.

 

 

 

 

What's been your favourite so far? Big Bend in TX honestly blew my freakin' mind and might be my favourite NP of all time.  i see you haven't hit that one up yet and HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. I haven't done the pacific northwest though so that might change.  Do you have the little passport book???

 

Also I think I see Guadalupe Mountains on there - did you do the Devils Hall hike per chance? That is seriously some of the coolest rock formations I have ever seen I honestly think about it all the time still.

[Raxie]

Week One Wrap Up

So, like I said above my week one got a little derailed on the lifting.  I think I had like an anxiety hangover of some sort from Thanksgiving and just could not sleep for the life of me, and then when I did sleep I felt like I couldn't get enough and was so mega tired.  I fell into the standard Raxie cycle of I'm-tired-so-I-don't-cook-or-work-out-so-I-eat-like-an-asshole-which-makes-me-more-tired-and-oh-god-I-can't-stop.  Luckily I cut myself off from that before it got mega out of hand but not before finding myself at 2am in an insomnia fueled rage ANGRILY DIPPING CHEETOES IN RICOTTA STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CONTAINER. I didn't know angrily dipping was even possible but let me tell you, that was it.  Like honestly I don't even know.  Also honestly, it was delicious.  But I am not sure I have ever gone to such ridiculous levels before XD XD. But uh, yeah.  Back on the eating what my muscles want this week so I can get back to DLing above my body weight (it's been far too long since I could  do that and I WANT IT SO BAD). As for the weekend, Saturday I went to a friend's house for board games and they cooked for us.  Nom Nom.  Sunday my sister came to visit and we watched Buffy and played board games.  By the numbers my week 1 ended up pretty OK.  See below.

 

The enemy: Keyhole

Starting HP: 800

Friends in Party: Dipper, Mabel, Waddles, and Wendy

 

The Specifics

Spoiler

 

Dance 4x/week = 100 HP damage to Keyhole per friend in my party

PASS! Dance went really well - I went 6 times over the course of the week (for real if I could dance every day I would).  4 of them were rehearsals for the show and 2 of them were just class days.

Results: 4 x 100 = 400 HP damage to Keyhole

 

Lift 3x/week = 100 HP damage to Keyhole per friend in my party

FAIL. I lifted 1/3 times so I'm going to give myself 1/3 damage.

Results: 4 x 33 = 133 HP damage to Keyhole

 

ROMWOD 6x/week = 1 new friend added to party

PASS! ROMWODed 6 times last week.  I didn't do the bonus warrior one, which is fine, but I do like squeezing that in when I can.  I love ROMWOD, I'm so glad I went back to making it a priority.

Results: Deputy Durland added to party

 

Forum 3x/week = 1 new friend added to party

PASS! I have been using tapatalk and while some of the resulting ugliness from it makes me kinda mad I feel so much happier being able to check in with everyone more or less daily.  Ya'll never fail to bring a smile to my face.

Results: Sheriff Blubs added to party

 

 

Keyhole Ending HP: 267/800

Friends Added to Party: Deputy Durland and Sheriff Blubs

 

So Keyhole will live to fight another day with Bill in week 4.  As long as I DO THE THING for the rest of the challenge I will have plenty of party members to take care of Bill and finish off Keyhole then, if I've done all the mathings correctly which I'm pretty sure I have hahah.

 

Week Two Planning

Week Two I'll be fighting Pyronica! Another one of Bill's interdimensional friends.

She will be starting with 1200HP

 

And I'll be trying to rescue Candy Chiu and Grenda

 

So far this week is going well.  I lifted yesterday, and after missing 2 lifting sessions I am definitely a little sore but nothing too crazy. I went to a practice session with Mr. Raxie to work on our quickstep number (which we're part of a performance team for).  It was a hot freakin' mess going into the practice session but we ran it a billion times and I think I'm at a place that I'm comfortable with it now. I also ROMWODed because stretchiness is the best and doing all the things in one day is the Ranger Way - RANGERS GONNA RANGER AMIRITE? (cc: @Tanktimus the Encourager)

 

Schedule for the Week:

