Starpuck: Jakku Bound

[starpuck]

STARPUCK SEEKS HER DESTINY IN A SCAVENGER WORLD

 

 

It has been just a few months since our young heroine discovered her affinity for The Force and began down that fateful path.    Having been a timid girl for most of her youth, the teachings of the dark side drew her attention quite thoroughly.    There was strength and determination to be found in their ways; passion, strength, power, victory... chains broken by freeing herself from that which held her back.     But not all was well with such wild, uncontrolled emotions and as she learned to master those passions, she found that an even greater need was yet unmet...     Balance.

 

Fate would have her find an ancient text, written and notated by many of the wisest of Jedi...  The Jedi Path, an informative manual that outlined life as a Jedi from initiate up through the ranks of Master.

 

     

 

She took to this journal and began to study it, and through it, found the Jedi Code and its tenets.

 

Emotion, yet peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge.

Passion, yet serenity.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Death, yet the Force.

 

Now, as she strives to learn more about the code that goes against the teachings of the Sith that she had first studied, she finds herself being sent to distant worlds where she will have only her wits, and the Force, to guide her.     Perhaps she will find the balance that she so desperately seeks...  perhaps she will find a part of herself she did not even know could exist.

 

Ahem!   Was feeling a bit creative and so yeah, that happened!   It totally ties in though, I promise!   You see, I will be on my epic adventure vacation through all of Week 2 and so I needed some way to work that into, and around, the challenge.

 

GOAL #1 - Emotion, yet Peace

The whole trip is a push out of my comfort zone because this is the first BIG trip that I am not traveling with either my father or sister as back up/veteran travelers.   AKA, the Padawan is out on her first mission where she alone is in charge.   I believe that my natural tendency is toward anxiety, so I am going to make a conscious effort to find peace when I am beginning to get anxious.    My form of meditation will be prayer.   Because I'm really bad at this.  Really really really bad.   This will be a perfect chance to work on developing a new habit.    So as not to overwhelm, and to keep things attainable, we're starting off with a very small goal.

 

Prayer and Meditation:  3x/week + whenever anxious.

 

 

 

GOAL #2 - Ignorance, yet Knowledge

This one is fun!    This is my food and eating goal.    The ignorance side comes from the fact that I am NOT counting calories- ie, I am ignorant of my caloric intake!    The yet Knowledge side pertains to my goal of making smart decisions and choosing healthy, real food 80% of the time or better.   To steal a term from @Tanktimus the Encourager - I will allow myself so many variances per week.   These are my 'living life' indulgences and to be enjoyed without guilt.

 

Variances Schedule:

Week 1 : 2

Vacation : 5

Week 3 : 2

Week 4 : 2

 

 

GOAL #3 - Passion, yet Serenity

This has to do with all the things I am passionate about.  Which, on any given day is enough to tire out four people.  I often joke that I need shadow clones so I can do all that I want to do in a given day.     Art is really progressing nicely and I want to maintain this new habit as it forms.   I see progress and I've stuck to it even when it's been hard and frustrating.  This is SO important for me.     My RPG nights, and hockey, and everything else also has to find a place - so the goal is to find a place of serenity between the things I do, rather than overdo one or another and burn out.

 

Continue Art Work: 3x / week (*vacation week allows exceptions)

Step out of Routine, explore your world: 1x / week

Examples: A more significant hike, a bike ride in a new area, meeting with friends instead of playing online, doing things that others like even if it's not your favorite thing, try new things, pull out an old hobby, etc.

 

 

GOAL #4 - Chaos, yet Harmony

This is my exercise goal.   Basically.   I am not going to pick how many times a week to do which thing or anything like that.   It will be chaos!    And yet I plan on relying on the habits I've been building over the last several months to just get things done.    The goal is body harmony.  Listening to my body, while still training in a variety of ways.    I'll continue to strength train, adapting to what I can do while on vacation.   I'll continue to run or bike ride to enjoy the summer weather and keep my body in motion.   On days that I don't do too much, I will walk, or be otherwise active.    In short, I will keep my body in motion, resting when it asks me for such, and try to find a balance.

 

Force Move: 5x/week engage in any kind of activity that goes beyond sitting around.

Force Rest: 1x/week engage in rest, active rest allowed.

 

 

 

 

BONUS GOAL : Do a Star Wars themed photo shoot while at White Sands National Monument.

Because... seriously... this place is perfect for it.   Only hurdle is getting a costume put together in time!

 

 

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You bet I'm following.

[starpuck]

Week zero - one of the days in it!

