Radost Posted March 30 Report Share Posted March 30 You know when there’s a thing you want to do, it’s easy, it’s right there, but you Just Can’t Initiate The Task? Yeah. I’ve been in the land of Can’t Initiate all last challenge and zero/week 1 of this one. 😅 But I’m here now! I have a trail race coming up at the beginning of June and I’m training a little harder this year than last, hoping to get my typical distance up to 12 km. Last year my phone clocked the route at 9.9 km, so if I can pull 12 on my easier trail near home I should be in pretty good shape on the day. I did 9.75 this morning so I think I’m on track. I am also going to officially put meditation on the goal list. A while ago I was trying new yoga videos and found one I like…but it’s Yin yoga and she has you hold the poses for like three minutes and it was so. hard. mentally. But, like, the same way a really good stretch is hard? Like “wow, I need to lean into that a bit.” Not sure what that’s going to look like exactly, maybe this challenge is for exploring meditation in the context of yoga, on its own, or just practicing mindfulness in nature, and see what gives me that “good stretch” feeling. Ugh, the weather is getting so nice and I have to go back to work Tuesday after spring break. Rude! Also 9 more days before my choir officially starts rehearsals for Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem. I’ve been reading through it all break, and, well, I’ll get it but it’s a lot to learn in six weeks. I’m going to try holding out a prize this challenge. Not sure how it will work…I’m pretty impulsive and like. If there’s a thing I want and I don’t have it, there’s probably a reason (lack of funds, not a real priority (I’m looking at you, daydreams about booking a makeup lesson at Sephora), realistically not enough time/space to enjoy it…). But there’s an embroidery pattern I’ve wanted for a long time, so maybe I’ll put that on the line. Here’s the weekly goals (5 stars): Run Additional Movement (yoga, walk, Just Dance, strength workout) Music practice Nature Appreciation Meditation (can be combined with yoga or Nature Appreciation) Weekly bonus points available for (up to 5 stars/week): Any of the above more than once Posting more than a weekly roundup Adventure runs Photos Goal: 35 stars Prize: embroidery pattern 4 Quote Link to comment
sarakingdom Posted March 30 Report Share Posted March 30 1 hour ago, Radost said: You know when there’s a thing you want to do, it’s easy, it’s right there, but you Just Can’t Initiate The Task? *stares in ADHD* 1 Quote I felt like I could run forever, like I could smell the wind and feel the grass under my feet, and just run forever. Current Challenge: #24 - Mrs. Cosmopolite Challenge Past: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11a & #11b, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23 Link to comment
Sovalis Posted March 31 Report Share Posted March 31 I also have executive dysfunction issues, so hard same. I hope you're able to find your groove! Here to follow and support! 1 Quote Past Challenges: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16 Current Challenge: #17 “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted March 31 Report Share Posted March 31 21 hours ago, Radost said: You know when there’s a thing you want to do, it’s easy, it’s right there, but you Just Can’t Initiate The Task? Oh, you mean my life? 21 hours ago, Radost said: Nature Appreciation I love this, anything fun planned? 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 1 Author Report Share Posted April 1 21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said: Oh, you mean my life? On 3/30/2024 at 6:53 PM, Sovalis said: I also have executive dysfunction issues, so hard same. I hope you're able to find your groove! Here to follow and support! On 3/30/2024 at 3:35 PM, sarakingdom said: *stares in ADHD* Nice to be in such illustrious company! 21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said: I love this, anything fun planned? Yeah! Adventure runs/hikes = getting out into the woods. There’s a hike I took last spring where the wildflowers were breathtaking, I want to get back there this year. Plus just taking time to attend to the flora and fauna I encounter every day. I also continue to be excited about my garden, even though I’m bad at taking care of it. I have some veggies planted, but I’m also working on lots of flower beds mostly from seed. I am meadow-ifying my front yard with about 70% native species, 20% neighbours (mostly from regions down the west coast as far as California, but a few from central/eastern Canada), and a few plants I just Really Like. Then in the back I have a thriving planting of corn poppies that will hopefully be augmented by some other cottage garden flowers this year. I regularly take the cat out in the garden (leashed), which is the perfect opportunity to just Appreciate the birds and plants around me. 2 Quote Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted April 2 Report Share Posted April 2 21 hours ago, Radost said: