[Chaser Avens]

Alright, Mags.  You've got this.  Don't back down.

 

"Avens, Magnolia?" the quidditch captain looked up as he read her name aloud.

 

A young second-year student with unkempt dark-brown hair stepped forward hesitantly.

 

"Alright, show us what you've got."

 

The next thing she knew, Mags was handed a broom and four other students were up in the air with the quaffle, throwing it around.  "C'mon and catch it," one of them shouted.

 

No!  Mags wrestled with herself, Why are you freaking out?  This is what you expected, wasn't it?  Get up there and get it!

 

She mounted her broom, kicked off, and sped up toward the other students, the wind whistling in her ears.  She was almost to them.  It felt great to be gliding through the air like this.  Then the wind was blowing her hair in her face and she looked down.  Instead of continuing to climb, she began to lower herself slowly, at a comfortable pace and anxious to get back on solid ground.

 

"You're going the wrong way," one student above laughed, tossing the quaffle across the way to another.

 

"I know!" Mags shouted back, holding tears in with a concerted effort.  She wasn't sure if she was more scared of her immediate predicament or embarrassed for deciding to try out for the team when she knew she was afraid of heights.   Why did I come here in the first place?

 

She landed and handed the broom back to the quidditch captain.  "Thanks for letting me try," she said sourly, trying to ignore the fact that she'd just made a fool of herself in front of one of the most popular boys in the school.  Everybody knew Arch after last year when he led Gryffindor to win the house cup for the first time in four years.

 

"Listen, Avens," Arch said as he took the broom before Mags had a chance run off, "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're the only second-year here.  Don't beat yourself up for trying.  If the heights bother you, work on doing handstands to feel better about being disoriented.  Come back when you're ready."

 

"Thanks."  Mags walked to the greenhouses to work on an herbology assignment, but instead of being frustrated like she'd been only a moment before she was determined to give it a go and get onto the team next year.  Now to figure out how to do handstands...

 

~~~~~

 

Thought it would be fun to write a character and base goals off of the story.  We'll see if I've got the bandwidth to keep it up, but I do have a goal to shoot to do a handstand by next summer.  Right now it's really just working off some excess weight and doing that by being consistent with staying ahead of my fork and getting out to move regularly.  Plan is to do that for a while until it becomes second nature and then bust out my old Handstands course to work through over the winter/spring.

 

If I don't get to the handstand by the summer, that's fine.  The important thing is that I create something sustainable and stick with it.  I used to be really tough on myself if I skipped days or overate or whatever but that wasn't a great long-term strategy, so trying to be nicer to myself and figure out how to be consistent instead.

 

Fitness: Walk a minimum of 5x each week (anything counts).

Nutrition: Shoot to keep calories under 1500 for 5 days per week.

Mindset: Write a plan up for each day the night before.

 

Will fill these out at the beginning of each new week for the previous week:

 

Fitness                                    Nutrition                                   Mindset

__ Su             __ Su             __ Su

__ M              __ M              __ M

__ T              __ T              __ T

__ W              __ W              __ W

__ R              __ R              __ R

__ F              __ F              __ F

__ Sa             __ Sa             __ Sa

 

Looking forward to making some progress along with all of you here. 

 

~Chaser Avens

[Chesire]

Looking good!

[cd667]

This sounds like a brilliant goal.

[Chaser Avens]

No no no no no no no.

 

Magnolia Avens was running to Defense Against the Dark Arts class and already late.  She wanted to say it was because the staircase on the third floor moved (which it did), but she knew it was largely because she'd overslept.  She'd own up to it, at any rate.  Opening the big wooden door to the classroom, she crept in as quietly as possible and sidled into an empty chair next to Charlie Fenwick, a second-year Ravenclaw boy who usually had his nose in a book when he wasn't in class.

 

"Miss Avens!" said Professor Stit.

 

"Yes, Professor?" Mags responded, looking up as she continued taking her textbook and parchment from her satchel and placing on the desk.

 

"Do you have your report on 'Twenty Ways to Ward Off Unwanted Hags' handy?"

 

"Yes, it's right here...at least, I think it is," Mags rummaged through her satchel hastily, her heart racing the longer it took to dig without finding the parchment.  "Yep, here it is."

 

"Excellent," said Stit, a bemused glint in his eye.  "See me after class."

 

Just when I thought I'd avoided getting into trouble for this.  Magnolia tried to pay attention through the rest of class without letting it bother her that she'd probably have to explain herself afterwards.  Surely he won't give me detention for being late.  And he'd've removed house points in front of the class if he wanted to do that...

 

Before she knew it, class was over and Mags found herself making her way up to the front of the classroom.  She'd take accountability for it before he could scold her.

 

"Professor, it was entirely my fault for being late.  I slept in this morning, and I'm sorry."

 

"It's fine, Avens, everybody runs late now and again," Professor Stit assured her, waving a hand nonchalantly as if he couldn't care less about the infraction.  "I wanted to talk to you about the upcoming midterms later this week."

 

"Oh?"

 

"Yes.  You are at a bit of a disadvantage since you started the semester a week later than your fellow students."  The Avens family had been away visiting their relatives in Ohio this year, and Mr. and Mrs. Avens had arranged with Dumbledore to have Magnolia dropped off in Hogsmeade a week after the other students arrived.  "I just want you to know that I'm more concerned with your grades at the end of the year, which show me that you've understood all of the concepts we've been covering, rather than how you do this week.  Some of your other teachers wouldn't tell you this straight up, but I believe I'm speaking for all of us when I say this: do your best, and don't let any short-term setbacks get in the way of your longer-term goals.  O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s may be a long way off, but they'll be here before you know it.  Got it?"

 

"Yes, Sir."

 

"Good.  Don't be late next time or it'll be ten points from Gryffindor.  Now get along to Potions before you really do get into trouble for being late."

 

Ptolemy Stit was a new hire this year.  Everyone knew the DADA position was cursed.  Mags ran off to Potions wondering if he was this nice to all of his students, kind to her because he and her dad had been best mates in school, or trying to ward off possible curses with the old good-karma method even though everyone knew that was just superstition.  Whatever the case, she would be studying a lot this week.  Professor Stit wasn't wrong that she was still a bit behind, and she had been worrying that she wouldn't make very good grades when they came around.

 

Whatever the case, she'd be as ready as possible when the time came.  For now it was time to get to Potions.

 