Spoiler

• Monday
  • Dance Practice w/Mr. Raxie
  • Lift (FSQ, OHP, DL, BB Curls, V-Ups)
  • ROMWOD
• Tuesday
  • 2 dance classes & 1 rehearsal (Latin Jazz, Cha-Cha, Latin Performance Team)
  • ROMWOD
• Wednesday
  • Lift (BSQ, BP, BB Row, Calf Raises, Planks)
  • ROMWOD
  • Swing performance team rehearsal
• Thursday
  • 2 dance rehearsals (v. waltz pro-am & latin performance team)
  • ROMWOD
• Friday
  • Lift (FSQ, OHP, DL, BB Curls, V-Ups)
  • ROMWOD
• Saturday
  • 1 dance class & 1 rehearsal (jive class & cha cha rehearsal with Mr. Raxie)
  • ROMWOD
  • D&D-ing
• Sunday
  • 1 dance class & 1 rehearsal (quickstep class & quickstep performance team)
  • ROMWOD
  • Going to see the Nutcracker Rouge (basically the Nutcracker burlesque-ified - so excited!)

 

I realized I never really posted the full hilarity of what was my hosting Thanksgiving (it's been long enough that I now find it funny but WOAH was it one of the most stressful couple of days of my life - literally everything that could have gone wrong basically did hahah), and I also never shared the specifics of my first session with my new D&D campaign, so those are below under the spoilers if you are interested!

 

Thanksgiving Summary

Spoiler

 

So Thanksgiving prep was supposed to have started off Monday night.  I had a really packed schedule the weekend before so any delays or alterations in my schedule was really going to impact that.  Luckily for me, the Thursday prior when I was scheduled to do all of my cleaning (since my weekend was packed and wasn't going to have time to do it then, and needed to start cooking Tuesday), was a SNOW STORM FROM HECK. My usual 45 minute commute home took, literally no exaggeration here, 8.5 HOURS!!!!!!!! I had left early because I wanted a head start on cleaning and also wanted to miss the snow... but I still got home at 11-FREAKING-30 PM.  And I cannot even describe to you how exhausted I was.  So I just went rightttttttt the f to bed.  This made me need to clean instead of cook Tuesday night, so I woke up Wednesday morning SERIOUSLY BEHIND SCHEDULE.  I hadn't made a whole bunch of prep stuff I was supposed to have made.  But I took some deep breaths and started what I could anyway.  Then we hit traffic going to the turkey farm and lost another hour of the day.  Good news here though: I picked up some grass fed pasture raised pork bone broth to use in my various recipes that I was originally going to use veggie stock in.  That was a CORRECT move let me tell you pork broth is A+. 

 

Anyway, I was already kind of a wreck because Mr. Raxie's mom had said she was going to bring her own stuffing basically because she didn't trust the stuffing I was planning on making, and my family is vegan so I was trying to also make vegan compliant stuffs for them.  Also I had some Thanksgiving orphans from dance coming who had never met my psycho family and I hoped wouldn't leave hating me for all the insanity, and my family and Mr. Raxie's family don't ever see each other and are....very different people to say the least.  Even at our wedding they barely interacted and here they were going to be like just smooshed up in eachothers faces and we weren't sure how that was going to go. So yeah - stress level high.

 

Fast forward to Wednesday night, I have somehow miraculously caught up to where I was supposed to be schedule-wise.  I go to dance to decompress a bit, my sister and brother were supposed to arrive after dance to help me finish my planned cookings for Wednesday and they both CANCEL ON ME!!! They promised they'd come instead "first thing Thursday morning" (ie like 830) to start helping in the morning.  So yep, thrown off schedule again. Mr. Raxie basically forced me to go to sleep instead of staying up until 3am finishing what my siblings were supposed do for me and said we'd just do it Thursday morning.  Thursday morning comes around, I sleep through my alarm and wake up at 10am.  My siblings are still not there. Mr. Raxie and I panic clean and cook until around noon, when my siblings FINALLY arrive and I just throw recipes at them and tell them to get cracking.  I go to get in the shower while Mr. Raxie does some dishes and we simultaneously discover that OH NO WE WILL NOT BE DOING EITHER OF THOSE THINGS BECAUSE OUR BOILER HAS BROKEN AND WE HAVE NO HOT WATER.  So my disgusting, cooking for 2 days straight and also went to dance self is now just dousing myself in dry shampoo and dry shaving my legs.  For anyone who hasn't dry shaved before let me just tell you: IT HURTS.  Especially if you're doing so in a low-key-rage. Mr. Raxie is trying to figure out how to get raw turkey off of everything in sight without hot water.  We still have like 3 dishes to finish and no clean things to do it with. At this point we also discover that since we got a heritage turkey there is basically no fat and therefore no pan drippings to work with for basting or the gravy.  Mr. Raxie proceeds to just shove an entire stick of butter up its butt and hope for the best.