Yeah! Adventure runs/hikes = getting out into the woods. There’s a hike I took last spring where the wildflowers were breathtaking, I want to get back there this year. Plus just taking time to attend to the flora and fauna I encounter every day. I also continue to be excited about my garden, even though I’m bad at taking care of it. I have some veggies planted, but I’m also working on lots of flower beds mostly from seed. I am meadow-ifying my front yard with about 70% native species, 20% neighbours (mostly from regions down the west coast as far as California, but a few from central/eastern Canada), and a few plants I just Really Like. Then in the back I have a thriving planting of corn poppies that will hopefully be augmented by some other cottage garden flowers this year. I regularly take the cat out in the garden (leashed), which is the perfect opportunity to just Appreciate the birds and plants around me. This all sounds so lovely! And a front yard meadow sounds gorgeous, I always liked when plants are allowed to be more wild and not super arranged. 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 6 Author Report Share Posted April 6 Week 1 roundup! (Week 2 roundup coming soon, haha) Run 🌟🌟 Additional Movement 🌟 Music practice 🌟 Nature Appreciation 🌟 Meditation 🌟 Bonus? Sociability 🌟 Adventure runs 🌟 Photos 🌟 Running total 9 🌟 Week 1 was the last week of spring break so I had plenty of time for Everything. We booked a weekend away in a small community where there’s very little to do except look at trees, walk on beaches, walk on beaches while looking at trees, and walk among the trees looking out at the beach. In addition to hike day (logged probably 15k, finishing with a slow wander through Botanical Beach), I got out for a “run” on the last few km of the Juan de Fuca trail! It was suuuuper muddy and I was thinking a lot about how tough it would be to traverse loaded with full backpacking gear. It’s supposed to be a tougher trail than the nearby-and-more-famous West Coast Trail and, holy smoke, the section I was on is labelled “moderate difficulty,” I can’t actually imagine what the “difficult” section would be like! More (with pics!) under the cut, because my computer is out of commission and adjusting photo sizes on mobile is not my friend. Spoiler The boardwalks are in bad shape and it was MUDDY and I was scrambling up and down muddy near-vertical rises around 1-2m. At one point I had to crawl under a fallen tree that was so low I could barely fit under it without squirming through the mud - getting through with a pack would be tough! I only had about 90 minutes so (considering I was making about a 9-minute kilometre) it had to be a short out-and-back, and I decided to bypass the tree scramble by heading down to the beach and following the coast to an earlier beach access trail I’d passed. But where I went down to the beach was deceptively traversable - flat(ish) sandstone, pocked with tide pools. Have to be a bit cautious because it’s covered with algae and seaweed that are extremely slippery in the rain, but the bonus is how WILD and POWERFUL it feels to run alongside the stormy ocean. But I quickly came to an area where the slate and shale had been pushed up in irregular slabs blocking my way. This is where the rock changed, and shows the types, but the shale I had to traverse was pushed up at like a 30-degree angle and variously around 4-8 feet high. Of course it was all still covered in slimy algae (and okay, maybe it was a mistake to wear the light pink leggings) so it was a careful scramble over them. I thought I could get back to the trail just around the head, but it turned out I wasn’t seeing a trail marker, just someone’s lost crab trap float. I still had to squelch through a boggy meadow pocked with small, deep pools to find…more shale. And then finally the creek outflow that I knew was near a trail access. Here’s a few shots from the rest of the trip. First, sea creatures in the tidal pools! I put some creature names in the descriptive text if you hover over. And some forest photos! We visited Big Lonely Doug, Canada’s second largest Douglas Fir. Doug wouldn’t be so lonely except that the area around him was logged…the trail to Doug passed the stumps of two other giants, and the trees Doug currently towers over are youngsters only a few decades old. We also visited a nearby spot called Eden Grove and it was one of my favourite forest wanders of all time. There was a crew there photographing and scanning the local giant for a nature documentary, and they offered to take our picture. