UnquietBones has a Quest! (or Four)

[UnquietBones]

A new quest and a new day! ...To be fair, every day is a new day, but technicalities! *poses dramatically*

 

Alrighty this challenge I vow to:

1. Start my journey in the NerdFitness Academy
2. Kick butt in the Assassin's mini (or die trying!) ((well, maybe not that far...))
3. Get 45 'active minutes' every day to max out the Virgin Pulse program at work so I earn full payout under the new system.
4. Continue my quest to NOT COMMIT TO ANYTHING NEW and to finish existing commitments. (I overcommit liek woah and am trying to break the habit.

 

The first three things are going to eat up a large portion of my time and the fourth will account for my hobby time... so we should be good!

 

And here... have a picture out the window of my favorite place in the world (family cabin in Maine) that I will be visiting in July!! *dances a happy dance of happy*

 

 

Spoiler

NerdFitness

• Week -1 - Finished 1 quest
• Week 0 - Finished 2 quests
• Week 1 - Finished 2 quests
• Week 2 - Finished 1 quest
• Week 3 - Vacation week!
• Week 4

 

Assassin's Mini Participation

• Week 1 - No
• Week 2 - Yes
• Week 3 - Vacation week!
• Week 4 - No

 

Walking

• Week -1 - 4/7
• Week 0 - 4/7
• Week 1 - 3/7
• Week 2 - 5/7
• Week 3 - Vacation week!
• Week 4

 

Art & Writing

• Week -1 - Pretty good
• Week 0 - Much better!
• Week 1 - Not good at all
• Week 2 - Eh, sort of okay
• Week 3 - Vacation week!
• Week 4

 

[UnquietBones]

I signed up for the NerdFitness Academy in February (when they had the sale) but never actually started the program. Thankfully I kept the weekly emails (and the are on the website) so I'm going to roll up my sleeves and give it a go!

 

Since the activities are behind a paywall, I'm going to be very vague about them here. Seems only fair to the company-- and I like the NerdFitness folks so I want them to stay in business!  Still, I'll be tracking how I do with each of the weekly assignments (and I'm going to try to be good about not working ahead).

 

Week -1 will be my Week 1... so the vague assignments are thus. If you are in the Academy they are in the same order as they appear in Week 1 Missions, I just made silly names for them, because reasons!

1. Making Memories - 25XP!
2. Line in the Sand - FAIL
3. This is How I Do - FAIL
4. Small Steps for Long Journeys - 4/7 FAIL
5. Polaroid Potluck - FAIL

[UnquietBones]

Part of my goals with the 'active minutes' is to get back up to my old habit of doing a 5k more or less daily while playing games. That's going to take a while, and I'm fine with that... but it's definitely an overall goal for this year! It helps that my friends/coworkers are also playing with me, so there's a built-in social 'come play with us!' drive to it.

 

Dog walking also counts as 'active minutes' most of the time, so when the weather is nice (she has heavy fluff, and Virginia gets crazy hot) I'll be trying to earn at least some of the points that way. The fluffeh puppeh loves walks, but both of our stamina is a little low right now.

 

Week -1 Walking Log

• Sunday - 50min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Monday - Helped a friend move instead
• Tuesday - 56min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Wednesday - 62min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Thursday - 47min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy, Pokemon Go)
• Friday - Took a lazy day since I hit Level 5 on Virgin Pulse and didn't 'need' the active minutes
• Saturday - Sick day

[UnquietBones]

Week -1 Art/Writing Commitments Log (to Others and Self)

• Custom base and removable fencing order (others)
• Shipping of the brindle corgi magnet (others)
• Spend some time working on the body box trade horses (others) - FAIL
• Beta Reading/Reviewing a dystopian young adult novel (others) : Chapter 1a, Chapter 1b, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
• Work on the 'what makes a good writer' assignment for the writing group (others) - FAIL

• List at least one new thing to the Etsy store (self) : Stablemate Dressage Base, SSP Yearly 2011, Leaping Horse #008
• Finish at least one half-finished artwork (self) - FAIL
• Finishing four July Saturday Story Prompts posts (self) : 1/4 FAIL
• Finish four July Fanfiction archive posts (self) - FAIL
• Write at least one new drabble (self) - FAIL
• Write at least one new blog post (self) : New Etsy Goals for July

 

 

[Nina-Rose]

4 hours ago, UnquietBones said:

Week -1 will be my Week 1... so the vague assignments are thus. If you are in the Academy they are in the same order as they appear in Week 1 Missions, I just made silly names for them, because reasons!

