Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Mistr]

That's a good set of accomplishments for the year. Especially the consistent training/lifting and gut health in spite of various aggravations.

[Urgan]

15 hours ago, Mistr said:

That's a good set of accomplishments for the year. Especially the consistent training/lifting and gut health in spite of various aggravations.

 

Sometimes you kill it, sometimes it kills you. Right now just sorta clinging on for dear life until the room stops metaphorically spinning. The routine resumes in full next week.

[shaar]

Yesssss 2020!

 

I like how the cursing/work horribleness are always hand in hand.  And no one was surprised, ever.

[Urgan]

January 2020 Goals

Here We Go

 

I'm now resuming normal activity in the hopes I can get away with it. I think there's a psychological element to this, because I have lots of headaches just existing, it doesn't necessarily follow that the neck strain circa October 2019 is the cause of today's pain. The writing goals of December were blown clear out of the water, so I am feeling pretty good about my chances of cleaning up the existing sections of outline and stringing together an actual plot around the slice-of-life type stuff I am much fonder of dwelling on, ever since I had a shower epiphany. What else? Got my brown belt, weight has stayed stable with gas almost nonexistent by comparison to prior months, but calories have been all over the place, mostly on the lower end, which has not helped me in the gym in the slightest, let me say. That needs to stop right meow. Time to start 2020 by building on what 2019 left behind.

 

Tasks

This month is going to officially "start" for the purposes of this log on the 6th, but the deadline to remove Christmas stuff is the 5th. I do what I want. Most of this is obvious: I've been slacking on brushing my teeth at night, cat grooming is falling overboard, and the usual holiday box and crap pile-up has happened. What isn't so self-explanatory are the remaining items. I'm going to play a little game with myself. I'm going to deliberately look at my waiter's face when interacting with them, I can count the number of times I have done so in my life on one hand. Truck refi is on the list because we were planning on doing refinancing this month and it's just there to remind me to remind my husband. I bought fancy knives over the break, now I need to learn how to maintain them.

 

Get Rid of Christmas decorations on 1/5

Clean Up Bedroom Desk

Cat Grooming: 0/4

Toothbrushing: 0/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 0/4

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone

 

Training

Ye olde Do the Thing section, the knee pads are an effort to cope with the hard floor, because the only way I'm going to practice is to make the floor on my house more knee-friendly. Nothing magical here otherwise, post-class review only to start off.

 

Aikido Tech Review: 0/8

Iaido - Buy knee pads

 

Food

If it isn't tea [addit: or a protein bar] and it has natural flavors in it, don't eat it.

 

Limit Natural Flavors

 

Words

Hey, look I got my writing goal done in December. Time to make a big dent in the odds-and-ends cleanup department. And go back to using Lingodeer.

 

Writing: 28, 30, 32, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12.2

LingoDeer: 0/20

Weeks: 1 2 3 4

[Urgan]

3 hours ago, loire said:

Yesssss 2020!

 

I like how the cursing/work horribleness are always hand in hand.  And no one was surprised, ever.

 

In my case I got cursing under control, but when work went to pot I vented with complaining. A lot of complaining. All of it, probably.

[Urgan]

January 2020: Week 1 

Hell-o Winter

 

Tasks

Get Rid of Christmas decorations on 1/5

Clean Up Bedroom Desk

Cat Grooming: 1/4

Toothbrushing: 7/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 1/4

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 2/8

Iaido - Buy knee pads

 

Food

Limit Natural Flavors

 

Words

Writing: 28, 30, 32, 6, 7, 10, 12.1

LingoDeer: 5/20

Monday

Eeey new week. Did the decorations removal last night. I wanted to work on the desk clutter, but looooool no. Monday was a generally low energy--but not crashed, just low--day. Gym was fine, which is a two week first. By the time it was time to go to the dojo, I was being propelled along solely by black coffee. We worked on katatori ganmenuchi ikkyo, which was nice and easy. Got a tiny chip on a nail's polish at the dojo and patched it with clear coat when I got home. It was really tricky getting everything (Japanese practice, technique practice, eating the post-Aikido snack) with clear coat drying and a healthy headache but it happened and I turned out the light before midnight because that headache tho.