 

Everything is going according to plan so far.   I've taken some bold leaps this week and am looking forward to my trip that starts next weekend already!   I've written out my to do list, so that as I think of things I need to do before then, I can jot it down and not stress over trying to remember everything.      I kid you not, "Buy lightsaber" was on that list.  (It's checked off because I picked up a cheap toy one.)    

 

Food has been really smart all week.   I've been eating my normal stuff in normal portions and not binging on snacks.   Last night I went and marathoned some Clone Wars and all I did was have a few handfuls of popcorn (super light) and 4 Oreos with milk.         Tonight will be the ultimate test again since it's gaming night, but I am going to do my normal taco thing, probably have a horchata for the immediate sweet tooth bit, then pick up some Italian Ices for snacking on later.

 

Exercise and movement has been going on.    Monday was strength, Tuesday I foolishly tried to run outside hah, Wednesday was strength, today was a short bike ride because I rode up to Target and bought a lightsaber, and tomorrow should be Strength.   Saturday has hockey on tap, and with any luck, I'll be at the ren faire on Sunday walking around and having a merry old time.

 

In super exciting news.   I purchased this today!!!!!

 

Complete with the belt and everything!   Also, a robe. (From another source because, I was not ready to dump ALL THE MONIES on this.)    I have just about everything I need for the awesome Star Wars photo shoot now.    I can't believe I am going to be packing costumes for my desert vacation haha.     I feel like my nerd score just rose by 100pts with this and man am I excited.   I'll also get to wear it to Wizard World in August.   And I'm taking my 13 year old nephew (his first con) and he's wearing his Storm Trooper Hoodie.  I'm all set to say, "Yes, he's a little short for a storm trooper."  Haha, get it?  I am so funny.

 

Alright, now to find boots.   For cheap.  REAL cheap.     LOL.

[Rurik Harrgath]

23 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

You bet I'm following.

 

That person's username made me laugh more than it had any business doing so. 

 

48 minutes ago, Starpuck said:

In super exciting news.   I purchased this today!!!!!

 

JEDI COSPLAY HYPE!!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I look forward to many cool pics of Jedi Starpuck.

[Jarric]

27 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I look forward to many cool pics of Jedi Starpuck.

 

^^what Tank said.

 

Loving the theme as always!

[obax]

Following, as always. Can't wait to see the star wars pics!!

[starpuck]

Last night's D&D food report:

• Dinner at 6:15pm - 2 steak tacos.   1 medium horchata to go.
• Snack 8pm - Small handful of Chex Mix, followed by small, 2-3 bite taste of friends cake.
• Snack 9:30pm - Black Cherry frozen italian ice.

I feel like that's pretty good.   There were Swedish Fish there and I didn't even open the bag.

 

Woke up starving this morning, stuck to my at work food.   Though instead of bacon, I took the last of the chicken-hummus salad my coworker made, and threw THAT on my eggs with some salsa.  Very tasty.    Customer frustrated me before lunch, leading to bad food cravings.  I went shopping instead.  (This may not be a good substitution habit lol.)    Came back, had sammich and cucumber as per usual.

 

Tonight is left overs for dinner (can be healthy with it) and then possibly some hanging out to do some side RP on the Star Wars game, or I might play SWTOR.   Weekend could be hella busy.  Hair appt, shopping for trip stuff, hockey, anime with friends, Ren Faire, gaming.   Woosh.    Then we get into critical mode for the week before trip.   REMEMBER GOAL 1 PADAWAN!

 

[Jarric]

Busy weekend then; sounds like fun! Hope it's going well

[chickie.monkey]

Hello, love! Following along! <3

[Kishi]

Yo! I'm in! And White Sands is the perfect place to do some desert-themed Jedi photo-shootery.

 

Get hype for this next challenge!

[karinajean]

whoa, that photo shoot sounds INSPIRED.

also can you explain chicken-hummus-salad? I am curious. it sounds delicious.

AND ALSO: IN!

 

[starpuck]

I hate when Day 1's start off shitty!      Like four people called off work today.  In an office of 10.    I also woke up not feeling well, then choked while trying to breathe, which gave me a sore throat, followed by hot flashes from stress making me think I was feverish, and ... too much work had to be done to workout on my lunch break, and I am already in "oh man need to get ready for my trip mode" and I bought Oreos I don't even like... ugh!