 

Somehow... somehow!!!! We get everything done aside from the salad - but really who needs salad on thanksgiving? Family arrives.  Orphans arrive.  Everyone has a lovely time and loves all the food (aside from Mr. Raxie's mom spitting out some artichoke appetizer bc she thought it was super disgusting but I later found out she hates artichoke so that was OK I suppose hahah), the turkey is moist, my greasy hair doesn't look too awful in pictures, and the cooking smells covered up any other smells that may have existed. No one was too upset from having to wash their hands in cold water all night.  All in all it was actually a roaring success and I kind of can't wait to do it again????? Hahahah

 

 

Adventures of Raxie the Dragonborn Sourcerer

Spoiler

 

So this new campaign, all of our super creative DMs creation (seriously he never fails to impress me with what he comes up with), takes place basically in the dawn of time.  For the entire existence of the world dark forces and demons have ruled and enslaved everyone, and only within the last few decades there was a giant war where they were pushed out and all the regular folks now are in charge of themselves. Cities and civilizations are still forming, recovery from the war and developing a culture beyond being enslaved to a all powerful ruling class is still ongoing.  My character is a dragonborn lady sourcerer whos parents were killed during the war and has been raised by her grandmother.  Her grandmother recently died of old age.  The crypt for the town is located a day or so away and there have been some looting and odd happenings surrounding the crypt area so a group of people are hired from around town to accompany the caravan for protection.  For various reasons everyone else in the party is hired, and Raxie is there for the funeral, and that's how we all meet and start traveling together.  We arrive at the crypt site (which is kind of like a little outpost town) and hear about strange disappearances of the new crypt apprentices.  After we bury my grandmother, as a distraction my character decides to take up solving this mystery with her new group of acquaintances.  Mystery solving and hilarity ensues, including us getting drunk with the locals, Raxie distracting the head crypt keeper while the rest of the party snoops in the depths of the crypt, and an old over excited lady berating us with town gossip as we try to end the conversation because she just WON'T STOP TALKING.

 

The funniest part was when we were "sneaking" back into the crypt, but there was absolutely no one around so we didn't even have to be quiet, and our rogue wanted to roll for being sneaky anyway.  He rolled a 1 so he ended up dive rolling in a theatrical manner across the field while shouting James Bond music while the rest of us casually strolled passed him hahah. 

 

Anyway, we end up discovering that the master crypt keeper has used some dark magic to bring back his dead mother and is keeping her in a secret room in the crypt, and in order to keep her "alive" has been sacrificing the new apprentices to use their life force for her.  We kicked his butt, his mom's butt, and their zombie minions butts pretty heftily.  Since the world is so new, no one has ever heard of or seen undead before (it's likely the first instance of it ever) so this adds to the mystery of how this magic was developed and where it came from. There was talk of a mysterious man coming through the outpost right before the strange disappearances started occuring.  The party decides to go after him, and Raxie, having nothing left to tether her to the town she grew up in since her grandma died, goes with them. 

 

Overall it was a great first session for this campaign. It's so nice to start fresh after being on the same campaign for like 5 years, also I definitely am enjoying 5e more than 3.5 thus far FWIW.

 

 

Phew that was a large update.  Thanks to anyone who stuck it out through the whole thing haha.  And even if not, thanks for popping in Happy Tuesday everyone!

