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Sunday and Monday dissolved into a blur. I think Sunday I spent mostly doing some background reading/planning for my next large sewing project (for ME!). That evening, the light in the laundry room went out. It's a 4ft fluorescent, so we don't keep bulbs on hand and it was late enough that things were closed. Yesterday morning I had an appointment for a haircut, after that, we went to get bulbs and also lumber to fix the wood rot of the well enclosure. Apparently whatever lumber the guy who we bought the house from built the enclosure from doesn't exist, because the dimensions do not match any commercially available piece of wood at a regular hardware/lumber retail location. More planning/thought needed. Called the guy and he said he'd pop over and take a look. SCRAMBLE home to frantically clean/organize/make the house look a little bit presentable. Spend 1.5 hours chatting about various and sundry things (including the well enclosure) with the previous owners of the house. No real solution, but at least some options. Install bulbs and the light still didn't work. After trouble-shooting, deciphering the fuse panel, and a lot of fiddling about with a multimeter, hubs determined that the ballast was probably dead. Cue some frantic googling for the correct part and a quick run down to the Home Depot in the next town before they closed, and hubs had the new ballast installed and the new bulbs placed by around 10p. At this point, we'd barely eaten all day and there wasn't really time to make something reasonable while still having enough time to decompress and relax before bed. I had a PB&J sandwich and I think hubs had a premade frozen 'healthy' meal that we keep around for just this kind of situation. Oh, also, Ollie has been a grumpy/anxious cat for the past couple days, hiding a lot, hissing at the other cats and hissing at us(!) periodically, so add some concern in over whether he's alright and may/may not need to go to the vet. Blarghgh. Fortunately, he seems to be handling things better this morning and be more like his regular goofy self. Things I was planning to do yesterday and didn't: Lift Walk Cut out pieces for next bag sewing project Make dinner (there is ground beef defrosted in the fridge) Cut hubs' hair Today is a full working day, so I don't know how many of those things I'll be able to rectify, but before Sunday, here's the list of things Misc time/when possible: haircut for hubs--hopefully tonight. cook defrosted ground beef--hopefully tonight. cut out fabric for bags--maybe tomorrow night? grocery shop--Friday afternoon work on pattern for MY sewing project--maybe Friday evening? buy fabric for MY sewing project--maybe Friday afternoon? (Local shop has 40% of fabric this week so it would be nice to get there) Scheduled things: Tuesday: Work full day Wednesday: Work full day Thursday: Work half day, lunch w/ parents in afternoon Friday: Work half day Saturday: Group meetup event Depending on how the rest of the day goes, I may or may not be able to cut out of work a bit early today and tomorrow. We'll see. PS. Have I mentioned how grateful/lucky I am that my husband is a handy guy who knows about stuff? He's always willing to jump in to fix/repair things as needed and I am SO happy that he has this base level of knowledge and confidence. I have no doubt that I would be able to call my dad/YouTube/google my way to a solution in most cases were he not around, but I like not having to

Yay thank you! I will send you stuff later this week when I get some time to sit with it!

Hahaha! Some days I am tempted! yay!! Thanks!! Thank you!! I give you notice, I intend to return! And then we can share stories about how our summers went! The doodles are a good suggestion!! I love creamsicles and fudgecicles too!! They’re so much fun!! I will have to look for del monte popsicles! That sounds good! We eat a lot of outshine? I think that’s what they’re called. Those are good too!

Thank you!

After we lost the last of our clowder, we'd planned to start over with 1, leaving an 'emergency spot' for a second. So we started fostering kittens just to have a cat in the house. Our very first pair of fosters, we adopted. 2 litter mates, male and female, because they were so cute together we couldn't bear to think of someone else adopting them separately. Then a single male a year later, because he was sweet and funny Then a single female a year after that because she was the closest we'd met to our 'soul kitty' that we lost the year we started fostering. 🤷‍♀️

Dumbledore once came to visit me at work and snuck up behind me while I was concentrating on something. My desk was in stop where people had to walk behind me a lot, so I was used to ignoring them. Dumbledore leaned over me and said "Boo". I was so startled that I levitated from my chair and hit him in the nose with the top of my head. He tried to look hurt, but he was laughing too hard. 😂 Your situation sounds frustrating on several levels. Would it help to make a list of things that would make your life better? This could work much like your to-do list from work. Some things would be simple, like buying voice-cancelling headphones. Others would be more complex, like doing art or getting your bike fixed. Having a list would let you have some small (or bigger) wins every day.