 

Tuesday

Well this was a Day. Survived it, did Japanese, brushed my teeth. I've been rereading through the entire outline for flow (to make sure it hasn't been screwed up by all the new additions...). Essentially after a certain point every section needs additions/edits, but that's okay. If I can get to a point where I can say everything past X point is complete, that would be sweet.

 

Wednesday

I felt less awful in terms of energy. Gym featured some not impressive numbers, but I wasn't dying and that was the main thing. I need a rebound there so bad. Otherwise it was a standard if busy day in a busy week. That's what happens when you take a vacation. Dojo was a mishmash of henkawaza style drills because Sensei has been out this week. The awkwardness of practicing male-specific attacks on a male partner, the very best of times. Been way too tired coming home, this time was a now-rare instance of me falling asleep with the light on again. Sigh.

 

Thursday

I don't have to cook tonight because So Many Leftovers! Hallelujah!

 

.....aaaaaand got put on an online meeting every other Monday at 9PM/10PM/whenever for me testing. Because my schedule wasn't hard enough already. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to do that and get to work at the same time when it was already a struggle before but OKAY WHATEVER. Didn't cook. Did do Japanese and some very small writing before I gave up.

 

Teh Weekend

Had some okay gym sessions, not perfect but promising that things would get better if I could have a whole week that wasn't sabotaged by something for once in 2020 please. I worked on getting things cleaned up on and around the desk--I put up some clothes and shredded the holiday receipts now that it's safe to do so, got rid of a big box. Bought knee pads at the last minute along with some books with pretty covers (the rest of the series Blackdog is a part of). Wrote quite a bit, actually. Bemoaned my lack of future. Typical weekend things.

[Urgan]

January 2020: Week 2

Going Into Hiding BRB

 

Tasks

Clean Up Bedroom Desk

Cat Grooming: 2/4

Toothbrushing: 13/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 2/4

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 4/8

 

Food

Limit Natural Flavors

 

Words

Writing: 30, 32

LingoDeer: 11/20

Monday

What I know so far is some part/whole of Friday - Sunday is going to be sucked into the black hole that is Work. 1/20 the gym will be closed for MLK Jr Day. That night at 10PM I have to test prod site. I strongly suspect I'm filing for PTO on that Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll hopefully maybe possibly know whether this is the route to go or not--I'd rather not because PTO is precious, but the rate this week is already going, I may need to do something next week to compensate.

 

Thing I learned today: you can have two names on two cards when one name isn't on the account. For example, a maiden name and a married name. Whut. 15 minutes later that card is history.

 

The rest of the day happened, a combination of unpleasant and unremarkable. This week is hovering in the 60s and raining most/all of the week. It makes the commute a joy. We practiced tanto kata 1 for the first time--both for that kata and for using a tanto, so that was interesting. We didn't spend the whole time on it, which I wish we had because there's a difference between I sorta think I remember and I know it now. Oh well, retained it well enough I guess. After I practiced the kata at home, it was food and Japanese and Youtube videos until an unreasonable hour because I had to squeeze something not-awful out of the 24 hours at my own pace.

 

Never learned anything useful about the situation on the weekend. Boss is out of the office through Tuesday so far.

 

Tuesday

Texted boss about the weekend plans. It's not his final call, but he's the boss so he gets the pressure to cough up details. If it's a whole day of work or more, I'm going to take PTO next week to compensate. It's the only thing that I got.

 

Not to spoil the ending, but it took 24 hours to get a response. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and Instacart didn't deliver an ingredient rather important but not integral to dinner, so we had sausage and riced cauliflower without the cabbage and we liked it. The whole day was a drippy humid soggy mess and thank God it is no more.

 

Wednesday

Hey look 191lb squat doubles that actually moved. Whoa. Got that answer from boss, it will be work from home. What days/hours? STAY TUNED I am told, so I should theoretically know by end of day what our fates will be. Fingers crossed for Sunday night. The weather is slowly "improving" sideways fashion.

 

Dad got his heart valve replaced today. It was up in the air until the last minute whether he needed it, but he got it. For your edutainment, the valve looks like this:

 

It's an inverted umbrella they float up the blood vessel to the spot and stick it right on top of the old one, not much cutting going on. I was just told Thursday morning he's slated to be released, which I sorta predicted lol because after surgery he was fine, better than before the surgery.