1. Making Memories
2. Line in the Sand
3. This is How I Do
4. Small Steps for Long Journeys
5. Polaroid Potluck

I joined the NFA in June 2016. How are you finding the process so far? I think I devoured the first 2 modules in 2 days, then re-read them again for days 3&4! I also find the FB group incredibly valuable

[UnquietBones]

46 minutes ago, Nina-Rose said:

I joined the NFA in June 2016. How are you finding the process so far? I think I devoured the first 2 modules in 2 days, then re-read them again for days 3&4! I also find the FB group incredibly valuable

 

The sad bit is, I really haven't started yet! I joined the FB group, but never posted or replied to anything. I'm trying to take things slow so I'm going to do it a week at a time. I'm a little revved up to try and do ALL THE QUESTS, but I'll flame out and give up after a week if I do that.  I'm trying to read slowly and actually internalize all the quests. I have a hard time remembering what I'm supposed to be doing so I'll do something against the goals and not even realize it until later. *sighs*

 

But it looks like a lot of fun!  What level are you up to now?

[Nina-Rose]

1 hour ago, UnquietBones said:

 

The sad bit is, I really haven't started yet! I joined the FB group, but never posted or replied to anything. I'm trying to take things slow so I'm going to do it a week at a time. I'm a little revved up to try and do ALL THE QUESTS, but I'll flame out and give up after a week if I do that.  I'm trying to read slowly and actually internalize all the quests. I have a hard time remembering what I'm supposed to be doing so I'll do something against the goals and not even realize it until later. *sighs*

 

But it looks like a lot of fun!  What level are you up to now?

I don't really use the character sheet myself; the linking wasn't very intuitive so I think I'm around level 13. I need to transfer some of my 4-week-challenges to the main quest aspects. But its another think to sync up and i barely have the energy to look at these forums!

[UnquietBones]

Art/Writing Commitments

 

Beta Reading/Reviewing a dystopian young adult novel

So, the person I am doing the book review reached out to me to check on the progress... only there really hasn't been any since I talked to her in May. *hangs head in shame*

 

I apologized, promised I would do better going forward, and started the process of cleaning up the formatting and posting the review of the book to a shared Google document. There are 76 chapters in her book and I committed to try and post a chapter a day. That's still a lot longer to finish than the original estimate I gave her (it should have been done in March I think?), but I will get it done! I should be able to get more than one chapter done a day, many of them are really short, but I don't want to overcommit. I figure I will format as much as I can each day, but only post one chapter until I have enough of them done that I can make sure to keep the promise of one a day.

 

I haven't heard back from her, but I'd expect she's pretty mad at me at this point (which is 100% fair! I'm mad at me too!!). This is the reason I want to work on my overcommitting, I end up causing other folks heartache that could easily be avoided. Of course part of that is also procrastination because I don't want to give them something that's not perfect and nothing is ever perfect. So something else to work on I suppose, lol.

 

Custom base and removable fencing order

The actual artwork is done for this and yesterday I posted the custom listing. Oddly for all their insistence on sellers taking custom requests, you can't see the buttons anywhere on a cellphone! So I whipped up a normal 'for person X only' listing and posted it. The buyer bought it late last night so I'll be getting it in the mail after work! The box is already packed it was just waiting on the packing slips and the payment. 

 

One more thing off the list!

 

Walking Log

 

On a good note I've been breezing along with the walking goals. I'm only going 1.5mph still, but right now I'm trying to build up the habit and the endurance before I build up the speed. With luck I'll have both nice and solid by the end of July!  *crosses fingers*

 

Academy

 

I've been procrastinating on this and I need to stop! I've found myself mentally putting things off until Saturday and there's no good reason to wait that long. So tonight I'm going to try and pick one of the small quests from the Week 1 list and get that done. They aren't at all hard, so I'm not sure why my brain is resisting doing them.

[Teancum]

I'm with you on trying to do the academy! I read it all very quickly when I first joined and was excited, then didn't honestly do much about it. So last challenge and especially this one I'm really sticking with the program, cause I figure if I paid for it I'd better use it!! 

