Hello! 

It's been a very long time since I've updated here.  Since my last update I took another trip - a girls weekend in Seattle, and then moved house, and another trip to the MN State Fair.  Moving required all the final packing frenzy and then all the unpacking to get the house situated.  We are pretty settled now even though there are plenty of unpacked boxes.      My last post was after challenge #4 this year and in retrospect, that was right around the time my challenges started to degrade.     Challenge 5 I managed to track most of the time.  I didn't track during my trip or the move but I think I was doing a decent job following the goals.  Workouts also fell by the wayside.  Both walking and gymming were few and far between.  I didn't 'measure' or summarize my non scale victories at the end of the challenge but.   Lost 4.1 pounds   Challenge 6 walking frequency picked up again thanks to the timing of the beautiful sunsets over the lake by the new house.  I made it to the gym once and stopped tracking other goals near the end of the challenge but did log food on Lose It about 80% of the time.  I managed to stay on the rails for the most part.   Lost 2.2 pounds   Challenge 7 just finished and I managed to track goals for 1 week.  It was designed as a chill challenge.  It worked for awhile and then it didn't.  Hardly any fitnessing happened and then the sweets and snacking got out of hand.   I stopped logging food as well.  Gained 6 pounds.     Prior to gaining in the last challenge, I was down over 18 pounds for the year.  My goal is (was?) to lose 30 pounds this year.   With two weeks or so left this year that's not out of the question.   The deadline is more flexible than the goal.  That's still the goal but maybe I won't quite do it by the end of this year.  I'm losing interest in the non scale victories but the truly measurable ones I do plan to remeasure at the end of the year and bask in the glory.  Most of the NSV that I'm tracking correlate to one of two things - weight loss and gym time.  Without getting caught up in the daily scale number grind, the weight is a key measure for success.  As is getting to the gym.   As I start to think about next year's roadmap, this is where my head is at.     For now, I've broken my weight loss goal into a 4 step process.  No time tables, but just work on one goal at a time.   Step 1: Get back to 246.  That was my lowest weight during challenge 7 (and this year) Step 2:  Work towards the 12 pound weigh loss goal or as close as I can get by end of year  Step 3: Get weight under 230.  This moves my BMI from Obese moderate risk to Obese low risk.  It's arbitrary but something I can measure.  This is a quick hop from step 2 but it feels significant. Step 4: Next stop Onederland.  My goal is 196.8(ish) as this puts my BMI in the overweight category.  This is a long term goal.  Can I get to step 4 from step 3 in 1 year?   Maybe not, but if that's what I'm shooting for I would be pretty damn happy being close to Onederland.    

I did a very autumnal task, and filled the hydroponics garden with herb cuttings for winter. (8 basil, 4 tarragon, 4 oregano, and 4 thyme. I'm hoping to get half that many to survive, so I might end up with too many. The tarragon had already started rooting from two or three days waiting in water for me to get to it.)     I still have some seeds to plant, but this is a start. I'm trying a new seed starting method this year; I have a lot of trouble finding a good way of starting seeds for the system. (Partly because I reject rockwool as unsustainable.)   Yesterday I did the belated fennel infusion, with fennel seeds, cardamon, and star anise. It now needs three weeks to infuse.   I also did three tasks on my challenge prep list.  

It's time to lose your self loathing Excuse your self let hope in baby Play your card, be who you are A loser just like me.   Sub goal for as the chaos is purged. Hard to get pictures of them when I'm trying to hard not to show any of my apartment.    Not SAD, but lots of history and baggage tends to hit me this time of year. November is normally my worst month, but part of that is finally over, so I'm hoping it'll be better this year. My vitamin D levels are checked regularly, and are FINALLY at a good level. Mind you, I'm taking 50,000 iu of it 3 times/week to get it there.

When I was drafting my challenge this morning, there was a word I was after that I couldn't quite remember, so I went with Library Cat.   Nidificate.   May Autumn be a restorative blessing for us all. 🐈‍⬛

Are you familiar with Punderworld?  