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 10 Author Report Share Posted April 10 Drive by post that’s been sitting in my draft pile for a few days 😅 Week 2 roundup! Run 🌟 Additional Movement 🌟 Music practice 🌟 Nature Appreciation 🌟 Meditation 🌟 Bonus? Sociability 🌟 Adventure runs Photos🌟 Running total 16 🌟 It was back to work as of Tuesday so less time for adventures, sigh. Although I did have some virtual adventures by hopping on the livestream of the Northeast Dungeon Siege music festival, which was so much fun! I missed a lot due to an out-of-town friend stopping by and some local live music but what I caught was magical. My fave act was Aura Merlin, but Cernunnos Woods had an epic show with masks and props…glad I had the camera lens between us or I’m pretty sure I would have been caught in some kind of spell, haha. Nature Appreciation took the form of bringing lawn chairs and a pot of tea to the front yard to do some flower watching with my mom. If you’ve heard of the Japanese Hanami tradition, that’s the inspiration. Many years I do a whole picnic with friends and lots of snacks at a nearby park with lots of cherry trees but this year the peak of the blossom wave was inconveniently early - the weather was cold and rainy most of the time and I was exhausted from prepping for a big concert. Mr. Radost and I went on a blossom walk one of those late winter days when it was actually sunny, and then the ornamental cherries on our street turned out to be about 3 weeks behind the ones in the park, so Mom and I could enjoy them on the Easter Monday holiday. A neighbour came over and chatted and complimented my tulips, too! It was a lovely day. Here’s my mom’s cat in my native plant garden (still looks like nothing’s going on there! I’m worried!) (More flowers under the cut) Spoiler I also was introduced to a new park by a friend. It’s a Garry Oak meadow preserve and just carpeted in some of the best native wildflowers. I’ve never seen a meadow of shooting stars before and it was EPIC. My run was nothing special, but the fawn lilies are out in force and I saw the first blooming camas of the season. For Additional Exercise I did ten minutes of jump rope after work. I was doing 5 minutes back in the fall…I was not prepared for how much of a slog ten minutes would be! But I did it! Got two hours of singing in (in addition to rehearsals/last lesson). And found out my MIL is going to be joining us for the upcoming concert! So maybe we’ll make time to practice together at some point. Meditation I squeaked in under the wire with a short music + breathing exercise Saturday afternoon. This week I also found out the friend I’ve gone bike camping with the past two summers is going to be too busy with work to go this year. We’ll plan some day rides, but I’m disappointed. Now the question is, do I plan a solo trip or stay home and focus on hikes? Pros: I love camping solo, no schedules and no talking (except to froggés), feeds my Cool Independent Nature Weirdo identity. Cons: biking with gear is HARRRRD especially in my hilly area, food management is tough without a trunk to lock stuff up and I can’t find good info on what campsites have bear lockers so I’ll have to either head to the one place I know or plan for nothing. I should book a campsite soon so I have to decide probably this week, yikes. 1 Quote Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted April 10 Report Share Posted April 10 Flowers, critters, trees, ah what's not to love! 😍 Your nature appreciation goal is really inspiring. Based on your reasoning I'd vote solo bike ride - more of an adventure and you seem like you can handle yourself! 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 13 Author Report Share Posted April 13 On 4/10/2024 at 1:29 AM, Mad Hatter said: . Based on your reasoning I'd vote solo bike ride - more of an adventure and you seem like you can handle yourself! I’d come to the same conclusion, haha. Didn’t get my first choice site but have made a reservation for my preferred dates at another island campground. Only 25 minutes from the ferry to the site, according to Google…but I was telling friends and they were like “it’s down a BIG hill…” I was like “THEY ARE ALL DOWN A BIG HILL, this is (low) mountainous territory we live in!” 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 13 Author Report Share Posted April 13 Kinda phoned in my run today. Just 8k, running about 7:45/km. My vocal ensemble met this morning instead of Sunday, so I ran midafternoon instead of midmorning. It’s getting too hot in the afternoons already! Mind you, I start to melt at around 15C, haha. Definitely the last run in pants until fall. And it was also hard to know what to do about lunch given that it’s also my night to make dinner and I want to get out to see Work!Kiddo’s festival dance performance then swing by a friend’s 55th birthday this evening. but. Despite all that, I got out and did it! 1 Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 14 Author Report Share Posted April 14 Week 3 roundup! Run 🌟 Additional Movement 🌟 Music practice Nature Appreciation 🌟 Meditation Bonus? Sociability 🌟 Adventure runs Photos 🌟 Running total 21 🌟 Guess what I realized??? You can foam roll your legs standing up against a wall! I have persistent hip pain that’s helped by rolling, but it’s hard to do it on the ground with my current arm and core strength. It’s not quite as intense and a bit hard to get some spots but doing what I can several times a week instead of a more complete job like a few times a month is going to make a big difference. I didn’t practice my choir music at all this week. I usually have two afternoons a week where I can carve out an hour, but this week one was taken up by a meeting + shopping, the other by a last-minute dentist appointment (just my regular cleaning, but I’d had to reschedule and was going to have a ten-month gap, so I got on the cancellation list). I will do better this week (although also a vocal ensemble friend said her coworker who’s also in the choir “could totally tell that you’ve been practicing a lot at home,” so I’m definitely not letting the team down). My additional activity this week was dancing my butt off at…a rave…? A friend was going for her 55th birthday. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be DMing Sunday morning and hesitated and the show sold out, but I said I’d swing by Friend’s place for drinks and cake anyway. Then it turned out Family D&D would be in the afternoon and that some friends who had bought tickets crashed out early, so I tagged along. We only stayed a couple hours but we had a ton of fun! It took me back to Electronica Nights in my early 20s, but it was also really cool to hear the influence of newer artists and see where the genre is going. Boy am I tired, though! Total activity for yesterday: 8km run, 23ish km cycling (in like 6 trips), two hours jumping rhythmically and energetically up and down. Special moments this week included our Scion game meeting our first Actual Mythological Person (aside from our individual progenitors), watching Work!Kid’s dance solo, my garden going Full Spring Bulb, and ducks and a hummingbird in my yard (not on the same day)! Just a couple garden pics (including a House Panther) under the cut Spoiler 2 Quote Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted April 15 Report Share Posted April 15 On 4/13/2024 at 11:26 PM, Radost said: I’d come to the same conclusion, haha. Didn’t get my first choice site but have made a reservation for my preferred dates at another island campground. Only 25 minutes from the ferry to the site, according to Google…but I was telling friends and they were like “it’s down a BIG hill…” I was like “THEY ARE ALL DOWN A BIG HILL, this is (low) mountainous territory we live in!” Cool! Looking forward to hearing about your adventure. 🙂 On 4/14/2024 at 12:58 AM, Radost said: Kinda phoned in my run today. Just 8k, running about 7:45/km. "Just" 8k. 😉 20 hours ago, Radost said: My additional activity this week was dancing my butt off at…a rave…? A friend was going for her 55th birthday. I approve! Beautiful kitty and flowers and photos! Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 24 Author Report Share Posted April 24 Week 4 roundup! Run 🌟 Additional Movement 🌟 Music practice 🌟🌟 Nature Appreciation 🌟 Meditation Bonus? Sociability Adventure runs 🌟 Photos 🌟 Running total 28 🌟 I gave myself two stars for music. Between 3 rehearsals and plenty of home practice I logged between 8-9 hours this week! MIL is singing with my choir for this concert, so we practiced together on one of my short workdays. It’s nice to have that time with her and feel like we can develop a relationship of our own, not just the relationship-by-proxy through Mr. Radost. Even with all that time spent making music, I carved out an Adventure Saturday! Sibling B took dinner duty and just as well because I didn’t get home until after 5. I went out to the Far Lake, which is on a lovely rail trail, about 2 hours away by bike. Every time I get out there I go “Why don’t I do this more often???” …and then I have to get back on the bike to get home and oh, that’s why. 😅 I tried a new trail. I found it searching for “running trails in [area]” and it was listed as an 11k loop…but I realized when I was there that although the new-to-me trailhead was around the middle of the park, not far from my favourite bike rack and viewpoint, the loop was meant to start at the park entrance and follow the rail trail for about half the distance. BORING! I took the Cedar Grove trail and then headed on what was supposed to be a 2-3 km creekside trail to take me back to my bike but morphed into the far side of the lake loop, whoops. I love the creekside trail though, it’s beautiful twisty single-track without too much elevation change, dodging tree roots and mud puddles. I think it was around 8k again, but much more challenging than last week! @Mad Hatter I know 8k is An Achievement in itself! But also I have been aiming to up my distance to around 12 by the end of May, so I’m feeling a bit behind schedule, haha. It was beautiful sunny spring weather when I started in the morning, but clouds rolled in as I was in the trees. I had hoped to take a proper rest with a picnic lunch and a good book but between how long it took me to get back around the lake and the way it was spitting rain I settled for a speedy sandwich and like five minutes of just sitting and appreciating the stormy sway of the trees across the water. Got a few pics under the cut. Spoiler Took some folksong lyrics with me to learn! I think I got all three songs that I worked on more or less memorized. Trillium! I don’t see them very often and these ones were so cheerful. It’s uncomfortably dry in the woods (climate change is real!) but there were a few boggy places and little streamlets. 😍 Maple branch and succulents It was right around here that I think I missed the “back to the rail trail” minor path I was planning on taking, and ended up basically circumnavigating the lake. Whoops. I didn’t see the beaver. Maybe next time! “I can’t believe there’s EVEN MORE hill to up.” Finally climbed the last UP and was rewarded with View. Oh! And when I got home Mr. Radost had picked up the bisexual pop rocks Oreos I’ve been desperate to try! They’re such a weird treat, I love them! 2 Quote Link to comment