 

Tomorrow will have to be a better day.    Hopefully I'll get some chill time here in a few.  But, I wanted to pop in and give a sneak peak to something...   Still need the boots and robe to come in, and I might have to learn how to do some length adjusting and hemming... gulp!  But, for first fitting, OMG THIS IS SO EXCITE.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

That looks amazing. The boots you are wearing in the pic go with the costume really well too. I hope your day 2 is better than your day 1.

[Raxie]

Excited for you to get into meditating!!! It is so wonderfully amazing.

 

Also I'm glad you're taking a step back from calorie counting because I know how crazy pants that was driving you.  Making healthy decisions and having some variances is so much easier mentally!

 

And yayyyy awesome challenge and pictures and wooooot!

[starpuck]

Things I need to do today!

- Bike Ride

- Get a small notebook to keep track of goals in, especially while on vacation.

- Print out a new calendar, and make it look as awesome as Karinajeans!

- Finish packing

 

[karinajean]

1 hour ago, Starpuck said:

Things I need to do today!

- Bike Ride

- Get a small notebook to keep track of goals in, especially while on vacation.

- Print out a new calendar, and make it look as awesome as Karinajeans!

- Finish packing

 

 

 

wheeeeeelllll mostly mine looks nice because I put one fancy piece of washi tape on the top of it, and it distracts you from the fact that it's just a plain printed calendar with lots of writing on it. yours will be amazing, because you Art!

[starpuck]

 

 

I call today my day 1, and it was mostly good!    Food was pretty on track. (Though I am hurrying to get those damn Oreo's out of the house.)

 

I did go on a 9 mile bike ride and had a pretty awesome pace for it being like 91 and with a humidity nearing 60%.   Bike rides normally don't get my heart rate much over 110 usually, and it was 130-140 for most of the trek.

 

No prayer / quieting stuff today, gonna try to START my day with it tomorrow.

 

I arted by running the base colors for my friend's HK-77 character.  The hard part is going to be shading, highlighting and ... shining? the droid.

 

In sad news, the rest of my costume came in today.  The robe is far too long, but it was a cheap robe to make do for now... so, do I just cut the extra length off and let it add to the 'desert Jedi' mystique?   It was also literally cheap, like $20.  So I do not feel like I'd be butchering my spent money if I trim it down.   I could always attempt to sew it back into a hemmed bottom after the fact.

 

In worse news, the boots claiming to be wide calf, were not wide calf.   In what world, is a 13-14" boot circumference considered wide?   Looks at bottom of boot... Oh... made in China.    Ok, they may have me there.    They also stunk to high heaven... so I am pretty sure they'd have triggered a, "It burns us it does!" response when worn.   I ended up going through 20 pages of Amazon, "Brown, Wide Calf Boots" and finding ... zero that would work.  (Or be in my size.)   Now... I was trying to maintain as close to Rebel Legion standards as I can, because, if I am this close to being costume qualified for them, why not try to go all the way.     So I found some other boots elsewhere, ordered them for rush shipment.   Fingers and toes crossed please peeps.

 

The earlier list was well tackled.

Things I DID today!

- Bike Ride

- Get a small notebook to keep track of goals in, especially while on vacation.

- Print out a new calendar, and make it look as awesome as Karinajeans!

- Finish packing

 

Tomorrows List:

- Contact airbnb lady for final instructions before trip.

- Pay Bills (but leave lots of monies in savings account for emergencies)

- Shade HK, or begin rough draft of Rohan.

- Strength Workout (if whse isn't at death levels of heat)

- Side Star Wars game foo.

[starpuck]

Tomorrows List for Today

- Contact airbnb lady for final instructions before trip.

- Pay Bills (but leave lots of monies in savings account for emergencies)

- Shade HK, or begin rough draft of Rohan.

- Strength Workout (if whse isn't at death levels of heat)

- Side Star Wars game foo.

 

Arting will be hard to do today, since I am going straight to friends for the side game.   I can pay bills when I get home though.

 

I did do the strength work out, just sort of winged it.

 

Tried BB squats for the first time in mooooonths.

45 x 10 x 1 for warm up

55 x 5

65 x 5 x 4

That spot that feels hip flexory is still really sore from like 2-3 weeks ago... troublesome this is.

 

Push Ups, popped back up to incline to keep form good and shoulder happy.

20 - 20 - 13  (Bench level)

 

Pull Ups (unassisted, assisted)

4/6 - 3/6 - 1/5  *tired from those pushups?  I dunno.

 

Reverse Crunches

35 - 30 - 30

 

Then lots of stretching and foam rolling.

 

Food is an unexpected DINNER OUT tonight, hopefully, I can rein in this massive hunger and not pig out.