 

A bit before 3PM, the promised update came. Aaaand...we aren't doing anything on the weekend? He doesn't say that specifically, but testing is going to start on monday Monday MONDAY so I assume the weekend was spared? Why this wasn't explicitly stated I don't know but strongly suspect what is going on there. 

 

...anyway, more tanto kata practice. I am detecting a more focused training pattern this year so far. Okay then. This is real life now. Black belt club is Friday. We'll see if I make it there. To Friday or BBC.

 

Thursday

First they were going keep dad for two days, then they were going to release him during the day, then no nevermind. Okay then. Visited him in the hospital for a bit after a brutal, brutal-feeling day--he was fine and could have gone home easily but for proving he is walking with no problems. Nap time was thus cut in half. Done with this week.

 

Friday

There is about a 90% chance I am not doing to do BBC because my heart isn't in the same zip code as expending excess energy beyond the norm right now. Gonna treat myself to squinting at nail polish colors to see if there's any I just have to have. Maybe a white pearl or really light grey pearl for a semi-monochromatic look I'm thinking about attempting because I need to juggle 5 colors of polish and two base/top coats in one sitting really, really badly.

 

Confirmed, did not go to the dojo and elected to paint my nails and lie in bed because that's where I was mentally. Dad went home, everything is pretty normal there. Apparently heart valves are NBD.

 

Teh Weekend

Saturday's gym session went better than most sessions the last month have gone. The focus is on not getting hacked off about deadlifts and just do them until they stop feeling weak. I finished the book I'd been working on in the gym at home, the binding was getting somewhat...pliable and so I decided it was time to finish it and put it back on the shelf. Ditched a book I probably won't read because I suspect it will be a depressing ending. Squinting at another one I'd put down, Arafel's Saga, for similar reasons--it was giving me the sads. 

 

The next week being all kinds of jacked up had me on the defensive preemptively. I got relatively little extra done, except a bit of writing. Some reworking a bit that wasn't identified as a trouble spot earlier, some finishing a section that needed to be fleshed out in the first place. I have done rather well at least at keeping the baseline down.

[Mistr]

Having to work on the weekend sucks. They should be giving your comp time for that.

 

Nice to see that your lifting is going better. 💪

[Urgan]

3 hours ago, Mistr said:

Having to work on the weekend sucks. They should be giving your comp time for that.

 

I'm still working on figuring out when and/or where exactly we'll be working!

 

3 hours ago, Mistr said:

Nice to see that your lifting is going better. 💪

 

Yeah, at least it was before the impending Great Upheaval. We'll see.

[shaar]

Why are people dingdongs on the road when it rains........

 

It was foggy last night and my commute rocketed up to an hour because some dingus drove into someone else BeCaUsE WeAtHeR and the rest of us sad sacks got to sit in gridlock.

 

Stay strong.

[Urgan]

14 hours ago, loire said:

Why are people dingdongs on the road when it rains........

 

It was foggy last night and my commute rocketed up to an hour because some dingus drove into someone else BeCaUsE WeAtHeR and the rest of us sad sacks got to sit in gridlock.

 

Stay strong.

 

I mean, I tell you what there is something magical to rain. Or poisonous. Whichever.

[Mistr]

6 hours ago, Urgan said:

I mean, I tell you what there is something magical to rain. Or poisonous. Whichever.

 

Yeah, everyone thinks they can drive normally in rain. Nope, probably not.

 

Unlike snow, where people in SUVs think they can drive normally. Yep, until you hit ice. Then the extra mass of your vehicle means more momentum heading uncontrollably in a bad direction. Sane people (and those with good memories of previous exciting spin-outs) drive verrrrryyyyy soooooooolllllyyyy in the snow.

 

Guess what type of precipitation we are getting today.

[Urgan]

37 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Yeah, everyone thinks they can drive normally in rain. Nope, probably not.

 

Unlike snow, where people in SUVs think they can drive normally. Yep, until you hit ice. Then the extra mass of your vehicle means more momentum heading uncontrollably in a bad direction. Sane people (and those with good memories of previous exciting spin-outs) drive verrrrryyyyy soooooooolllllyyyy in the snow.

 

Guess what type of precipitation we are getting today.

 

Wheeeeeeeeee hopefully your area is one where they have road crews experienced in the snow and ice department. Down here when ice hits the road our best coping strategy is "Good Luck and God Bless." Cue the dozen cars stranded on the side of the road all bunched up together like penguins. No sand, no hope.