~~~~~

 

Earlier this year I wrote out goals and deadlines for them.  The first set of deadlines will be coming up this week, and I'm going to grade myself on how close I was to achieving them.  While I might not hit all of them, these have been giving me something to shoot for, which has been a half-decent way to keep me accountable to myself for making progress.  Ideally, I'd like to get to a point where I'm at the right pace to hit the longer-term goals, which I'd like to achieve by next June.  We'll see.  Having fun and doing better than before, so I think I'm on the right track.

 

Fitness: Walk a minimum of 5x each week (anything counts).

Nutrition: Shoot to keep calories under 1500 for 5 days per week.

Mindset: Write a plan up for each day the night before.

 

Will fill these out at the beginning of each new week for the previous week:

 

Fitness ✅                              Nutrition  ❌                            Mindset  ❌

__ Su             __ Su             ✅ Su

✅ M              __ M              ✅ M

✅ T              ✅ T              ✅ T

✅ W              ✅ W              ✅ W

✅ R              ✅ R              ✅ R

✅ F              __ F              __ F

__ Sa             __ Sa             __ Sa

 

Overall pretty happy with this.  Walked 9.15 miles last week.  Getting these habits going, so they don't have to be perfect--just somewhat consistent for the time being.

 

How's everybody else doing? 

 

~Chaser Avens

[Elastigirl]

Love your growth mindset!

[Chaser Avens]

17 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

Love your growth mindset!

Thanks.  😊

[Chaser Avens]

"You got an 'O' in Flying?"

 

"Yeah," said Mags, disbelief all over her face, "I mean, I'm nowhere near ready to play Quidditch, but it's definitely a good start.  I guess I'm pretty good at this when I'm not too far off the ground."

 

"I'll say.  I got an 'A' and I think Hooch was being generous at best," said the girl standing next to her.  Molly MacKinnon was a ginger-headed Hufflepuff in double Flying with the Gryffindors in Magnolia's class this year, and the two were quickly becoming good friends. "How'd the rest of your midterms go?"

 

"Better than I expected so far, but I have the Transfiguration midterm tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure that I'll get a failing grade in that one since I'm furthest behind in it."

 

"Well, keep working on it and I'm sure you'll catch up eventually.  Nothing a little study won't fix up over time, right?"

 

Mags didn't feel as confident as her friend, but she was determined to catch up.  Since Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, she could forbid any Quidditch playing for students whose marks weren't good enough.  This year's focus would be Transfiguration and getting to try out for Quidditch next year.  Hopefully everything would go alright.  Nothing a little study wouldn't fix up over time, right?