Quests: Movement - As I said in my previous challenge, I have recovered physically from my pregnancy with the notable exception of stamina on non-flat surfaces. Stairs, hills, long ramps, etc. all leave me winded and panting for air in practically no time flat. Thankfully (?) I live in a very hilly neighborhood, and in fact my house is at the bottom of a hill that is much steeper than it looks so as long as I start off by walking south, I literally cannot go for a walk without hitting at least one good, long, tough hill. But schedule is still a massive issue. So my goal is at least 1 walk (with hills) a week - and if the weather gets bad or I get exceptionally busier and feel like that's simply not possible, I will replace it with 5+ stair climbs on my basement stairs, which is a pretty decent length especially if I do it without breaks.  Nutrition - I'm still working on my water intake for pumping/breastfeeding. Baby Girl is supposed to be dropping her milk consumption at this point but no one told her that, so she's actually asking for more despite also eating table food pretty well for her age! Daycare is trying to help me though and is keeping her at 6 ounces per bottle, but even then I'm routinely not pumping enough to replace everything she drinks in a day. I've managed to keep the loss at a slow trickle though with the goal of keeping her on breastmilk until her first birthday (December 11th, getting so close!) So goal #1 here is still 96 ounces of water/day which is...ambitious, I won't lie. I'm not making that most days, especially since I was "prescribed" one beer a day (brewer's yeast helps support milk supply, according to the pediatrician) which means I drink that at dinner instead of water. But I rarely end up at less than 70, so hopefully this will help? I'm also working on trying to support her transition to a wide variety of table foods, so goal #2 is going to be to find at least one new food (probably produce) Baby Girl and I both like. I think I'm actually pickier than her at this point! But I'm really bad at eating enough non-bread or dairy based foods anyway, and the more I eat a certain food, the more the flavor can appear in my milk, which also helps familiarize her with that flavor which then makes her more likely to accept the actual food. The hardest part here is probably that she cannot eat chewy or crunchy things yet, so there are a lot of potential foods ruled out by her lack of teeth and the fact she's still learning how to chew food anyway (I have technically been trained on the baby Heimlich, but I don't need to test it!!)    Mental Health (slash work) - My mental health needs help...which is almost entirely due to overwork. This year I have the same teaching load as last year - Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 3, Dual Credit Spanish 4, French 1, and French 2 (which is technically split into DC 2 and regular 2, but the class is so small that they meet at the same time and do the same things). I am now also: combined World Languages & Fine Arts Department Chair, Seal of Biliteracy Coordinator, Study Abroad Coordinator (which will function as one way students can meet their Seal of Biliteracy requirements) and the sole K-12 ELL Support Staff (because I outright refused to directly teach the 4 ELL classes they asked me to add into my schedule!...we don't have an ELL teacher right now, despite that technically being illegal, and as much as it made me feel like a bitch, it is not my problem that I am the only person on staff in the entire district with an ELL certification. Sucks to suck, hire someone!). Admin is also still asking me to add in all the other stuff they want - language-specific NHS opportunities, 8th grade language classes, more community engagement, more field trips, and a 3rd language entirely. Oh, and this year's sophomores are my biggest class by far but are also some of the most entitled, whiny, and frankly lazy brats I've ever had the displeasure of meeting, and I've already had 4 official student complaints, 2 parent complaints, and several meetings with admin about it, including one mom who literally cursed me out at the top of her lungs in front of the entire office over a 10 point homework assignment 🙄    Okay, with that mini-rant out of the way (😬), here are my goals: first, I want to go to bed by 10:30 (on average, a few nights here and there might be necessary). I am up at 4:15 every morning to get to work on time, and a lack of sleep due to far too many late nights is not helping in the slightest. 10:30 is probably still too late but it's more realistic than earlier, honestly. In order to help me do this, I am going to try my very best to grade at least one assignment a day (for a prep, not necessarily all 6 every day!) Grading is one thing I tend to push off and then it piles up stupid quick and I always feel like I'm under a huge mountain of it. I want to get to a point where I can take a minimum of 18 hours "off" in a row every week - a full 24 hours might not be possible at this point, but I wouldn't mind doing something for work on Saturday morning for example and then taking the rest of the day "off". I'm hoping if I enforce getting that time all in one chunk, that will help force me to de-center work rather than saying, "oh well I played with the kids for an hour, then knocked out a lesson plan, then we went for a walk, then I did grading..." And one more...it seems counter-productive, but one thing that my husband and I have been seriously talking about is the possibility of changing jobs. One thing I know I get dinged on in interviews is my slow speech - I mix up my French and Spanish if I speak too quickly, but speaking too slowly and carefully in interviews makes high achieving schools question my skills. Also, while I will almost certainly NOT be adding a 3rd language to my current job, adding a 3rd language in general would be a fantastic feather in my cap - it is unusual to find teachers in my area who can do both French and Spanish, but someone who can cover 3 possibilities would be the golden goose for sure!! And while I waffle on which 3rd language from time to time (I have experience and resources in Japanese, but am potentially most intrigued by Arabic and then of course the most common third language taught here is German which I have family history and a tiiiiiiny amount of experience with), the extra ability to say I would only be the 2nd teacher in my entire state to certify in K-12 Japanese is huge; while it is obviously not a common language in the area, many top districts would be very tempted by the ability to offer something no one else could. And while more work right now is obviously not a great plan, the ability to feel like I can go anywhere, anytime I want and get a top job easy-peasy would be a huge stress relief. So...I'm thinking a low, low goal of 30 minutes/week in Spanish/French and 30 minutes/week in Japanese? That's honestly so low as to be barely effective at all, but I am swamped, so I don't want to feel like I'm adding tons of hours to my plate. I'm just hoping that doing *something* will make me at least feel like I'm making progress towards that goal even if I know it's teeny tiny steps.

That's cool, it's not like I was using my brain for other things, you can go ahead and some ear worms in there.   For the uninitiated:   Poison   Loser, baby     I mean, we do need moar cat pics in your next challenge tho     Big mood. SAD ever hit you? Just upped my vitamin D3 for similar symptoms.

😭 That story destroys me every time! 😭 Excellently done, though, you really captured the slouchy, loved to pieces, feel of an old stuffed animal.

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