Sovalis Posted April 24 Report Share Posted April 24 I love all of your pictures! What an adventure! 1 Quote Past Challenges: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16 Current Challenge: #17 “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Link to comment
Radost Posted April 27 Author Report Share Posted April 27 Week 5 roundup! Run 🌟 Additional Movement 🌟 Music practice 🌟🌟 Nature Appreciation 🌟 Meditation 🌟 Bonus? Sociability Adventure runs Photos 🌟 Running total 35 🌟 I did it! Maybe by exploiting a loophole in my star system (I practiced my music more than once this week…like all but one week since the last concert finished) and busting out a last-minute meditation session, but honestly the meditation felt really good and while I’m disappointed that I didn’t manage the seed of a habit, still every mind-clearing time is a lovely gift to myself. I re-downloaded the Oak meditation app rather than just sitting with silence or music, and I think that was beneficial. Part of me is like “if you have someone telling you every 2 minutes to meditate, you’re not really meditating” but a bigger part of me is like “the best way to meditate is THE WAY YOU WILL ACTUALLY DO IT.” I went pretty hard on my run today, 11.5km and managing about 7 minutes/km (although I did have to take a ~6-minute bathroom break 😳). Saw a friend out walking with her mom - will see her again for board games this evening! It’s gonna be a fun night, an old friend is in town and I also invited a mutual acquaintance from elementary school/junior high that I reconnected with a few months ago. Plus my regular gaming buddies. It will be a full house! The camas is out all over, probably hitting full bloom in the next week or so. I saw a white one right by the trail - it’s so lovely. My native plant garden in the front is still looking like nothing, but there are adorable yellow violets (I know, I know, but that’s what they are!) in my back fern garden. My vocal ensemble, we have a longstanding tradition of singing through the whole set list in order, sometimes several times. I’m usually the one advocating for skipping it and working things that need work even if that means we only sing half the set today and the other half next time. But this time it was me who suggested it, haha. I had an inkling there was a bad transition in there but I didn’t want to argue with the person who suggested it…I figured either she or I would get it in context and it was the right move. I still want to actually hear that section in the new order next time, but it was clear to us all that something needed to change. A few pics under the cut, including the time I was listening to the Brahms on YouTube while cooking dinner, then at a lull in my prep, leaned on the counter for a couple minutes and apparently made an appealing shelf. Spoiler Yellow violets with sword fern! You can also see in the background that sometime next challenge I’m gonna be telling you about my five-star island status…yes, that’s lily-of-the-valley coming up. 🤍 blue camas white camas! hitchhiker alert! It’s been a slice, folks. Ready for the next one, hope to see you there (and maybe be a bit more successful at posting more than just weekly updates/in my own thread 😅) 2 Quote Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted April 29 Report Share Posted April 29 Love all the pics! So beautiful 😍 What language are the songs in? Looks kinda eastern european ish but not any of the, umm, west eastern languages. Quote Link to comment
Radost Posted April 30 Author Report Share Posted April 30 8 hours ago, Mad Hatter said: Love all the pics! So beautiful 😍 What language are the songs in? Looks kinda eastern european ish but not any of the, umm, west eastern languages. Good eye! Everything I was working on for this concert was Bulgarian (The set also features Macedonian, Croatian, Ukrainian, and maybe some others, but I have all those words locked down already). This is my copy of my friend’s phonetic transcription of the teacher she did a workshop with in Bulgaria last spring, so I’m sure I’ve put some spaces where they don’t belong and mashed other words together, haha. If you want to give us a listen, we have a slightly-out-of-date website and we’re on Spotify. 1 Quote Link to comment
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