Thank you, Ever. 🥰   My brain got broken a bit today by the first two hours in which I was deluged with unfamiliar things, two hours I grasped rather familiar things, an hour of something completely like the first unfamiliar things, and then two hours of the wrong side of entirely familiar things.    I need a nap. 😅 And I'm running CoS tonight. I'm not even wearing my Happy Fusion Fun Times shirt to threaten them. I'll dress up like the last time they met Strahd in person. And then I'll do my best to put the fear of the devil in them. 😈    This weekend went by in a blur. Cidran helped me resolve an ongoing stress originated by my inability to find our wedding photo album (which wouldn't be a big deal since I have the digital copies of the photos, but I knew I'd put effort into assembling it with what I believed to be a well fashioned order). When I admitted it was making me feel ill not knowing where it was, he went hunting it, and managed to find it! 🥳   I did manage to do something artsy. Look at this Stuff: It's Cidran's character from our Humblewood games. 🥰 It's the best I've done so far in trying to draw him. I struggle with how to design these anthro animal characters who are supposed to be enlarged standard animals, but also in clothes. Some weird mix of Robin Hood, Zootopia, and Fox and the Hound fighting over my brain's eye. I plan to do at least three more (including one for myself of my character), but it also took three hours.    As for physical goals, today I parked on the fifth floor of the garage and took the stairs down to ground level. I'm considering challenging myself by going up them, too. 🤔   The early departure wasn't early enough to get here any earlier than right on time, and I don't think I'll ever have the morning energy for including a stop at the YMCA regardless of which location, but maybe I can make effort to stop by after a shift of Tuesday/Thursday.   Anyway, the last work hour is almost done, so I'm wrapping up here before we head out.    Hope you're having a great day! Maerad

Busy weekend mega update!     Friday W2D5 Friday's adventure was finishing a big report at work that I really wanted out of the way. Otherwise it was a fairly chill day - yoga first thing, working from home, made curry for dinner, chilled and painted in the evening.   Calories tracked at 2,561, no money spent, updated here, painted some. 4/4.   Saturday W2D6 Saturday's adventure was a Tough Mudder!   Got up at 6, picked up a friend and got to the site just after 7. A bit of chilling out, eating, sorting gear and all of the usual race stuff, and the two of us were off on course. There'd be a brief thunderstorm the previous day, and the course had been open at that time for a corporate event, so the ground was pretty boggy. Not as boggy as it would be a day later, but that's a different story.   The course itself was fun. Tough Mudder is always good value for big-ticket obstacles, including Blockness Monster - a big pool of water with spinning blocks that you have to turn to help others get over - and Flying Monkey - a rig of incline monkey bars followed by some spinning rings to swong from over another pool of cold water. There's also a fair bit of running, though not as much as there should have been - we clocked the '10+ mile' course at 8.4 miles (13.5km).   We finished in 2 hours 20, had a finish line beer, and then as we went to shower and change it started to rain. Not wanting to hang around we headed to the pub for a burger before going our separate ways.   Knowing that I would be out in the evening I spent some time in the afternoon painting my gnome mini again, as well as washing myself and my clothes. In the evning we went out for our Pathfinder GM's birthday, where we played silly games and drank too much beer. Got home at half midnight and collapsed into bed.   Calories tracked at 5,569 (running gels, a big pub burger, and a few beers will do that. Mini painted, but no update here and I did spend money. 2/4.   Sunday W2D7 Sunday's adventure was marshalling at the Tough Mudder. Up at 6 again - a real struggle after the previous night - and back to site before 7 to get assigned my post. After plenty of waiting and quite a bit of confusion I was assigned to Creek Crossing, which was basically a river. There hadn't even been a marshal posted there when I ran, but there was so much more mud on course than the previous day and what had been a little jump over the river was now a full on slide in and wade out.   It was a fun day, watching people fall in the water and have a laugh about it. Lots of really lovely people, a few muddy hugs, and I managed to blast out 80s metal for the whole day while I was at it. The pack down was less fun, trudging through the mud taking down muddy fences, but it's all part of the job.   I got home about 6pm, showered, ate dinner whilst watching strictly, and headed up to bed not long after 9.   No money spent, and calories tracked at 3,940, but I didn't find the energy to update here or to paint anything. 2/4.   Week 2 scores Decisionist: 7/7 days tracking calories. Finished the week at 25,814 (that's 3,688 per day!), and I gained 0.7lbs, which I guess is testament to how busy I was at the weekend. Hoardsperson: 5/7 days without spending money. Not bad at all. Documancer: 5/7 days updating here. The weekend let me down. Cartographer: I've still only completed 2 minis, so I'm behind, but I'm getting there on the 3rd. I painted on 5/7 days, which is relevant for the West Marches mini.

