I'm glad you weathered the storm (literally and figuratively) and were able to move your appointments to give yourself the rest you need.   That is very apocalyptic.

I really like this for you. You are such a creative person and have so much to offer.

Niiiiiiice.     Woohoo for raises and for time to close out the current position with dignity. And hurray for a new mattress!  I hope you get a nap and feel rested enough to enjoy the game this evening.  

Thank you. I want me safe and intact, too.  

He seems to have, yes. Glad you and he and everyone else are all well enough, and hooray for solar panels!   Heidi took a hit from the .303 Bookworm and felt the world spin and grow dark. Her ears rang and nothing made sense. She fumbled in her small satchel for a Maxalt potion and her flask of tea, swallowed, and laid down in a patch of moss until the storm passed, however long that might take.   The storm unleashed some serious TBI effects, with a tornado coming through and messing with the atmospheric pressure, which also messes with my head. It was a long night, friends, and I’m glad I have Maxalt and a safe sturdy building   This morning I was still tender and dicey, and obviously haven’t walked. I did the work things, and all of my appointments were canceled as of yesterday, a bit of Wisdom on my part, since we got a national weather service alert on our phones (that everyone heard during the meeting, which was super embarrassing and also hilarious) that we were about to encounter extremely dangerous flash floods and should stay inside wherever we were unless we were “fleeing.” The NWS is making no bones about the dangers in this, and it’s adorable, but also I’m glad. I’ve never heard them use terms like “unsurvivable” before, and it was warranted (for the storm surge in Florida). There was a very goth-metal moment when an Emergency Services account tweeted that anyone who was ignoring the mandatory evacuation order should “write your name and emergency contact information on your arm or leg with a permanent marker so we can identify you and contact your families.” (Bold in the original). I am collecting moments of real life that I am using in an as-yet-unspecified apocalypse novel, and this is definitely going in.   I was up most of the night until, finally, I wasn’t, and I slept well. Thank you pharmacy. I got up and did some domestic things while the kettle heated for tea: unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, putting away the produce from yesterday’s farm share, which somehow I had managed to get into the kitchen and not actually put away. Okay, Universe, I hear you.    The work meetings were a lot, and I did them. The house is clean. My homework is done enough. My appointments can all wait until next week.   I think I’m not good for much other than a cup of tea and a nap.  ❤️   

Please take the best care of you. We want you safe and intact. ❤️ Sending so much love. 

I think I’d be in for Inktober. I am not sure I can commit to anything really amazing (or even every day) but it would be nice to be part of a group doing things. 

Heidi took a hit from the .303 Bookworm and felt the world spin and grow dark. Her ears rang and nothing made sense. She fumbled in her small satchel for a Maxalt potion and her flask of tea, swallowed, and laid down in a patch of moss until the storm passed, however long that might take.   The storm unleashed some serious TBI effects, with a tornado coming through and messing with the atmospheric pressure, which also messes with my head. It was a long night, friends, and I’m glad I have Maxalt and a safe sturdy building. 

Hi Friends!   Thanks for the love, I appreciate it. Feeling better today which is good. I have taken a few extra tabs of my antidepressant over the last few days for that little bump and I think that helped. I am also trying hard to be at ease when nothing is required and that seems to be helping a bit, too. I am not quite back to rights, but I am less distressed and that is good news.    I went to the gym Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday was abs and I was more tired than sore by the end of it. Doreen really likes circuits, and they are a good format for a class of six people. I find them challenging and very tiring, which is probably a good thing. I didn’t feel like I’d worked really hard according to my muscle soreness on Tuesday although I got a decent sweat going, which made me wonder if I’d been doing things right. I did get some DOMS by the evening and they continued into Wednesday so clearly work was accomplished, but it was hard to tell if I’d achieved anything immediately after the session which was a little weird. Thursday was an Intensity 10 class, another circuit, that Doreen said was cardio and weights. It was definitely cardio, I was sweating really heavily by the end of the second circuit and tapped out of the third round because I kept getting winded and struggling to get my breath back (thanks, BOSU ball crunches, I hate it). I think I need to modify for those crunches specifically because they really mess with my breathing, as if my diaphragm is getting compressed in a weird way during the crunch. Everything else I think I could have done, just poorly because I was damn tired. lol So I spent the ten minutes of the last circuit on the treadmill and felt good about it. I don’t think the intensity classes are going to be a good fit for me (not only because of the intensity, but also they are at 6:15 am, which is a hard pass for me right now), but having one in my regular slot now and then lets me know that I am capable of things I wasn’t aware of which is useful info. Doreen and I have different expectations of what “weights” looks like, though. This is not powerlifting and I still miss it.     Last night I ran a solo for my Druid so he could have an extended conversation with his birth mother whom he has just been reunited with for the first time. It was incredibly touching and fairly emotional and I am really proud of how it went and the dedication my player brought to the table. He said after we finished that he’d been reading Reddit threads on questions to ask your birth parent and different things around adoption to prepare for the conversation and I was so impressed that he wanted to invest so heavily in that process. I did a LOT of prep for that session myself, wanting to do justice to what was bound to be an emotionally charged character growth moment. It was so, so, so good. I am still existing in a satisfied glow this morning knowing that it was an excellent session. It also really filled my well, because normally the party doesn’t invest in NPCs at all, so I don’t get to “play” in character much and end up telling the story through Lore and Environment cues, which are fun, don’t get me wrong, but operate completely differently from storytelling through the lens of a person. I have been missing being a player as I only get to play when Dave is home and running things. When he is gone that dries up for me. So getting to step into Ghislaine’s shoes was so satisfying.    I decided to bake a banana chocolate chip Bundt cake this morning to take to work. I had bananas at the perfect baking ripeness and it feels like a day for a treat. So that will come out of the oven soon and then I will bundle half of it up to take to work, saving the other half for here. It’s a big cake.    The wind has been strong the past few days and the leaves are already falling fast. I wish they’d linger in the trees a bit longer, things are always so dreary once they are down before the snow comes.    Goblin meals continue, although I have managed to air fry some chicken nuggets the past two nights for cheap, junky protein. They are a comfort food, so that was a nice treat. I might have enough to have tonight before my game with AP, but after that I will need a new bag.    Alright, I need to go get ready for work. I hope that your beverage of choice is satisfying and that you get a glimmer of something good today. Thanks for being here. ❤️ 

I have two things I need to be working on: A novel and the readings/writings for my doctoral Qualifying exam. Obviously the second takes precedence over the first, and I’m not certain that I would want to post the writings of either anywhere at this point — what’s the format for the challenge for those of us who are long form (ie, not limerick) writers? Word count for the day?