Sticking with AF options when everyone else is drinking is rock star level sobriety, Sal! I love the husky picture with the bubbles. 😂

In defense of goblin days, sometimes they happen. Dunno the science behind needing the occasional day of your id driving your dietary decisions, but personally I think 1 or 2 days in 30 is a nice balance for me. 🤷‍♂️

You are absolutely right about a lot happening in the last several weeks. For myself, I'm glad to have this week to keep working on my challenge. The same things are happening all over. The US academic model is falling apart as the student population plateaus and is projected to decline. Everyone has known for years that the graduate school education model was a Multi-level Marketing scheme. Each professor trains 10-30 graduate students over their career, but there will be only one or two job openings in academia that the new PhDs could fill. Some fields direct their graduates to jobs outside academia, but most pretend that they are preparing students for academic careers. Now there are so many unemployed PhDs around that universities are using them as grunt labor (Adjunct Professors) to teach courses, allowing the administration to get rid of tenured faculty. It has always been a challenge to get tenure, but now that option is just plain disappearing. There may be some smaller private schools that still hold to the previous model of higher education. Everyone I know in academia is reporting that things are getting worse. There are still good reasons to get a graduate degree, but an academic career is no longer one of them. I'm not sure what your long term plan is. You may want to consider how the current climate is going to affect it. I hope you can find a second job that is less stressful and lets you put some of your financial worries to rest.

Starting weight- 239.25lb 26/3 - 240.75lb 2/4 - 240.25lb 9/4 - 237lb 16/4 - 239.25lb 23/4 - 238lb solid foreword momentum this week. Very happy.

Yes, this. Sending hugs. ❤️

So glad the mammogram results came back fine! What a relief! I support your decision to have a Snarky-centric Summer and do all the wonderful things without crowding your brain. I will really, *really* miss you if you don’t come back to us, though. Not that I intend that as pressure if you decide you’d rather not, but just saying. Popsicles: Del Monte made some fancy ones I had a while ago. Some were strawberry and others were blood orange I think? Either way, they were incredible. For standard popsicles I like the grape and orange ones, but I am open to many frozen confections. I love love love creamsicles and fudgecicles as well. I think you should do a tiny doodle of each popsicle you have over the summer and make it a fun archive.

Good luck, Darling! You’ve got this! ❤️

Thanks, Laghail! I sure do!! ❤️ Thanks, Mistr. Yes, everything working and not wearing out would be nice. We aren’t traveling for fun lately, but things like Houseguest showing up and Dave needing to travel for work are cramping our style. I am definitely not buying stuff, but we ate out a lot the past few weeks and that always adds up so quickly. I am sorry that Elf and Cleo are both unemployed right now, that is so tough. Right? Feels like a victory to me! Hi Friends! I remembered to put the garbage on the curb yesterday in my fit of Adulting and got to listen as it got picked up a moment ago. Victory! I had a very productive and affirming day yesterday. Appointment went very well, errands were completed with no overspend on things I didn’t need, housework was accomplished (even more than I had originally intended to do! I can now see the floor in the laundry room!), and then I spent the late afternoon and evening trying to work with World Anvil to get my gaming stuff sorted out. That was slow going and honestly a bit frustrating at times, but I started to make more progress when I moved off my tablet and went up to the desktop in my office. The format on each machine is slightly different and the desktop is a bit easier for me to navigate. Having a mouse also helps. I don’t use a mouse with my iPad, just a keyboard. Right now I see getting the world into World Anvil as a massive uphill task, but I think it will be good for me if I can commit to getting it done. I ate like a goblin yesterday. No wheat, but lots of peanut butter and Nutella, a little bit of chips, no real protein to speak of. I did make some rice and roasted some sweet potato for supper and ate it with some mango and ginger Stilton and some baby cucumbers. Delicious components, slightly weird all together. But it could have been worse, so I will take the win such as it is and move on. Today is a new day and I can do different things with it. My card today was Six of Intelligence from the D&D deck. Intelligence is Swords in the D&D deck, and wow, does it feel like I am pulling Swords a lot lately. Building on the perspective shift and pause of yesterday’s Hanged Man, Six of Intelligence is all about freeing yourself from burdens and old ways of thinking. I feel like I am pretty unburdened but I think I might be too close to the trees to see the forest? I am not sure what I need to be thinking about here. Many of my usual trains of thought (health and fitness, creativity, game, relationships, etc.) all feel pretty well understood. But it’s hard to know what you don’t know. 😅 I think I am going to take a quick bath before work. I hope that you have a brilliant day full of clarity and insight and tasty, crunchy snacks. Thanks for being here. ❤️