[Mistr]

16 hours ago, Urgan said:

Wheeeeeeeeee hopefully your area is one where they have road crews experienced in the snow and ice department. Down here when ice hits the road our best coping strategy is "Good Luck and God Bless." Cue the dozen cars stranded on the side of the road all bunched up together like penguins. No sand, no hope.

 

Yes, our road crews are good. One thing everyone can agree taxes should do is pay for keeping the roads clear.

 

I've seen what happens in winter in Oklahoma while visiting relatives. Everyone stays inside and hopes that the weather will get warm enough to melt the ice. If it stays on the ground for a couple days they don't know what to do. In particular, they don't know how much stopping distance to allow heading towards intersections. Sounds very similar to your area.

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, Mistr said:

I've seen what happens in winter in Oklahoma while visiting relatives. Everyone stays inside and hopes that the weather will get warm enough to melt the ice. If it stays on the ground for a couple days they don't know what to do. In particular, they don't know how much stopping distance to allow heading towards intersections. Sounds very similar to your area.

 

This is precisely what happens unless the weather crew nails it and predicts a bad snowstorm/ice event and the powers that be get their mess together and prepare. Which is.....rare. Oh well. 

[Urgan]

January 2020: Week 3

No Excuses No Life

 

Tasks

Clean Up Bedroom Desk

Cat Grooming: 2/4

Toothbrushing: 19/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 3/4

Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 6/8

 

Food

Limit Natural Flavors

 

Words

Writing: 32

LingoDeer: 15/20

Monday

Gonna postpone the truck refi. Both of our lives are flying to the winds because Job. Husband has a big convention to man on the first week of February and my work is doing.....well, whatever the mess it wants lately. Prep for that makes free time erratic at best.

 

The best way to limit "natural flavors" is to not eat anything new. Yay! Lol. Tea and protein bars are my only (known) source, barring whatever is in the food I order on the weekend, for I am but mortal. Doing my best. That's going to be the theme of this winter, I can tell.

 

It was cold as mess, the gym was closed. Nothing about the day felt like a proper Monday. Work was stressful but proceeded rather quickly, which isn't the worst combination seen from the rearview mirror. The commute was aided by MLK Jr, a snap down of temperature by 30 degrees, and the reopened highway that let up a LOT of pressure in downtown traffic. That saved me 20 minutes during rush hour, which is huge. Dojo was open, we did sumi otoshi things. Afterward I ran home and did bonus work for 15 minutes which I carved out of my life by the combination of the rush to the car and doing Japanese practice in the morning.

 

Tuesday

Ah the magic of doing a late night and an early morning back to back. It wasn't too bad, just the expected struggle to get out of bed and into the 20 degree weather. The session was okay, I'd describe it as "Well...I didn't fail a set." Numbers lifted were not impressive vs past performance whatsoever and in fact for bench were underwhelming, but that is the last lift I expect to return to normal. I adjusted my programming a bit in an effort to both reflect what I end up changing the log to be on a day-to-day basis as well as streamline warmups to hopefully give me more time on work sets. I felt I had a decent grasp of my current ability on everything but deadlift, so I waited to modify that one. Work was very busy, everybody wanting stuff form all different directions. 

 

I ended up making dinner at a not insane time, thanks almost exclusively to cooking the chicken before my nap. The veggies took like 10 minutes to do, hence the decent time frame.

 

Wednesday

I got some good data on morning squats and rackpulls--I can do triples on 187lbs and 205, respectively. Might have helped if I got up not 40 minutes late. Ain't mad, I managed two sets of each. I started a new box of tea this morning and it is both better than what I had and easier to obtain.

 

Aikido was a review of sumi otoshi and some tanto dori. You bet your butt I did shihonage against a yokomenuchi attack. 

 

Thursday

So....the weather had been cold for the last few days and on Thursday it decided to be 50 and rainy. My sinuses took issue with this by draining, clogging, and making me sneeze. You know it's a good start to the day when you put both contact lenses in the same eye because you're trying to figure out if you will be breathing today. I got so far as driving part of the way to work and turned around in favor of a WFH because I have my laptop with me now and I can do this thing. Worked hard, made lots of trouble. 