[Starpuck]

We did actually do Big Bend.  We did a combo route of White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe and Big Bend.    We were VERY limited on hikes thought because ... we went the last week of July lol!   Sooooo, our day time temps were in the 100-115 range hahaha.    We got up early to do some canyon hikes, but the day we could have hit the tall mountain in Guadalupe, was the day after my friend did the 4 hour cave-tour where you gotta crawl through tiny spots, in the dark, and ... he was pooped.   We didn't get up early enough to tackle the tall one before it'd get too hot.

 

Favorites... they all blend together for me via trips.    I Love Love Love the Cascades -> Olympic -> Mt Rainier loop.     Olympic National Park is SO amazing.  Coastal shore lines with giant sea logs and carved rocks, to a temperate rain forest, to mountains that hit the alpine level.   Amazing they all belong to one park.

 

The park that surprised me the most was Capital Reef.  It seems like just a hunk of typical red rock canyonlands, and me/my sis and my dad, avid canyonland pros, were like "WHOA THIS IS BEAUTIFUL!"   Also Zion... Zion is amazing.

 

I can tell you which one fell super flat, lol!  Cuyahoga Valley!  Hahaha.  Might be nice in the fall....  but otherwise, eh... thankfully we tacked it on a trip to go see Evil Dead the Musical!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

That's a heckuva Thanksgiving. Please tell Mr. Raxie I have designated his method for keeping the turkey moist a Butter Enema. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

That was one heck of an update. I didn’t know I’d have to set aside so much time to read it. I think the most important thing I got out of it was Doritos + ricotta.

[Raxie]

That's a heckuva Thanksgiving. Please tell Mr. Raxie I have designated his method for keeping the turkey moist a Butter Enema. 

Hahaha I love it!

That was one heck of an update. I didn’t know I’d have to set aside so much time to read it. I think the most important thing I got out of it was Doritos + ricotta.

Sorry! I tried to make it choose your own adventure kinda with all the spoilers, thanks for trudging through it all! Also, that's basically the most important thing in the whole post so if that's your take away I'm good with it XD

[Mike Wazowski]

Holy holiday!! Sounds like an awesome but exhausting thanksgiving to say the least!

[Charlie_Quinn]

Dear Glob! I'm glad it all worked out in the end. How were you not rocking back and forth in the corner after all that? 

[Mad Hatter]

After reading about your thanksgiving I can only conclude you're crazy.

But why on Earth did you even bother to dry shave your legs?   

[loire]

16 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That's a heckuva Thanksgiving. Please tell Mr. Raxie I have designated his method for keeping the turkey moist a Butter Enema. 

 

Can confirm, "Mr. Raxie proceeds to just shove an entire stick of butter up its butt and hope for the best." was the best line of that for me.

 

HOW DID YOU SURVIVE???? My word I started getting the shakes just reading that.  Do you have hot water now I hope???<3

[raptron]

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

After reading about your thanksgiving I can only conclude you're crazy.

But why on Earth did you even bother to dry shave your legs?   

That was also my question, hahah. SLAP SOME TIGHTS ON IF YOU REALLY CARE!

 

Last year, I had no functioning kitchen sink, so I totally feel you on the no hot water drama!

 

And yaaaay, your D&D campaign sounds VERY intriguing.

[Raxie]

 

 

 

 

Holy holiday!! Sounds like an awesome but exhausting thanksgiving to say the least!

 

 

It really really was - I think it's why I was so simultaneously exhausted and also super insomnia anxiety hungover last week haha

 

 

 

Dear Glob! I'm glad it all worked out in the end. How were you not rocking back and forth in the corner after all that? 

 

 

I tend to function pretty well under pressure? It just takes me a while to totally decompress afterwards

 

 

 

After reading about your thanksgiving I can only conclude you're crazy. But why on Earth did you even bother to dry shave your legs?   

 

 

 

I am indeed crazy.

 

I wouldn't have bothered if I had shaved within the prior week at all, but alas I had not.

 

 

 

  Can confirm, "Mr. Raxie proceeds to just shove an entire stick of butter up its butt and hope for the best." was the best line of that for me.

 

HOW DID YOU SURVIVE???? My word I started getting the shakes just reading that.  Do you have hot water now I hope???

 

There were moments I didn't think I'd make it. I legit told Mr. Raxie we should just cancel about 3 times.

