It is September 30 and that means that tomorrow kicks off Inktober!    What is Inktober you ask?   As created, it is a challenge to do one inked drawing every day in the month of October, following a list of prompts. However, it is not meant to be a strict challenge, instead the purpose is to encourage fun creative practice.   Do I need to do ink drawings? No! You can use whatever medium you want, even words! Pencils, paints, pastels - all are accepted here. I personally shall be having fun with limericks, and possibly dipping my toes into other poetic forms as inspiration strikes.   Do I need to post every day? Totally up to you. The point of the challenge is to encourage a daily habit, but it's by no means required. Daily, every other day, once a week, just find what works for you.   Do I need to do the prompts in order? Absolutely not! In fact, you don't even have to use the prompts at all if you don't want to. They're just there to give you a springboard if you need one.   Any other questions, just ask! In the meantime, here is the official prompt list for 2024:   As you can tell, there's a definite theme here. Feel free to combine multiple prompts into one sketch if you like. Or lean harder into spooky season with the Dawlloween prompts:

Oh! I just tried my gym's for the first time a little over a week ago, and it was nice. It's now on my list of things to add to my home gym at some point. Alligator bar is a cooler name for it.

This week's villainy - A Sentimental Man   Synopsis Elphaba finally gets a chance to meet with the Wizard, who turns out to be surprisingly mild-mannered, promising her that he will help her if she can prove herself because he is "a sentimental man."   Applied Villainy Elphaba has not yet realized this, but the Wizard is a giant fraud. She, in her currently untrained state, already has more power than he ever will. And yet he sings that he would "like to raise [her] high?" Preposterous. There is, of course, something to be said for accepting support from others. Minions are valuable assets and a trusty lieutenant is worth their weight in gold.  But don't let anyone claim credit for your accomplishments. Elphaba is (spoilers for next week's lesson) about to discover her own ability to fly. And it is no thanks at all to a conman from Kansas. People may downplay what you are pursuing in the establishment of your villain empire. Your circumstances are easier, or someone else laid the foundation on which you build. Lies from those who are envious of our accomplishments. We all have our own challenging circumstances that we face and eventually we all must forge our own path. We are powerful and fierce and have no time for those who are too weak to seize their own fate, and instead seek to cheapen ours.  

I am glad to hear that you made it through the storm safely. The brain effects are clearly no fun, but you knew what would happen and implemented a solid plan to cope.

Thank you very much. It's been coming pretty smoothly, but I struggled with today's. I gave up on the limerick and instead present, Ode to the Dungeon Master:   Creator of Worlds and Giver of Quests Ruler of all from East to West 'Neath the light the sun and the gleam of the moon From Imp to Orcus, all dance to your tune.   Giving hours of free time (what free time?) to prep Mapping and scheming while all of us slept Now let every player from fighter to caster Cry hail to thee, Oh Great Dungeon Master!    

Well, my back is once more a bit unhappy with me. I suspect I was a bit too excited about feeling good on Saturday and overdid it. I didn't do too much in the morning, had class, read for a while, stayed in my pj bottoms until lunch (yay for zoom classes). Had a phonecall with a classmate helping him figure out the online stuff. Also called my uncle, so Sending points. But then went out in the afternoon and cut my stair stringer, which involved lots of hunching over, then hefted it into place to check the length (nailed it!). Still felt pretty good after that, went up to the house and baked cookies with my sister, then started working on a jigsaw puzzle, which is when my back really got unhappy.    Sunday, my turn to be chalice-bearer at church, I was feeling a bit meh (think I might be fighting off a bug in addition to the back nonsense) but reading the forums and the sermon triggered some thoughts, so I had a good journalling session later. Mostly just lounged the rest of the day, lots of reading, some Critical Role, also got a decent chunk of housecleaning done.   Week 3 Goals Review: Didn't make a whole lot of progress here this week, but treading water and feeling like I can gain ground this coming week.   Didn't happen because of my back.    I cut one stair stringer, called the electric company and my uncle. Not bad for how I felt most of the week.   So all in all, not great, but could be worse. Feel like it was a conscious decision to pause my goals this week and still managed to accrue 167 points. Not much damage to the Vampirate, though I just realized that at level 5 I should have been doing 2d6 damage for Word of Radiance. Ah well, so it goes.   This week's goals: Ordination: Need to reach out and follow up on my psych eval. Also need to seriously buckle down and do some class work. Strength: Not sure what I'm going to do here, have a chiro appointment on Wednesday, so hopefully my back will be up for lifting in the second half of the week. Barndominium: Really want to cut my second stringer and get both of them installed, but again this largely depends on how my back feels.   The plan: Monday - rainy day, not going to do much, maybe some more cleaning tonight and some class work Tuesday - class work at lunch, dinner with my sister Wednesday - chiro appointment, probably going to my neighbor's Thursday - maybe gym if the chiro is a miracle worker, either class work or barn work in the evenings Friday - basically a carbon copy of Thursday, was originally going to be a half day to use up comp time, but I forgot my cat needs a booster shot, so need to call the vet and double check what day that is, will probably use my comp time then Saturday - no plans, if it's nice hopefully lots of barn work, maybe some fence work Sunday - church, then we'll see. I kind of like taking this as a full rest day but if it's a really nice day, I probably won't be able to resist doing a bit of barn work.

Dropped off - again!!! This time I messed up my sleep and have been feeling pretty bad and my body’s been hurting. Still not feeling it, but tomorrow I’m going back to the gym and hopefully I can get back on track.   The last time I went something funny happened. I was doing my wall exercises and some young gymnast dude walks in and started casually stretching. I’m busy so I ignore him, but take a peek when resting between sets, as one does. Then he randomly got up, did a single set of handstand pushups and left. I’m still so confused. Was that meant to be a weird flex? Good for him I guess. 😄

Thinking about it, typically you wouldn’t notice any symptoms. Most of the symptoms are very vague like confusion or impaired judgement. During my training I got mildly hypoxic once in a pool session and I only knew because my spotter told me my lips were blueish. I felt 100% fine.   It’s like I’m bored and attentive at the same time.   Don’t worry you’re by far the only one!

Mount Pilatus, Luzern