 

We're replacing my car stereo system this weekend. Mr. Grumpypants Husband didn't want to ask if it could please be done on Saturday vs Sunday--he only ever presented Sunday to me as an option, but I scraped together my energy and courage to ask him to ask if it was possible and I got a bunch of excuses why not to which I on the fly proposed solutions that hurt no one. Hence the Grumpy. I'm learning the man at his most irritable on Thursday evenings, because...

 

Friday

Friday morning Husband reiterated the plan to me with zero hint of bad attitude--ask if it could be done Saturday. And lo and behold, turns out we can do it.

OHP'd 76lbs for 5 triples, so you could say holiday fatigue is gone.

Foggy, misty, snotty weather ahoy.

 

Um, updating this I'm not sure what else really happened on Friday aside from a weird, weird day at work. There was a coding event that had most of IT grouped off doing programming things so I was left mostly alone all day. I was forced to interrupt multiple people multiple times due to clusterfarkles of varying sizes. Scooted on out of there and redid my nails and called it a night early. 

 

Saturday

Early gym was early, which clearly took a toll on my performance therein, I gave myself a blister of sorts on my left index finger that tore and revealed baby skin, tingly and about 5000x more sensitive to literally everything. We did the radio upgrade and it is amazing. I have subwoofers again. AKA leg massagers. It took the man like an hour and a half to install it, barely enough time to get to my parents' house, eat a thing, and begin to settle down for a nap. Which is kind of incredible considering part of the job was burying a mic cable in the headliner.

 

Very disappointed in the nail polish I put on--it started chipping almost immediately, like within 24 hours of application. BOO. 

 

Sunday

Killed it on eye contact at the diner. 

 

Did a lot of writing this weekend, took care of all the sections I had on my agenda for this month and then some. I still have work to do tidying up what I've already written, the pickings are getting slim. Cool. Made an excessive amount of dinner to send some food to the guy who installed the radio, he's a coworker of Husband's, so. You know. Goodwill and whatnot. 

 

I conquered the desk mess finally. Finally.

 

Did not brush teeth. It was its own punishment, given what my sinuses do during winter. Ugh. Also forgot to brush all the cats, just annoyed one this week.

[Urgan]

January 2020: Week 4

One More Weeek

 

Tasks

Cat Grooming: 3/4

Toothbrushing: 25/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 4/4

Knife Care: Research how to use a whetstone

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 7/8

 

Food

Limit Natural Flavors

 

Words

LingoDeer: 20/20

Monday

'Ey, not dead yet. A good start.

 

A very underwhelming gym session led into a work day I wouldn't give a nickel for. During lunch I tried messing with combining my phone, iPod, and radio, but unfortunately the radio cannot simultaneously bluetooth to one and USB connect to the other. So the map function is useless to me unless the place I'm going is some place really scary like I've never been to, or Atlanta-grade traffic. It's a really, really good radio otherwise.

 

Aikido was all about tantodori, aka Capture the Knife. Kind of hard to review that at home, really, so I didn't. Shihonage will feature large in my practice, because I am a shihonage fool. We managed to find kokyunage from munetsuki and sokumen from yokomenuchi, of which I am rather proud. The former was my idea and the latter was my partner's. 

 

Got in the bed a hair earlier than typical, still felt like a zombie Tuesday morning.

 

Tuesday

Still felt mostly dead all day, but that's ever so slightly less dead than normal on a Tuesday. Shark Week is looming, so make of this what you will. I made a casserole with pasta consisting exclusively of vegetables (spinach, kale, and one other green leafy veggie...arugula maybe?) and that might have been the scariest thing I'll do all week. It smelled like rabbit food and I was mildly terrified it would taste like alfalfa. Thankfully, it didn't. I turned the lights out at a not amazing yet not awful time, which I'll count as progress.

 

Wednesday

A mediocre but serviceable gym day was had. It started with SSB nonsense that I ranted about on Insta already, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say I moved some weight the best I could given I couldn't make use of chalk. My hands are dry and chapped due to abusive levels of nail polish remover. I realize this may be quite the accomplishment, but honestly it apparently is effortless when you like polishes that cling to life and nail with the zeal mine does while it delicately chips in a most unattractive configuration. I'll never get it. 

