Giving myself an extra day to even out because Father's Day baseball game & beer wrecked my weigh in this morning... 😬   Also realized I'm not going to have access to a scale for 4 weeks during the challenge so there will be some gaps in my spreadsheet row. Still here to cheer though!

All righty, final post to get this challenge up and running.   This challenge is going to be focused on Fatigue Management. It's something that's been coming up a lot in the training videos I'm watching, because that's essentially what strength training is: you see how much stress you can put your muscles (plus tendons and ligaments and al) under to encourage growth without accumulating too much fatigue. Once fatigue gets too high, you take a deload week to reset everything. Most programs, especially at the intermediate level, since beginners don't have to deload very often) have deloads built in, but as you get more accustomed to lifting, you can tell just by how you feel when it's time for a deload.   And it's suddenly occurred to me that this is not just a training principle, it's a life principle. Fatigue accumulates over time, just from life. And the solution to fatigue is rest, period. That's it. It is incredibly counterproductive to attempt any type of "pushing through," expecting fatigue to just disappear. So it's very fortuitous that at level 5 I get access to Level 3 (ok, when I type it out like that, I realize how incredibly counterintuitive that is to anyone not familiar with D&D) but anyways, Level 3 spells, which includes Feign Death. This is for when I feel like need a rest, and I just play dead until I'm ready to get back up again. Preferably in a hammock, if at all possible.   Other Level 3 spells that may be making an appearance:   Create Food and Water: Cooking Life Transference: Donate Blood (I used to do this regularly, but I've gotten away from it.) Mass Healing Word: Cook for family gathering (The distinction between this and Create Food and Water mostly matters for healing purposes) Protection from Energy: No games on phone outside of work hours Revivify: Picking, probably not going to happen this challenge, but we'll see what the zucchinis do Sending: Call a sibling or friend for a chat Tongues: Language Study (probably not going to do much with this, but you never know) Water Walk: Swim! We'll see about this one. I know my neighbor would let me use her pool, but she'd also probably hover the whole time, which would defeat the whole relaxing purpose.   Those Level 3 spells really help bump this along. Zero Week I got 182 points, plus killing a Shadow, so I go into the challenge proper with 6,896 points. Would like to have 9,000 by the end of this challenge.

Aaaannd now this song is stuck in my head again...   

Congrats Sov! That is a HUGE success! Be proud of yourself, we're all so proud of you!

Thank you.    Upside found out my insurance covers a clinic that focuses on Functional Medicine! Goal is to call them after work today, probably after a meditation.    Yesterday was 3 points for mindful eating...   I realized I did feel like I was hit by a truck yesterday... and didn't realize we were having a heat advisory... *sigh* Yesterday was a partial not so restful day... but we keep at them. 

Reduce: Reduce high expectations. Reduce pressure and stress. Reduce clutter.   Refuse: Refuse to do things or go to events that I don't really care about just to please others. Refuse to smile and nod and stay quiet when people upset me.   Recover: Recover from burnout. Recover the sense of self that was lost decades ago. Recover from drinking too much.   These goals are rather vague, but the path of self-improvement and self-acceptance and all that bullshit is different for everyone and one thing I've learned so far is that SMART goals always end in failure when I attempt them. Having said that, the above "goals" are more of a direction than actual goals. The only thing I'll be tracking is alcohol use, just like in the last challenge. I'll also be using this thread to do thought dumps/thought records and journaling. The goals highlighted in yellow will be the main focus, and the non-highlighted ones will be getting worked on as much as possible whenever possible. I'm definitely keeping "reduce high expectations" in the back of my mind for this whole challenge.   June 17:  June 18:  June 19:  June 20:  June 21:  June 22:  June 23:    June 24:  June 25:  June 26:  June 27:  June 28:  June 29:  June 30:    July 1:  July 2:  July 3:  July 4:  July 5:  July 6:  July 7:    July 8:  July 9:  July 10:  July 11:  July 12:  July 13:  July 14:    July 15:  July 16:  July 17:  July 18:  July 19:  July 20:  July 21:    ^ So I don't have to dig through my own thread at the end of this challenge to count wins.   I'll add tags and possibly more to this post later.

Following.   I'm sorry the movie turned out to be horribly boring and not at all to your taste. I hope your next outing is something more fun for you.

You had positivity to share, Sal - your continued sobriety in the face of a very difficult weekend in the midst of all of the rest of your stress. That is incredible, Darling. Just fucking fabulous. I know you don’t feel amazing right now, but I am in awe of you doing the hard work to set new habits and pathways that are less destructive. I am so, so, so proud. Keep going. ❤️ 

Ok, now for the opposition. This level, I will be battling Vampirates:   Because who doesn't love undead sailors? May or may not have been influenced by recently introducing my niece to Pirates of the Caribbean.      And because Vampirates are always accompanied by Shadows, my old Level 2 (I think it was level 2, maybe 3?) nemesis is coming back:   So each  Vampirate as 1d4 Shadows attached to it that I must defeat before facing the Vampirate directly. The first one only had 1, which I killed in Zero Week, so we're already off to a good start.      

Reclaiming space, especially with decluttering and putting up art, is so empowering. I am excited for you!   Also freaking stoked about that deck, it is so gorgeous!!! I think the message is really powerful and a good vibe for the work you are doing right now. ❤️