Jarric

I'm certainly interested to see that character development. Scoria is a beast in melee combat! It'll be interesting to see how they fair against spellcasters and ranged attackers at some point.

It's going to be a good week.

I see why that chimney's coming out now, that's a hugely inconvenient chunk out of that closet! Well done on the CPA! And on staying off the soda.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the fight. And with that attitude, your character is going to have all kinds of fun!

Wow, what a week it's been, where do I start? The house. On Monday we decided we wanted it. On Tuesday we were told we couldn't get the mortgage we needed. On Wednesday I faffed about trying to get a different mortgage. On Thursday the bank gave me a maximum figure they could lend us, it was an oddly specific amount. On Friday I asked if the seller would accept a lower price, and he came back with a figure. The oddly specific amount I got from the bank was exactly 90% of the price the seller wanted, which was bizarrely perfect as we have to provide a 10% deposit. I try not to believe in fate, but the chances of those 2 numbers lining up exactly are incredibly unlikely. tl;dr - we've agreed to buy the place! The legal process will take a couple of months, but if there's no problems it's ours! That's taken up a lot of my attention this week, but it's been well worth it. On Thursday at Crossfit we did ring muscle ups, and I managed to string 2 together for the first time ever! On Saturday I went for a long run, which turned out to be about 12.5 miles (~20km). Got rained on a lot and got very muddy, but it was pretty good fun. That was until I got back home to find we had no hot water and no heating! After some stressing about that we didn't manage to get anyone to come out, so need to wait until tomorrow to hopefully get our landlord to fix it. On Saturday I also played in a Pathfinder Halloween one-shot, which was just the most fun! Out party included: • my centaur paladin, with the very loud voice of Brian Blessed • WW's svirfneblin (deep gnome) ethical necromancer, who spoke with an Australian accent (because deep gnomes, being a subterranean race, come from a land down under) • a cat alchemist (not a catfolk, a cat), with a speech impediment • a wonderfully creepy goblin druid with a charisma of 7 • a fetchling (shadow person) sorcerer, who teleported us through the plane of shadow • a duskwalker (I don't know either) magus, with a rapier and a brutally efficient attitude We had so much fun being really silly in character, and there was some actual gameplay too! We steamrolled the vampires we were tasked with destroying, mainly I think because we knew we were fighting vampires and made characters specifically for that. Today I ran my D&D game, and I think actually gave everyone a challenging encounter with 8 half-ogres, 2 mud mephits, a sea hag, and a lot of space separating them. Now they're exploring an abandoned wizards tower, which I'm sure will be totally safe and not at all fraught with peril. Especially when a certain barbarian decides to stick their hand in every elemental wall of light they come across... I should probably talk about goals too. Food has been fairly bad as we've been busy and cooking lazy stuff, and also because we've been having a lot of stressed and/or celebratory beers. Need to get one more foam rolling session in today for that goal. Haven't had time for drawing and under the circumstances I'm totally fine with that. Teeth brushing have been good. On Thursday we go back into lockdown in England and my gym will close, so I need to entirely rewrite my workout plan between now and then. I've done most of it - it's actually the running alongside the workouts that I now need to finalise. I'm probably forgetting things, but I think that's me mostly up to date!

Yeah, it probably depends where in the world you live, and the size of place you're looking at (relative to your enemy). That is a fair point! I live in quite a populous corner of quite a populous country! Even out in the country it's hard to find space to build a massive house. The shifting thing is real - though generally if something hasn't subsided in about 15 years it's not too likely to, but it's a problem for new new builds. I'm with you on the character thing, though I think it's a more popular opinion here - a lot of people like older houses. Yeah, that's fair. Again it depends on where you are, but the last thing you want is to have loads on ongoing maintenance if you don't enjoy doing it.

So glad that you can get a barbell in your hands again! Hopefully that excitement to strength train will work really well for you.

Sorry it's not more positive news on the hip. Whatever you decide though, I'm confident that you're strong enough to get through it well and come out even stronger on the other side.

Ah that sucks. I'm still hopeful - I've got a few different plans and I'm not prepared to give up on this place that easily. 2,500ft²?! The original layout of the place I'm looking at would fit into that 5 times . New builds here are often smaller that houses that are 60 or so years old, at least if you're looking at 2-3 bed places, because if the developer takes 30ft² of every plot they might squeeze in one more house over the whole site. I'm fully behind what you're doing with your place - older houses are so much nicer, and by doing it up yourself you get to have it exactly the way you want it.

Another busy day, so another short update. Wednesday - W1D3 Yesterday was a good day. I ran in the morning, 6 miles (~10km) with 2 x 2 mile (~3.2km) intervals in the middle. The trouble with long intervals is that I forget I'm supposed to be running faster after a couple of minutes, and settle back to my normal pace. It was a nice run though, if a bit grindy for the last half mile. Stretched a little afterwards as required for the goal (realised I should probably report on that bit each day). Work was fairly busy, and spent my lunch break doing mortgage stuff. After work I cooked chicken legs for dinner, with a creamy mushroom and mustard sauce, served over rice. It could have done with a little more clotted cream, but it was still really good. Watched some Dragony Aunt, then went to play snooker at the local club. I got there so late that we didn't end up playing, but I had a couple of beers, so that was nice. Protein goal was smashed at about 160g in 2,655kcal. Teeth were done. No drawing or rolling today.