 

On a completely unrelated note, did I mention I picked Arafel's Saga back up? Well, I did and it seems I'd quit right before Cherryh resolved the problem I had with it previously and now I love it. Weird.

 

Aikido was a review of bokken kumitachi 1 - 4 and then we learned 5. A blast from the past. Forgot to review it when I got home, though I had every intention of doing so. D'oh.

 

Thursday

Ugh.

Things that happened on Thursday: 

Shark Week

Headache

Cramps

Exhaustion from the moment I got up

Informed I will be working Sunday the 16th for 5 hours and immediately will have to be in the office at 7AM the following day for all the good that will do--aka 1 hour shy of another full day of work and I suspect strongly that I will spend most of it just sitting around waiting for a roaming barbarian to happen by

Got a reply back from the guy who did my radio and I replied to it and he said he sent the message to the wrong person.

 

...at that point, I decided I was done with this day and any pretense that I am going to do anything but run out the clock. Although I did verify I could keep the kumitachis straight in my head. There is that.

 

Friday

Ever so slightly better than mediocre gym session and I put in for another day off (18th and 19th), since I wasn't aware I was the only one who didn't have a choice about which extra days I will be working when I originally requested the 18th. 

 

.....and then my boss came up to me and cut the Sunday hours in half. Okie dokie then. 

 

Unfortunately this did little to propel me to weekend faster than a crawl, to be perfectly honest. When I got out, I removed the polish from my nails carefully to avoid pissing off my left index finger. Mostly succeeded. I'm trying to work on getting an ever-greater percentage of polish on the actual nail vs the skin around it. Easier to manage on my right than my left, of course. 

 

Teh Weekend

Um. Well. Gym happened, which turned out okay enough. I think work stress and Shark Week are combining to make lifting more tedious than it has a right to be. I've been writing in my outline quite a lot and exceeded my own expectations there. I didn't do the very best job of making eye contact at the diner, but that was partly because of another series of communication fails. I made a point of clearing one of them up because it was too embarrassing to let it stand where it sounded like I was making fun of the diner to my server so I cleared it up and it seemed to cheer her up a good bit, so there was that. 

 

I'm sure something riveting happened, but can't be fussed to worry about it. I'm just over here wishing I could be an eccentric writer who only leaves the house when she wants to. BAH to this working life. BAH, I say.

[Kishi]

4 hours ago, Urgan said:

'Ey, not dead yet. A good start.

 

Just remember: it's not about how you start, it's about how you finish.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

 

Just remember: it's not about how you start, it's about how you finish.

 

DEATH IS ALWAYS AN OPTION. Got it.

[Urgan]

February 2020 Goals

Going a Few Rounds with Life

 

I sort of halfway got away with resuming normal lifting--I don't have any special pain from it, except for programming feasible poundages. Work stress or just stress in general ate my gains, friends. I am well within the realm of possibly closing the loop on the gaping voids where words should be. Well within. Still need to write that plot, buuuuut otherwise things are going very well on the writing front. It's about the only thing that went well for January, however. Work stress from the database upgrade, sleeping schedules that are the envy of no one, and just plain old "I don't wanna" have made everything just that bit more challenging. Ah well, February is for slogging uphill, so here we go.

 

Tasks

I'm continuing most of the routine stuff from last month, reinstating the hope of refinancing the truck this month, along with getting taxes out of the way sooner than later. Cue the refresh of all the typical annual expenses we have to make every year ever that would really give me anxiety if I let myself dwell on it. One month at a time, friends. One month at a time. The demo video I found at the rhetorical buzzer was not as helpful as I would have liked, so I'll go back to one I watched casually before I was really invested in knife care. Otherwise, I'm not pushing too hard this month because really it's about survival and I have to manage stress somehow. 

 

Cat Grooming: 0/4

Toothbrushing: 0/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 0/4

Clean Toilet

Clean Bathroom Sinks

Do the taxes

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again

 

Training

Hey look, it's the lowest possible set of expectations ever.

 

Aikido Tech Review: 0/8

Iaido - 0/2

 

Food

Find a fiber snack

Find a protein snack

 

Words

I set them up, I knock them down. The last five holdouts are going down this month....probably. Possibly. It'd sure be neat if they did.