 

~~~~~

 

Well, surprised myself a bit this week.  I thought I'd slipped more than I did, so it was nice to go back to do this recap and see it wasn't so bad:

 

Fitness: Walk a minimum of 5x each week (anything counts).

Nutrition: Shoot to keep calories under 1500 for 5 days per week.

Mindset: Write a plan up for each day the night before.

 

Fitness ✅                              Nutrition  ✅                            Mindset  ❌

__ Su             __ Su             ✅ Su

✅ M              ✅ M              ✅ M

✅ T              ✅ T              ✅ T

✅ W              ✅ W              ✅ W

✅ R              __ R              __ R

✅ F              ✅ F              __ F

✅ Sa             ✅ Sa             ✅ Sa

 

Walked about 11.9 miles this week.

 

The Mindset portion of this is one I'm going to work on a bit, specifically sticking to my plans as much as possible after taking the time to write them.  However, for this challenge I'm just going to focus on consistently writing up plans for the next day.  Next challenge I'll work on sticking to the plans as the main focus.  Doing this at the end of next week will be a challenge because I'm going out of town, but going to try for it.  I travel a bit, and I'd like to get to a point where changing up my routine in travelling doesn't completely derail me as it has in the past.  We'll see.

 

Hope everyone else's challenges are going well and that you all have a great week! 

 

~Chaser Avens

[Elastigirl]

11 hours ago, Chaser Avens said:

'm going to work on a bit, specifically sticking to my plans as much as possible after taking the time to write them.  However, for this challenge I'm just going to focus on consistently writing up plans for the next day.  Next challenge I'll work on sticking to the plans as the main focus.  Doing this at the end of next week will be a challenge because I'm going out of town, but going to try for it.  I travel a bit, and I'd like to get to a point where changing up my routine in travelling doesn't completely derail me as it has in the past.  We'll see.

 

Great idea to break it down like this. I had a habit of writing plans, but then I slacked and now I rarely remember. Maybe next  challenge I will just focus on building the hibit, even if I don't check off all the boxes. 

[Chaser Avens]

13 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

Great idea to break it down like this. I had a habit of writing plans, but then I slacked and now I rarely remember. Maybe next  challenge I will just focus on building the hibit, even if I don't check off all the boxes. 

 

Yeah, try it!  I have been doing lists on and off for about 6 years now and can probably count on one hand the days I've gotten everything on my list finished, but I'm keeping at it more consistently lately because I'm learning to make lists that are more reasonable.  Today was one of those days that I got the whole list done, and it feels really good.

 

Thanks for following along, Elastagirl. 

[Chaser Avens]

"How'd the rest of yer midterms go?" Hagrid asked, eyeing the young second-year Gryffindor and her Hufflepuff friend with curiosity.

 

"Four 'O's and two 'E's!" said Molly McKinnon, beaming.

 

"Two 'O's, two 'E's, and two 'A's," said Magnolia Avens, not quite as enthusiastically.

 

"Eh, not bad!" Hagrid said, "Personally, I could only squeak by with 'A's at best, an' mostly 'P's, I hate teh say.  Jest keep doin' yer best an' I'm sure yeh'll both be fine."

 

"Well, thanks for the rock cakes," said Mags, "We've got to get back to study for Transfiguration this afternoon."

 

"Good luck ter yeh, from me an' Fang!"  Hagrid saw them off with a wave.

 

~~~~~

 

Ooookay, keeping this short since I'm wrapping up for the next challenge.  Here's the recap for last week:

 

Fitness: Walk a minimum of 5x each week (anything counts).

Nutrition: Shoot to keep calories under 1500 for 5 days per week.

Mindset: Write a plan up for each day the night before.

 

Fitness ❌                              Nutrition  ❌                            Mindset  ✅

✅ Su             ✅ Su              ✅ Su

✅ M              ✅ M              ✅ M

__ T              __ T              ✅ T

✅ W              ✅ W              ✅ W

✅ R x2           __ R              ✅ R

__ F              __ F              ✅ F

__ Sa             __ Sa             ✅ Sa

 

Walked 10.9 miles this week.

 

On the one hand, I'm glad I'm doing this to see that I'm not failing entirely because I certainly felt like I was failing this week.  I really felt kinda out of control on the nutrition side of things this week, so going to focus on that especially in the next challenge.  That and job stuff, and mostly getting my act together in general.  I don't have nearly as much accountability here in real life like I used to (long story, won't bore you all with the details, haha), so trying to find some way to be better about this and care more so I don't just fall off the wagon with no perceived reason to get back moving.  I do want to get into better shape, I just need a better 'Big Why' and to actually focus on it.

 

Maybe I'll work on that in this next challenge, too. 

 

Thanks to all of you who followed along--really appreciate it!