 

[obax]

Off to a good start, despite the initial hiccup. Days like that happen, and it really sucks when they coincide with day one of a challenge, but you made it through and didn't let it get you off track. Got my fingers crossed for you that your boots come quick-like.

 

Whenever I have less than healthy things I want to get rid of, I always take them and put them on the break room table at work with a 'Free to Good Home' sign on them, and they're always gone by the end of the day. Dunno if that's an option in your workplace, but if it is, I've found that coworkers are always willing to help out in getting rid of cookies before you eat them all, even if they don't know they're doing it.

[starpuck]

Hotter than hot things out there today.  92, plus 65% humidity, and I'm the knucklehead that still went bike riding at high noon.   I told myself to take it easy, but woops.  9 miles in 45 minutes, some miles as fast as 14mph... er, uh they were downhill?

 

Did some drawing at work since all the bosses are out golfing and it got quiet.  Rough draft of our Chiss pilot, Rohan.   She could give Han Solo a run for his money.

 

Trying for a difficult pose, so I'll probably do a lot of tweaking as I put it into digital.   Oddly enough, the hands are doing pretty okay for the rough draft.  Huh!

 

Tonight is D&D.

Then tomorrow is the last day before the trip, so much nerves and excite!

 

Also, got the tracking info that my lightsaber will arrive on Saturday, right after I've left!  Ah well, things to look forward to once the adventure ends.

 

Will update more better tomorrow.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

7 minutes ago, Starpuck said:

Did some drawing at work since all the bosses are out golfing and it got quiet.  Rough draft of our Chiss pilot, Rohan.

Please tell me someone makes LOTR jokes.

[starpuck]

20 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Please tell me someone makes LOTR jokes.

Hee, no jokes for this guy.   He is playing a female, and did his homework to boot!    But... lol, now that you mention it.

 

 

Quote

 

Chiss names come from a combination of the origin colony, the ruling class, and personal.  

Breakdown:

Rhygar' oha ' Nroth

Ruling  Pers  Colony

 

Admiral Thrawn in Star Wars fiction is a Chiss.  His full name is:

Mitth'raw'nuruodo

 

 

[starpuck]

So an honest update about week 1.

 

It's been shitty guys.   I am super unfocused with everything right now.   Sure, I got two bike rides in, and a day of lifting... but my eating has been atrocious.  Like, Oreos and ice cream every night, for over a week straight awful.   I don't even know why I am doing it.    Other than it's freaking delicious.   The prayer goal too?  Yeah, haven't touched it once.   I feel like I have so much going on, in my brain and legitimately with my schedule, that I can't eek out any more minutes.    I know that's not true, but I seem to be bad at making time for things that don't hold my greatest interest and motivation.   Maybe setting some old fashioned "before this, this" are in order.

 

 

I also wonder if I got into the habit of actually keeping a journal, on hand all the time, that I can write down my intended schedule, along with my 'want to do' / 'need to do' lists, if it will help me keep from being over-brained or if it will just become another 'oh crap I need to check in my journal' thing.    Such decisions.

 

It also could be that I am just really distracted with the trip.  (Also thanks Shark Week.  Your timing is impeccable.   I see that you'll arrive smack dab on Day 2 of Adventure.  *grumble* -- Nooooo that won't add to the stress and mood-glitches, not at all.)    I've traveled a lot before, but never without my pro-traveling buddies.   So even though I am going with a friend, because that friend has less than 0% experience in traveling, it feels very much like a solo trip almost.    I've plotted tons of epic adventures, and my veteran travelers were only there to follow when I made those plans.   I got this.  I'm GOOD at this.   *deep breath*

 

 

Then I have to wonder, what is realistic and feasible for this trip?     Perhaps I should just take the week off mentally.    Yes, be mindful - the kind of mindful that I'd like to maintain for the rest of my life.   But don't worry about checking in, or writing down what I am doing, or meeting any of my goals.  Just... go.   Be active.   Live life.  Enjoy nature.   See beautiful things.  Eat tasty food.

 

So, yeah, let's just focus on the trip for now.   Enjoy it.  Savor it.   Geek it up.   Then when I return, I can sort through things better.

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I think you have made a wise plan. You are The Awesome Starpuck, and you are going to get through this. Do not underestimate the powers of pre-vacation brain combined with shark week. As you indicated, that is very likely affecting your perception. Remember as Qui-Gon told Anakin, "Your focus determines your reality." Or as Obi-Wan might put it, "you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." 

 

Let's try this reframe for the week: With all the crazy going on this week, you kicked butt and got in a lift day and two bike rides. Well done.