 

Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33

LingoDeer: 0/20

Weeks: 1 2 3 4

[Urgan]

February 2020: Week 1

You won the first round, 2020

Tasks

Cat Grooming: 1/4

Toothbrushing: 7/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 1/4

Clean Toilet

Clean Bathroom Sinks

Do the taxes

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 2/8

Iaido - 0/2

 

Food

Find a fiber snack

Find a protein snack

 

Words

Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33

LingoDeer: 5/20

Monday

Ah, it's month 2 of 2020 and we're already at the Hanging On for Dear Life stage. Brilliant.

 

Insert a lot of moaning about being tired and sore here. 

 

I did high intensity work at the gym, hence half of the whining about being tired and sore. I did have some Ideas during gym time and actually wrote them down the same day I had them, ensuring they have been captured. What a world.

 

Dojo time featured a combo of jujinage and sudori work. It's a glamorous process, learning movements meant to be executed dynamically in a static fashion. Uke just sorta hops away on one leg--if I'm lucky lol.

 

Ran-ish home and was totally useful for deploy, you guys. Like wow. Then I ate chocolate and watched RedLetterMedia until Too Late at night. The End.

 

Tuesday

Um. Well. It was a day. Absolutely nothing exciting to report. Or not exciting. I made chili and fell asleep for three hours?

 

Wednesday

A pretty good gym morning aksually. 206 and 226 ain't nothing. Endured yet another day, this one featuring a smidge more work than the last three days put together, which is to day I was almost occupied for a minute there. Dojo was test night, so nooooo techniques except managing to do randori uke-stuff for a red belt doing his second? qualifier. Scored a sweet scrape + bruise combo on my forearm, but no arm bar, no broken nails or bones, so we good. I came home and got suddenly powerfully sick of my hair. Apparently it has been around 2.5 months since I got a haircut. Well.

 

Thursday

Worked from home, plotted my complete makeover (okay not really, but it feels like it, darnit). Went and got my hair all chopped off. Went to Walmart and bought products to make me look like I meant to look this way. FYI, this is like what I showed the stylist.

 

 

Um. Yeah. So, I didn't really do any actual hair care beyond get clean + brush + some hairspray before this, my last style I had for 5 years, and the years before that I had no style at all. So.....progress.

 

One consequence of working home + hair cut was no naps, which proved darn near fatal.

 

Friday

Well I'd like to say this was a good day, but....yeah, not even gonna lie. It was the start of the weekend of dealing with Collective Parental Gasp at the whole haircut thing. I needed to go to the dojo and visit the World of Wheels show preferably on Friday since I was already nearby because the convention center is right near work. After the Parental Gasp I just did not have the emotional energy to do both things so I just did WoW briefly and called it a life. It's amazing how you can have a lot of positive reception for a thing and it just takes one person to make you want to crawl under a rock. Did not exactly eat well. Had no energy, due in large part to the trifecta of sleep loss, emotional stress, and suppressed appetite.

 

Saturday

It was a day. You can imagine how amazing it was. Squats were awful, deadlifts have already been awful so I was just surprised to manage a baseline there.

 

Sunday

Also a day, but a better one. Had it out with my mother, so to speak, but not dad. He decided to get some kind of microbial infection in his lungs, which presented like fluid in the lungs (couldn't breathe well). Super scary-sounding, not as bad as initially it seemed. Yet still not cool as it hit mom in a different fashion so it's nasty AND contagious as heck. We're all alive, the virus/bacteria hasn't killed anyone, the haircut hasn't killed anyone. We'll deal. Eventually. Maybe.

 

Meh.

 

I did things that needed doing in addition to the bare minimum here, I just did not have any fun outside of the dojo and Thursday evening.

[Mistr]

Hang in there!

[Urgan]

15 hours ago, Mistr said:

Hang in there!

 

[Urgan]

February 2020: Week 2

Do It, It'll be Fun

Tasks

Cat Grooming: 1/4

Toothbrushing: 13/28

Look Waiter in the Eye: 2/4

Clean Bathroom Sinks

Do the taxes

Truck Refi

Knife Care: Watch Jun's knife sharpening video again

 

Training

Aikido Tech Review: 2/8

Iaido - 0/2

 

Food

Find a fiber snack

Find a protein snack

 

Words

Writing: 17, 18, 32.1, 32.2, 33

LingoDeer: 10/20

Monday

It's Drowning Week, Errbody. Literally and otherwise. No really, there's a lot of water pouring down, and a bonus redux of last week's Tornado Wednesday! This Sunday is the Database Go-Live Spectacular, then the Tuesday and Wednesday after that I can pretend to be deceased if I so desire, and I very well may.