 

We did get hot water back the next day. Actually we got a new boiler so our hot water has been extra amazing ever since.

 

 

 

That was also my question, hahah. SLAP SOME TIGHTS ON IF YOU REALLY CARE!  

Last year, I had no functioning kitchen sink, so I totally feel you on the no hot water drama!

 

And yaaaay, your D&D campaign sounds VERY intriguing.

 

 

The only stockings/tights I had on hand were fishnets XD. I had to wear a dress because they are the only things big enough for me to comfortably stuff my face while wearing haha.

 

Ahhh no sink?! We at least had cold water coming out of ours.

 

 

 

[Raxie]

We did actually do Big Bend.  We did a combo route of White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe and Big Bend.    We were VERY limited on hikes thought because ... we went the last week of July lol!   Sooooo, our day time temps were in the 100-115 range hahaha.    We got up early to do some canyon hikes, but the day we could have hit the tall mountain in Guadalupe, was the day after my friend did the 4 hour cave-tour where you gotta crawl through tiny spots, in the dark, and ... he was pooped.   We didn't get up early enough to tackle the tall one before it'd get too hot.  

Favorites... they all blend together for me via trips.    I Love Love Love the Cascades -> Olympic -> Mt Rainier loop.     Olympic National Park is SO amazing.  Coastal shore lines with giant sea logs and carved rocks, to a temperate rain forest, to mountains that hit the alpine level.   Amazing they all belong to one park.

 

The park that surprised me the most was Capital Reef.  It seems like just a hunk of typical red rock canyonlands, and me/my sis and my dad, avid canyonland pros, were like "WHOA THIS IS BEAUTIFUL!"   Also Zion... Zion is amazing.

 

I can tell you which one fell super flat, lol!  Cuyahoga Valley!  Hahaha.  Might be nice in the fall....  but otherwise, eh... thankfully we tacked it on a trip to go see Evil Dead the Musical!

 

We did almost the same loop a few years back! We also hit up Bandelier, Hovensweep, Mesa Verde and a few other monuments/parks on the way (we started in Durango). My runner up favourite to Big Bend is the Great Smokey Mountains. They really are everything they are cracked up to be. Third favourite is probably the Everglades, especially the west coast side on the gulf UGH so amazing. I was actually disappointed by Shenandoah. I mean it was gorgeous for sure but nothing really stuck out as anything special beyond it just being some nice woods to hike in. 

Zion is super high on my list to get to ASAP. I kind of want to take like a month off and just drive down the west coast and hit up all the parks starting in the San Juan Islands NHP and ending up somewhere in AZ or something. Unlikely that I can actually do that though, we will probably have to break it up into two trips north and south. That makes more sense weather wise too since then ideal time of year for Washington is not the same ideal time of year for NM haha

 

 

[Wild Wolf]

23 hours ago, Raxie said:

What's been your favourite so far? Big Bend in TX honestly blew my freakin' mind and might be my favourite NP of all time.  i see you haven't hit that one up yet and HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. I haven't done the pacific northwest though so that might change.  Do you have the little passport book???

 

Also I think I see Guadalupe Mountains on there - did you do the Devils Hall hike per chance? That is seriously some of the coolest rock formations I have ever seen I honestly think about it all the time still.

 

I've lived in Texas my whole life and still haven't been to Big Bend yet... looks like I'm making that a priority next year sometime . And all this talk about travel and cool trails to hike...it's got me hyped for some reason lol! I want to visit ALL the National Parks!

 

22 hours ago, Starpuck said:

thankfully we tacked it on a trip to go see Evil Dead the Musical!

 

Say WHAT?!

 

 

I've got to see that!! Army of Darkness is literally my favorite movie lol. 

 

Crazy week 1 update, Raxie, but you're moving along and getting things done ! Keep it up!

 

P.S. I posted my first chapter of the story on my thread, towards the end of page 4

 

Wolf

 

 

[Raxie]

Doing the busy thing, but here's my week so far! Im hoping to catch up with everyone tomorrow

[Raxie]

-sigh- this week's been so nuts. I had to go into work on my day off. Updates soon!