04/21: 214.6 (+3.4) Illness and total disregard for fitness goals leads pretty much where you'd expect. I wanted comforts and sought them in the usual places--mainly the ice-cream freezer, with assists from the candy aisle and the melty-cheese cadre. I think I'm all comforted up now, so hopefully I can get back on course for the remainder of this week.

Good luck!

I'm glad you stayed safe!

Hey all. Been a real whirlwind challenge. Saturday night we had 10 people over somehow all in the living room. Drinking / music / horror films. 2am and people still going, i drank alcohol free beer until 1.30am - then moved onto tea HAHA Funny and strange to be sober, with a cup of tea, whilst everyone else is doing tequila shots!!!! 😯 Everton won on Sunday for the first time in forever. And we hung out with our friend all afternoon/evening. Took Bronze who had a blast with their dog. I went to the docs, they think i have tendonitis. So need to get ibuprofen gel. me and Roxy are going to try to eat less meat. I have got some veggie chicken to try tonight. I hope i like it. Its the main thing i never liked (i prefer veggie mince and i like veggie sausages etc but never found chicken that i like) It is a new one so fngers crossed. Love you all xx

Hormones and eventually a razor has solved this problem for me .

W4D7: one DPZ in the morning. I fasted until the evening, then I ate a light dinner. That seemed to jumpstart the hunger sharks again, and my subsequent evening snacking ran the day's total almost up to target. 1706 kcal for the only green day of the week. Week 4 Check-in: 214.6 lbs on the scale, which is a little higher than I anticipated. Looks like this is going to be my first challenge since respawning that ends higher than it started. That was bound to happen eventually. W5D1: one regular DrP and a bunch of DPZs. Eating was way high. Morning was consumed with church duties, which was nice, then I did some shopping on the way home. I spent the afternoon and early evening in the kitchen doing meal preps (week's lunches and Sunday family dinner), then the rest of the day was just chilling with games and YouTube. W5D2: woke up cruddy again and took another sick day. I stuck to one DPZ in the late morning, but I didn't bother to rein in my calories and I didn't do anything for Move either. Spent the whole day on the couch surfing YouTube and eating all the remaining gluten-free foods and snacks I bought/made over the weekend. I was finally able to get a good night's sleep without any cold medicine last night, and I woke up this morning feeling much better. Let's hope that translates to a good streak for the remainder of this week.

Hunger didn't stay quelled for long, and the illness (or its effects) is being stubborn. I keep thinking I've kicked it, but then a coughing fit will jack up my sleep. Hope to be rid of it soon. I wish I could think of a couple easy wins to shoot for, but at the moment I'm kind of stuck. I got my performance appraisal at work last week which was excellent. I did manage to fix a toilet at home on Friday, so that was nice. My guitar playing at church on Sunday was pretty not bad. Fitness-wise I made a tasty meatloaf with mashed potatoes for this week's lunch prep. I'll take those.

Blue raspberry!! That's not my favorite, but I do like that it turns my tongue blue. Did you have these pops as a kid too? And thanks! I'm really excited. Like it feels like old school summer vacation!