 

Gym session this morning was actually better than I suspected it might be. To balance that out, mom texted me that she has the full-blown Whatever It Is and is thus both highly sick and highly contagious. This throws evening plans into hard doubt, a bad thing for multiple reasons that are fairly obvious. Sorry this isn't Fitspo Central lately, it just be like that right now. 

 

...yeah, did not go to the dojo. Despite really, really wanting to rip the haircut bandaid off at my parents' house, it really wasn't a smart move. Imagine getting a whole dojo sick because your butt just had to be there. Not me, not today, Satan. I went home and slept and had a second meal of eggs because not even I could make husband go get tacos after wading thigh-deep in water to save cars at the shop. 

 

Tuesday

Significantly less drowning occurred, but the flooding is real across the city. Hair adventures have been a real test of my confidence, which is taking a bit of a pummeling just existing. I will be quite glad when March rolls around. Stress is up, general morale is down. After next Monday things will improve. Maybe. 

 

Wednesday

I did everything on the lifting agenda with no modifications, did hair stuff, AND made it to work on time--this, the day of my entirely-too-frequent employee evaluation. Jesus mercy Hallelujah. So I've got that, multiple meetings, iffy weather to walk through, introducing the parents to the hair, and dojo time. I've had a better lineup for a day, honestly.

 

One of those meetings was an Employee Evaluation, which occurs entirely too often (aka, at all but specifically more than once a year). It was scheduled at 1, then 15 minutes beforehand it was moved back two hours. Perfect. Two more hours of feeling nauseous and jittery for me! The other meeting I was worried about was a CWOT--it was useful for another department that was not us. The rest of the day was normal-ish, my parents were still symptomatic so we did our best to not do anything terribly stupid, like eating food they cooked for example. I'm not sure if it's due to illness or what but there were no fireworks about the hair, so at least there was that to say about today. The dojo people all liked it. We did randori practice, the first "official" 3-vs-1 round we went through as brown belts, where there is a requirement to handle randori on the test. So you could say things are getting pretty serious.

 

There was an encore of last Wednesday in terms of tornado warnings and rain chasing me home, this time it was much slower, with an accompanying temperature drop over Thursday. WHEE.

 

Thursday

Possibly the most useful thing about this day will be me testing to see if I could get away with just using hair spray to achieve the same style more or less that I've been working on this week. 

 

The answer is it's a little less good for a little less time spent. Otherwise, yeah, a boring, insignificant day spent treading water.

 

Friday

Valentine's Day. I did not forget my present in its hiding spot the night prior, which is a minor miracle given how well the old brain is percolating lately. 

Gym was actually fairly okay. 78lb OHP doubles aren't really particularly impressive, but not backsliding is the thing right now. I survived the day then ate a standard garbage Friday "dinner" before expiring. 

 

Saturday

Not a bad gym day, but it took absolutely everything out of me? Part of the day involved buying taro mochi and Natural Flavors Tea as a coping mechanism for Sunday and an attempt at getting food from Panda Express but there was a charter bus full of humans between me and dinner. I turned my happy butt around and got tacos and called it a day.

 

Sunday

Let's put all the chores in a bag and tumble them 'round and see what gets done around the go live event! Yay! Folded some laundry before heading out for brunch and destiny of testing the entire production site in two hours, then getting Monday lunch from Panda (turns out it was two charter buses that pulled up unannounced), then returning to laundry folding, laundry shuffling around, and other assorted mundane chores. The only thing that didn't get done that rather needed it was brushing the cats. I did one of them on Saturday, but that was it. Did a little work on writing, which, thanks to a later epiphany, will be completely undone probably! Yay! Also turned off the lights a smidge early because Early Monday Mornings R Me. 

 

Had a food goal, fell asleep way early, woke up at 3AM, carried right on eating the rest of my planned food.

[shaar]

It's Drowning Week here too, continued from last week, so I guess this is Drowning Week pt Deux, aka What A Depressing Time of Year.  Everyone I know is in the poor weather doldrums.  Blaaaaaah.