 

As for the over commitment, a useful article from a blog I like (that incidentally led me to Nerd Fitness thanks to an off-hand quote!) 

 

http://bakadesuyo.us5.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b083212130155b748c7785081&id=f89e335ab0&e=e674facd67

[UnquietBones]

Art/Writing Commitments

 

Beta Reading/Reviewing a dystopian young adult novel

Got sidetracked yesterday and did not post a daily chapter, but I have two that I can post tonight to make up for it. I finished the polish/review of one more chapter yesterday and I'm hoping to get a bunch done this weekend. Right now my plan is to make sure I have seven chapters done and ready in queue so I can post them in case I don't get a chapter done a day. I'm going to time myself tonight and see how long it takes to get a chapter done. I've gotten good feedback on the ones I've already turned in, so yay!

 

I didn't get much done yesterday in this subset, but I have GRAND PLANS for when I get off work today!

 

Academy

 

I checked off Making Memories (#1, 25 XP) last night with the help of my hubby and and I've attempted to start on Polaroid Potluck (#5, 50XP) but I keep forgetting that I'm keeping the log and I have to start over.  

 

Small Steps for Long Journeys (#4, 100 XP) is chugging right along, so I will actually be able to check that one off come Sunday!  *dancedancedance* To be fair, that was the easy one on the list since I was already doing it for other reasons.

 

Line in the Sand (#2, 25XP) I am planning on doing tonight and I'm still racking my brain on This is How I Do (#3, 25 XP for each). With luck I'll be able to sort it out and get that one done as well sometime this weekend. 

 

...I'm having fun being really vague about these challenges!  

[UnquietBones]

8 hours ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

I'm with you on trying to do the academy! I read it all very quickly when I first joined and was excited, then didn't honestly do much about it. So last challenge and especially this one I'm really sticking with the program, cause I figure if I paid for it I'd better use it!! 

 

As for the over commitment, a useful article from a blog I like (that incidentally led me to Nerd Fitness thanks to an off-hand quote!) 

 

http://bakadesuyo.us5.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b083212130155b748c7785081&id=f89e335ab0&e=e674facd67

 

The hardest problem I have right now is remembering that I'm supposed to be saying no. It isn't people asking for things that gets me in trouble, it's me volunteering for things! *facepalm* I've actually been pretty good so far and I haven't picked up any new outside promises. I keep slipping and buying more art supplies for projects I may never get it... but I'm focuses on learning how to plan just for the coming week. I figure baby steps are better than nothing!

[UnquietBones]

I didn't do too bad last week!  With that small win in my pocket, I've got a lot more confidence that I'll be able to make good progress towards my 7 of 7 goal. *happy dance*

 

Week 0 Walking Log

• Sunday - 49min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Monday - 49min (jinx!) CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Tuesday - 83min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy) 
• Wednesday - 54min CHECK (treadmill web-surfing, Blogging, Etsy work)
• Thursday - FAIL (sick)
• Friday - FAIL (sick)
• Saturday - FAIL (sick), but I did go doggie walking for a bit

[UnquietBones]

Week 0 Art/Writing Commitments Log (to Others and Self)

 

I didn't do as well at the 'finishing', or 'no new commitments to self' side of things for this quest last week, but I did pretty well on the 'no new commitments to others'!

 

I've modified some of the commitments to be more generic and some to match up with new goals I set myself for July.

 

• Create packaging for sold Dolphin magnet and mail it (others) : Turns out this wasn't paid for yet, but I have it ready to go.
• Spend some time working on the body box trade horses (others) :
• Beta Reading/Reviewing a dystopian young adult novel (others) : Chapter 4, Chapter 5
• Work on the 'what makes a good writer' assignment for the writing group (others) : Done...ish. What Makes a Good Writer?

• List or renew one thing to the Etsy store every day (self) : No, No, Green Dolphin, Tuxedo Cat, No, No, No
• Finish at least one half-finished artwork (self) : Tan and White Corgi, Three Butterfly Magnets
• Finishing four Saturday Story Prompts posts (self) : 7/8, 7/15, 7/22, 7/29
• Finish four Fanfiction archive posts (self) :
• Write at least one new drabble (self) :
• Write at least one new blog post (self) : Back in the Sneakers Again, What Makes a Good Writer?, Wooden Dolphin Magnet #009

 

[UnquietBones]

I learned my lesson with the 'wait until Saturday' attempt with the Week 1 Missions... DON'T PUT THINGS OFF YA SILLY GOOSE! 

