Friday October 18 Katabasis, by Alexi Marshall   Welcome to almost the end. The oak king, the sun, and Persephone herself are saying their first round of goodbyes, and Halloween is barely two weeks away. I've spent most of 0 week tinkering with a structure for what I'll be observing and asking of myself for this challenge. The answer? Mostly nothing. Mostly I want me to thrive. Mostly I want my days to be a gift to myself and a blessing to my future selves. In the name of life and gentle thriving, I have a weekly punch list that I'll continue using on this challenge to externalize my own self-observations. No failure states possible. I'll also be abusing using you lovely folks by play a game called "can laghail enjoy 3d modeling projects without hyper-focus if the assignments are creepy and fun and incremental??" Expect weekly/daily assignments but they aren't touching the observational punch list because assignments can be failed. Also I'll be posting art and music related to the theme of katabasis, or journeying to the underworld. Audience submissions are cherished.   Emoji Key

A fair response. Even more fair considering the issues I've been dealing with with people that DO have a problem with my appearance. 

today is the 18th of October day of the waning moon         Solvitur ambulando   ⬤ 30-60 Min exercise   ⬤ 30 Min walking Malleum non temnit     Hindu pushups ⬤   Hindu squats ⬤   Bridge ⬤       Vestis viram facit   ⬤ Jacket & tie   ⬤ A smooth shave Aurora musis amica     Start timer on alarm ⬤   One magical working per hour ⬤   30 min vampire training ⬤   One co-working session ⬤   Reflective practice TBD ⬤       Optimum quies est   ⬤ In bed by midnight   ⬤ 6-8 hours sleep   ⬤ 20 min meditation   ⬤ Interroception meditation   ⬤ One therapy writing session     I got a late start today, and also finished my template late, so today won't have great numbers. Or maybe I'll grade on a curve. We'll see.

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Welcome back!  I'm glad you're not dead 🤪

I'm not dead, I swear! It only feels like I am...   My apologies for missing the last challenge - the whole household got wiped out with a bad case of Covid, then the school year hit for real and my workload was so insane that I was crying from stress almost every day and on the verge of quitting before a friend talked me out of it (for this contract year at least). Now, granted, my workload technically hasn't changed, but my principal did give me a sub for one day to try to get on top of my insane to do list and that helped - at least for a while, the effects are starting to wear off now since it's been about two weeks 🥴   But I have started keeping 4 corn kernels in my sweater pocket to help keep me grounded. I know that sounds weird, but 2 weekends ago I took an entire day "off" (it was a Sunday, so I wasn't at school anyway, but my workload is so heavy I've been working every day anyway) to take my kids to the pumpkin patch. My daughter freaked out at the corn pit, so I sat in there with her and we had so much fun! It ended up being a really relaxing, awesome day, the kind of outing that ends up being balm for your soul. Well the next day at work, while grumbling about a bunch of surprise meetings taking up my day and leaving me no time to do actually useful stuff instead, I put on my normal fall cardigan to discover 4 dried kernels from the corn pit had snuck into my pocket. It made me smile and think about my kids and the pumpkin patch and helped bring a tiny bit of that joy back. So I kept them in there and now I try to look at them once a day or so when I'm in need of a small mental escape hatch. I need more of that energy in my life!!   So my challenge is going to be designed to try to embody the lessons and feelings of those little corn kernels in other places in my life as best as I can. Quests to come in the next post because I felt like this was getting silly long - what can I say, I'm verbose 😅

Here for all the stuff!

Ribs were delicious this evening. Slow-cooked them (1 hour in the oven at 150°C - 45 minutes under tin foil, the last 15 open) and they were so tender and practically fell off the bone. TimovieSon tried one as well... and consequently left half of the meat on it with a credulous "how do you do that?" at the clean-picked ribs that I leave behind... 😋     In random news: brother-in-law had taken a picture of Floeffie, our oldest cat, a while ago. A picture that wound up becoming something of a running gag here, as it could give "grumpy cat" a run for its money. He now had a shopping bag made with the picture on it, as well as a T-shirt he intends to wear at metal concerts... 🤣   This is the picture:   Even now, the kids are in stitches by seeing this picture on my screen... 😁

Credit for the framework goes to @Artemis Prime   Welcome!   That's the plan!   I like your interpretation! Much better than reality which was that I just don't take all that many pictures and a significant percentage of them are from the tops of mountains which really limits my options for ones that fit the theme of this challenge.   Glad to have you!

I thought you were targeted and just played it up for your team.   I'm used to HR passive-aggressively sending out targeted "reminders", so I made an assumption. Sorry.   I have in the past had a "reminder" about my internet use (after a month where I had made several VBA macros for some colleagues, so my internet use was legitimate work-related research). Last year I had a remark about "clocking irregularities" because when working from home I usually didn't clock out for lunch. Because my lunch break was basically me watching the 1 pm news broadcast for 25 minutes, with my laptop next to me (so I wasn't even *really* on a break), as the system automatically deducts half an hour for lunch break if you don't clock out. My then-teamlead had my back with a "Fuck HR" that time. And just two weeks ago, HR reminded me that I still had "a lot" of vacation days this year, and were urging me to take them. I had 7 days left, 3 of which only became available on October 1st, and 1 of which still isn't available. While working in a position where I don't have any colleagues to take into account for permanence. I can plan vacation days just a week in advance, and the idea has always been to take any "leftover" days between Christmas and New Year's. Good thing my current teamlead said: "I'm just the messenger. Feel free to ignore HR." Because he hadn't realised it was about a mere 7 days and not 14+.   The worst was at a previous employer. The company's concierge lived in the on-site house with his wife and kids. When his wife filed for divorce, HR was *so* humane that they immediately fired him and threw him out of the house. Because the concierge's contract stated that the house was to be occupied by a family. Way to kick someone while he's down.   So yeah, not too fond of "reminders" by HR... 😇