2024 - Year of Progression Word of the Year: Consistency  Sleep: 9 Hrs Weight: 239.0 lbs. Water: 2/4   Meals:  7:00am - Coffee, 10:30pm - Coffee, Biscuit 1:30pm - Diet Coke, sandwich, grapes 3:30pm - Coffee, small muffin 6:00pm - Diet Soda, eggs, spam, noodles, veggies 6:30pm - Ice cream   Fitness: Treadmill - 2.7 Miles   Meditation: 5 Min   Notes: Things are getting rougher. Wife is going through a lot going into her cancer surgery for next week. She is sad and distant, I try to be there for her, but she just wants to be by herself. It’s a horribly helpless feeling.   Work is also going rough, looks like layoffs may come before the end of the year, so still getting resumes out there. The worst part is they are having us document our jobs so other people can learn how to do them. I need every day of insurance we can get for the cancer treatment, so going to stick it out as long as I can.   For my mental health in all this, the anxiety is getting really rough. I have some medication to help, I need to get better at taking it instead of suffering through.   With all this I am focusing on what I can do, which is be there for my family, work, and try to keep myself healthy as much as I can. I have been neglecting myself over the last week as we get closer to the surgery, but going to push through and make the effort to talk with people and get some exercise wherever I can.   I heard recently that if you want to make a life changing fitness improvement, it’s going to take 130 hours of exercise. Seems like a reasonable goal, so going to start counting starting today of that 130 workout journey.   Training Notes: Workout 1/130 2 Positives -  - Did the workout  - Convinced myself to start moving instead of sleeping or eating junk food. 1 Negative -  - Was really struggling to get through the workout.

Happy belated birthday!

They don't, do they? As a thing, and not just a sort of spoonerism? Oh dear. My sympathies.         What I did, sadly, was go to bed. Even more sadly, not in a particularly timely way. I'm assured that can be solved with more walking.

Went out to get some air as it is the last dry day of the week. Picked a different route, but one i cant just turn back if i get tired. Which turned out to be a mistake as i am definitely more tired today than i realised.  had intended to get some sketching in but my brain is just fried. ho hum. Cant all be good days.  ended up going for a quiet cup of tea and then getting the bus home.       

Me too, my back is still trying to tighten up on me now and then, but I can stretch it back out myself. Thinking things will be fine as long as I'm mindful of it. I think I just let it get to the point where it was so tight I couldn't stretch it out myself. I had a little extra time at the end of my workout yesterday, so I hung on the bar until my lower back popped and it felt glorious.   Thursday Report -  Had a good workout yesterday. Was careful with rows to not overdo the back work, but I think I might try adding weight to the bench next week. Although I'm debating trying to add a rep instead. I'm very much looking forward to having the 1.25lb plates, but that's a reward for another challenge. On OHP, my right shoulder is definitely doing more than half of the work, so I might switch to DBs to correct any imbalances, at least for the higher volume day. After work, I got the chicken coop cleaned, groomed my horse, scrubbed and filled the trough, and got my stringer ready to cut.    Today - leaving work at noon. Plan is to get the stringer cut and the bottom anchor prepped. Maybe, depending on how long that takes and how motivated I am, get the hung too, but we'll see how things go. Fenceposts still aren't budging and trimmer hasn't arrived yet, but might take the loppers around and cut out any woody stuff. Maybe exercise my horse. Class work needs to happen as well.   Have been making progress clearing off the dining room table, so Turn Undead points will be rolling in as well.