 

So here are the left overs from Week 1 and then the Week 2 list. *rolls up sleeves* Time to check things off!

1. Making Memories
2. Line in the Sand
3. This is How I Do
4. Small Steps for Long Journeys - with luck I can check this off come Saturday. *crosses fingers* Edit: alas no
5. Polaroid Potluck I and II - I did the 3 day quest, and the 7 one, but the 30 day one will be a slog-- but it's a hard habit to remember.  I am really not sure about the 'public log' quest. *ponders* I think I'll hold off on that until I'm better at remembering to log!  

 

1. Mapping the Mountain
2. Putting on Hiking Boots
3. But That's Not All!
4. Things I Can Do
5. Time For A Book Break
6. Food: How Does it Work?!?

[UnquietBones]

Ooof. So my weekend didn't go at all as planned, but was a fun time. I spent almost all of Saturday hanging out with my husband's college buddies who have all graduated and are going out in the work (aka will never see each other again. Expect I am going to make them, because dammitall we can fund getogethers every few years, we have the moola to help. Am still annoyed at having lost touch with my own college friends because all of us were too broke to reunite. ) But I am not a social person, so I made it through mid-afternoon and then ended up hiding out in my bedroom napping while they did a Bad Movie Night in the basement.

 

Sunday was a little better, I got a bunch of art done, although no writing, and nowhere near as many random chores as I had hoped. I did get my butt back on the treadmill to play some Final Fantasy and I made good progress on my side goal of 'Drink something that isn't Diet Coke whenever I can'.

 

The fun bit was logging into Virgin Pulse to find out that along with the insane raising of the payout threshold... they are now adding points for sleep tracking, >7 hrs sleep, and food tracking (and meal planning and recipe surfing)!! Thankfully my Fitbit already does sleep tracking, but it looks like I'll need to fire up MyFitnessPal again to get the log going. I don't really want to log food outside of my photo lof (which is working well), so I may cheat a bit.

 

There is a massive org change in the pipeline at work that everyone is keeping mum about (which is terrifying, because they never do) and it hits the 11-13th, so I'm trying not to panic too much. I love the group of people I work with and the job itself and there is a small chance that this could drastically change all that. Hope not!! *crosses fingers*

 

Otherwise I'm just hoping they let us out early today so I can go home and get some writing done... it's Day 3 of Camp NaNoWriMo and I have no words on paper yet!!

[UnquietBones]

So... not feeling as good as I would like today. I think I overdid the 'be social' over the last few days and I'm a bit burnt out. Plus the big reorg at work next week is making me nervous just because we have no clue what it's actually going to contain. I haven't made it out of bed to do anything yet today and it's already 3. *sighs*

 

Oh well, have to take the bad days with the good! At least I've been remembering my food log photo'ing duties, so I can finally check off one of the NF quests. To be fair, it's also making me a lot more conscious of when I choose to eat things. (Not so much with -what- I'm choosing, that bit comes later.)

 

I should really just get up and get on the treadmill to start counting up the active minutes for today-- I know once I do that I should have the energy to do Art afterwords. 

 

Can't wait until the mini starts up again, I had no idea how much I was depending on that thing to keep me on track! >.<; *facepalm*

[Teancum]

8 hours ago, UnquietBones said:

 

Can't wait until the mini starts up again, I had no idea how much I was depending on that thing to keep me on track! >.<; *facepalm*

. 

Here here!! 

[UnquietBones]

Week 0 started off with a bang, but ended with a fizz... There was just too much happening and I ended up going into turtle mode where I didn't really leave the bed (and laptop Netflix binging) much all weekend. Part of that was worry about my husband taking a 14 hour motorcycle ride out to a memorial service (and back), part was missing the friend the memorial service was for, and part was worry over the Big Secret Reorg (*dramatic music*) that's happening at work this week.

 

But we're coming out the other side of that tunnel-- hubby made it back safe from the trip and the first of the reorg meetings happens this morning. I'm worse about waiting to hear bad news than actually hearing bad news, so no matter what they say my stress level should go down after 10am.

 

So time to start digging back out of the black hole that was this weekend and get back on track!

[UnquietBones]

Every day is a new day and past failures are no guarantee of future failures... so try, try again!