I am now getting ready for a social outing (gasp! the horror!) and will definitely check back for updates after dinner. May your mattress hunting go exceedingly well!   Before you spend a huge amount of money, I found that a 3" organic latex mattress "topper" totally rebuilt my back-wrecking mattress for about $300. I liked it so much i dumped the matress and just sleep on the latex, and it's pretty blissful   ETA: Link: https://www.amazon.com/Green-Natural-Latex-Mattress-Topper/dp/B09RK2938H/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=3RN1C340FQR81&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZHWMl_e_SBqCagHY7LN3x9is5dSfoC01iGsGNVxignfZuR05mA0VGkTCV24oqezerCeOdlvuHUlwCX6c_LJCf2VrYqmeLAou8gW1B0vIXhDef7Q-x2s0xhHOwVf1gewxxd36kT7fFfDLVhNBrN19UOlNSlS1lXjH95ShaVZJ1SM_4itRrC2BgXmOBFVQcCIWVc3F5N0W6MbiqcSBZu0RkmlMplvjDtO-_DOgRDgZK6nDgUaPzAXyUCyu0DvoPJEzNe22JjmN4GKEkcLLVS464ecJcKm2k6p9VMM06WsK7L0.FyyOJ6Ho5gnACZ2TI8REkpEwjOQNdJd8mHZDxEvmxuM&dib_tag=se&keywords=latex%2Bmattress%2Btopper&qid=1727125319&sprefix=latex%2Bmattress%2B%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

And in accordance with our deal, I am lounging at the mattress store, waiting for a sales associate

Am now spending an inordinate amount of time looking up farms on Zillow courtesy of @Artemis Prime  

I learned that you can set a task in the Finch app for multiple times a day.  So I've added another set to my daily exercises. One set in the morning, one in the afternoon. Right now it's just doing squats, holding a plank, and then crunches. My hand has recovered nicely, so I'm going to add a short set of weights too.  That feels like a good step.    Mom made molasses crinkles and I ate 4 of them. I have no regrets. 

Long time, no type my Friends!   It has been super hectic. Summary of my time away:   I didn't get any workouts in during my 3 day travel. I did, however, wake up and get to the gym Thursday and Friday last week. I was dehydrated and cramping about 3am this morning so I decided to switch back and leg day (back day is usually Tuesday so I'll aim for legs tomorrow) and hit back today to give my cramping legs a rest. I took some magnesium and am pushing plenty of water to get back on track and recover.   Food has been... not awful, but not great. I hadn't tracked much of anything all last week. I actually think I only managed to track Thursday fully. We ended up doing a Costco run on Friday which took the majority of the day between the travel to/from and the shopping itself. Saturday we went to a concert and beforehand stopped at the All Hallow's Market by the local metaphysical store there in town. I went to the market last year for my birthday and loved it. It was super hot and I didn't have much water. Sunday I was better, but not perfect with water intake which probably isn't helping the leg cramp situation.   As far as spiritual routines, I've been slacking. I did stir in my intentions this morning and pulled a weekly Tarot card. Other than that, not much else. I failed at just about everything the entire week otherwise. I did manage to write in my journal and my daily mantra so that'll have to suffice.   The Man has one more week of big homework (finals, in a sense) this week (due Sunday) and next week should just be smaller loose ends if it's anything like his prior classes. Thankfully we won't have anything during vacation week.   Work is so hectic, especially as I try to knock out as much as I can to make up for being gone for a week. I'm not looking forward to coming back to work - that's going to be a nightmare.   Alright, another call. Miss you guys ❤️ 

She better! I'm tired   Thanks! I'm not sure what it will be, but I just need to not be in this house. Even just sitting in a coffee shop with a good book would feel really amazing at this point! <4

I am so tired that I almost fell asleep during a KACE reboot. Okay, Universe, I hear you.   We've had rain in the afternoons and evenings most of the month, and it looks like we're in for another stretch of wet weather. Hurricane Helene is forecast to come our way, but then take a decidedly hard turn to the west when it gets close to the mountains. I love my mountains. Also, I've been missing the heck out of my farm. It's definitely going to be a week of instroversion and quiet rest, possibly with a mystery novel and a large cup of tea.  I know there are a million things on the calendar, but they are just distractions from the main event, which will be to become my churchmouse self and hide away in my Library Loft.

I haven't been on the NF discord in forever , and now I'm trying not to spend all day scrolling through the history.   Oh, sweet Zeus. The temptation is so real. I'm going to need those links. . .