Yikes, I've been completely neglecting my thread. And my logging, for that matter. This week has been... a week... 😅     Last Friday, brother-in-law came over and we played board games while the kids were watching The Masked Singer on TV. We mainly played 'Ticket to Ride: Europe' and then a couple of shorter card games ('The Mind' and 'L.L.A.M.A.').   On Saturday, TimovieSon started complaining about his knee. Still went to his football match - team won 4-2 - but he was limping afterwards. Had to go to the doctor's. He's got an inflamed patella tendon in his left knee, so he has to take it easy for a week. We've got some crutches at home, so he's been walking around with those all week now. And spending more time on the couch than usual. 😋   Mrs. Movieman took TimovieDaughter to see a Melanie Martinez concert in Brussels. TimovieSon and me used that time to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. TimovieSon thinks it's the greatest movie of all time. 🤘   Last week looked like this:   Week 3   M T W T F S S Intermittent fasting               Calorie intake               Calories spent               Calories in/out deficit               Coffee consumption               Curfew               Sleep               Avg. sleep 7h20 Steps               Avg. steps 10.8K Distance 31.45 km Wrist exercises               Workouts 5 Days with (mini-)workouts 2.2       Had physio for my wrist on Monday and Wednesday. It has improved enough for physio to be just once a week for the next couple of weeks. Provided I keep doing my wrist exercises, of course. But since they're mainly for wrist stability, I can go for "overlap" with my mini-workouts by doing knuckle push-ups, for instance. Plus, it's providing me with extra incentive to break out the dip station or the pull-up bar, since the grip work is helpful too.   Had a phlebotomy on Monday as well. Iron levels still on the high side, so will have to postpone Red Cross donations for a while longer, why getting monthly phlebotomies at my doctor's. Blood pressure was on the higher side again too. Might warrant some follow-up.     Haven't really been logging this week, and I don't want to do too much of that retroactively, so I've decided to skip this week entirely. The week's been okay so far food-wise. Exercising was minimal - mainly wrist stuff. Slacking on the DailyDare a little. Sleep could be better - had one night where I broke the curfew and a couple where I got close. Which has also increased my coffee consumption at work a little. But it's not going overboard, so I'm not going to fret about it.     I've abandoned 'Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch'. The constant JRPG battles and grinding - even with cheats to make them faster / less annoying - was getting so tedious. I *love* the game's Ghibli aesthetics, and I really like the story - especially whenever you're jumping back-and-forth between worlds to help people. It's just grating that the "good bits" have so much tedium inbetween. It's what made me abandon the game the first time, and while I got a whole lot further this time around, I didn't feel like continuing any more. An extreme case of "enjoy the story, skip the game" for me. Except "skip the game" has proven impossible, which puts it into "abandon" territory...   The next game I booted up is far more effective. In fact, it's the reason why I've had difficulty respecting my sleep curfew this week, because it's pushing all my "just one more quest" buttons: 'Cyberpunk 2077' (with Phantom Liberty DLC, of course). ^ Somehow that's NOT Justin Timberlake 😅 I'm glad I waited until it was basically in a "GOTY Edition" state. Everything that was "broken" at launch has been fixed in the meantime (kudos to CDPR for that!), so it was finally time. Not caring about "day one" releases has its advantages. 😁 Anyway, the game so far is doing everything right. The setting, the graphics, the gameplay, etc. are all top-notch. And it's such a good fit for my playstyle. As in: the main story is what I ignore until all the side stuff is done. And the side stuff is basically grinding, but it never feels like grinding because it's immersive and filled with actual story (hah, take that, Ni No Kuni!). And I can min-max it to the extent of becoming an in-game physical god. I'm going "stealth netrunner". Didn't take very long before random encounters with groups of 3-4 mooks were reduced to me looking in their general direction and they all dropping to the floor. Larger groups still need some hit-and-run tactics, or some more stealth planning and taking out one or two at a time before I can mindrape the rest, but it feels like I *will* reach a point where I can park my car next to a base, look at the security cam at the front gate, and have everybody in the entire base fall unconcious without any alarms being raised, before I even get out of my car. 😅 The game may take up 100% of my gaming time these coming months... 😇     In other news: today is TimovieDaughter's 11th birthday. We'll have two of her classmates in the house for a sleepover. This evening we'll have fries, tomorrow we'll make our own pizzas, and I'm taking the girls swimming tomorrow morning. TimovieSon has opted out of swimming because of his knee. So he'll probably be playing 'Fortnite' or 'Brawl Stars' instead. 😏 We've got a bunch of family members coming over for cake and coffee on Sunday. It's safe to say that I won't be counting calories this weekend. Another reason not to log this week. 🤣       Here's a song by Belgian band 'Vaya Con Dios'. Because I think singer Dani Klein is probably the best female vocalist we have in our country. That woman can sing. And also because I thought she was in one of the costumes in 'The Masked Singer' during the previous season - it wasn't her - and, well, I think she's in one this season. It's not likely, because whoever *is* behind that mask is moving far too spryly for 70-year-old Dani Klein to be a possibility, but it caused my mere mention of Dani Klein to be a running gag in the house now... 😅   Vaya Con Dios - Heading for a Fall

Inktober #4 Exotic   This one was hard, doesn't quite fit the theme I had going with the first 3, but sometimes needs must.   In hindsight, I feel idiotic. For me it's awkward, not erotic. Please take no offense -  I mistook what you meant When you said your dancing was exotic.

I love it - such a great moment captured in just a few quick lines.

Spoke to an electrician on Wednesday, but pretty sure he is not current on his certification, so going to call a guy my uncle referred to me this afternoon.

Hi. Still here x