 

Week 1 Walking Log

• Sunday - FAIL (sick/sad)
• Monday - 61min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Tuesday - FAIL (migraine)
• Wednesday - 45min CHECK (Etsy work, Final Fantasy was being cranky)
• Thursday - FAIL (sick)
• Friday - FAIL (sick)
• Saturday - 45min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)

 

Some of the sick this week was from allergies, some of it was from stressing myself out over a whole host of things. So next week I'm going to try very hard not to stress. I have a week-long vacation coming up on Week 3, so if all else fails I can use Maine to reset my brain!

[UnquietBones]

Week 1 Art/Writing Commitments Log (to Others and Self)

 

I got some nice progress done last week, but I also ended up buying new art supplies over the weekend to try and cheer myself up (bad self!). So still a positive, but not a total win.

• Spend some time working on the body box trade horses (others) :
• Beta Reading/Reviewing a dystopian young adult novel (others) : 
• List or renew one thing to the Etsy store every day (self) : Auto Relist, Relist, No, Metallic Horse Head Magnets (3 Pack), No, No, No
• Finish at least one half-finished artwork (self) : 
• Finishing four Saturday Story Prompts posts (self) :
• Finish four Fanfiction archive posts (self) :
• Write at least one new drabble (self) :
• Write at least one new blog post (self) : How to Make a Paper Gift Box

 

On a good note, I only re-promised one thing this week (a talk on publishing options for the writer's group) and I didn't promise to get it done anytime soon. Otherwise it wasn't a week in which much got done-- but I spent most of that time dog sitting for a friend, so no regrets!  

 

[UnquietBones]

Yeah... so this is the one I flat out failed. I'm not going to pick up the Week 3 missions yet, I'm just going to focus on finishing off Weeks 1 and 2. *takes a deep breath and hits the reset button*

 

Week 1 Nerd Fitness Academy

 

Week 1 Missions

1. Making Memories
2. Line in the Sand
3. This is How I Do
4. Small Steps for Long Journeys
5. Polaroid Potluck

 

Week 2 Missions

1. Mapping the Mountain
2. Putting on Hiking Boots
3. But That's Not All!
4. Things I Can Do
5. Time For A Book Break
6. Food: How Does it Work?!? - aaaaand, yup, I'm starting at the bottom of this quest chain.  Oh well, I knew the diet quests were going to be the tough ones. Looks like the first step down this road will be to continue the food logging for this week, then on to actual changes.

[Teancum]

I'm in such suspense with regard to the reorg! Lol how was the first meeting? 

[UnquietBones]

5 hours ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

I'm in such suspense with regard to the reorg! Lol how was the first meeting? 

 

Sooo... long long ago, Ye Olde IT Cubical Land was VERTICALS because SMALL TEAMS R GUD. Then the winds of Business Speak changed and there were ANTI-SILOING because LARGE TEAMS R GUD. And now the trendy buzzwords have changed once again and SILO ALL THE THINGS G*DAMMIT! *sighs*

 

It means zero for my group thankfully. We are a team that doesn't vertical/silo at all well so there was some worry that we'd be split up. But we are just out own sub-box under the 'kitchen sink' vertical that contains all the groups that don't play well with others. So we got a new boss's boss, but life should (in theory) continue on as it has. We're the sort of critical fix-it team that you really can't mess with too much, but no one in the company really understands what we do... so we get to teach a new boss's boss the ropes.

 

With that finally out of the way I was able to get back on track last night with the walking. It really really helps that I have friends/coworkers who want to run dungeons together and badger me into promising to play.  I have to be one of the very few people in the world where the phrase 'I really need to play more video games' means something healthy!

 

On that note... time to go update the log posts!

[UnquietBones]

Ow, ow, ow... allergy induced migraine season is apparently upon us (me). *mutters* Oh well, tis a new day... try, try again!

[UnquietBones]

Reset day!  I am really starting to look forward to Sundays.

 

Week 2 Walking Log

• Sunday - 69min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Monday - 57min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Tuesday - 47min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Wednesday - 53min CHECK (treadmill gaming/Final Fantasy)
• Thursday - Chose diner out with friends and pack for the trip instead of walk... no regrets!
• Friday - Spazzing out about the trip instead of walking. 
• Saturday - 58min CHECK (running around airports and going for a walk in Maine!)