Yeah, generally round here they aren't nice houses either unfortunately - it seems developers will cut every corner they can to increase their profit margins. I'd definitely think about moving in your position - you should feel safe where you live. I'm having less fun doing it - apparently the mortgage market has totally gone to pot here in the last 3 months, so the lenders we got initial calculations from are no longer prepared to lend us enough to buy the place we're looking at. So now I'm scrabbling round trying to find a new lender, despite the fact that my finances and my requirements are exactly the same. Not fun at all. ETA: sorry @Mr_Willes, I've just realised that I was ranting a bit there. Didn't mean to do that. I'm just a bit frustrated at this whole process. Glad you had a good experience of it though, always nice to get a win like that.

Ok, spent my lunch break doing mortgage stuff, so a quick update. Tuesday W2D2 Crossfit was good - hit 92.5kg (203#) on squats for 3x5. Did most of the lifting with my back, which wasn't clever - need to work on form here. Work was ok. In the evening WW cooked my favourite - homemade Swedish meatballs - and we watched bake off. Did some foam rolling before dead. Went about 2g under on protein, because I counted a glass of milk and then forgot to drink it. Teeth were done. No drawing.

Yeah, new developments are so soulless. This is a tiny 2 up 2 down, so no cellar (it has an outhouse ). Hopefully it won't be too cold though, being mid-terrace.

Thanks man! Bench has been going well recently. I've still got a million miles to go before I catch up to your squat numbers though! Older places just have a bit more character, don't they? Unlike the brutally functional 1950's place I'm currently renting (not that I dislike where I am, it's just not very exciting!) That is awesome!

Looks like a great start to the week. I think cutting out soda is a great goal because it's just one thing, but it puts you in the mindset of doing things a certain way and so you end up thinking differently about your food and exercise more widely. Also excited to hear about developments on the new house.

Monday - W1D1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit in the morning was bench press - worked up to 67.5kg (~149#) x 3, 60kg (~132#) x 5, and 55kg (~121#) x 7. That was followed by a WOD that our coach calls Phish Food - 3 rounds for time of 6 d-ball to shoulder and 9 calorie air bike. I royally fucked up on the d-balls, and managed to get quite a few failed reps at 50kg (~110#). Part of the problem was I had the wrong hand underneath for most of the workout, and part of it was I'm not very good at them! Dragged to a finish in 7:34. Then we finished up with chinups. I did sets of 10 and 8 at bodyweight, 6 and 4 adding 4kg (~8.8#), and 2 reps adding 8kg (~17.6#). At lunchtime I went to see a house we're thinking of buying, which is very exciting and more than a little scary! We saw it on Thursday, and I went back yesterday with my dad to get his opinion for a construction point of view. It's a lovely Victorian terrace cottage, built in 1874, and I really quite like it. It's small, but the kitchen is a decent size and the kitchen is one of the things I really hate about where we live now. After work I made beetroot burgers, following the world's worst recipe which included adding ingredients not on the ingredient list (and with no quantities), and not adding ingredients that were on the ingredient list! They actually turned out ok, but we ended up eating really late by the time I'd muddled through making them, chilled them, and cooked them with some homemade chips and sweet potato chips. I got my split stretches in, as I wanted to tick off one goal on day one, and got some foam rolling in too. Food was tracked at 153g of protein in 2,741 calories. Teeth were done. The only thing I didn't hit was drawing, mostly because I spent so long on dinner. This will be tricky this week as I'm in the office, so I won't be drawing at lunchtime, and I have a lot of D&D things to prep in the evenings. I'll find a way to make it work though.

Exactly - in jokes are a great way for a party to come together.

Those pumpkins are seriously cool, well done.

Your routine looks really solid! I'm always amazed by how much you do, but if it works for you just keep on at it!

Welcome back NTB! It's so good to see you here

It's a full animal companion, the sylvan bloodline for sorcerer gives you one in Pathfinder (which means giving up some other stuff, but well worth it). Also, because I'm a sorcerer and not a druid I can do silly stuff like casting enlarge person on Loki, or turning him into a dragon. I'm willing to bet there's an archetype for most classes to give you an animal companion or a familiar - who doesn't want a pet?

Oh wow, that's one hell of an introduction to a new group! It's the sort of thing that if the campaign had continued longer your character would have always had a reputation for being unable to cross a rope, which is fun

Awww! My sorcerer in one of my Pathfinder games has a snake animal companion called Loki. Hear hear! *raises glass* Hype or no, being here is enough

I didn't know where it was from to be honest (I never really played Street Fighter). I still love it though! And thank you man!

"a big part" - I literally only made stats for them because you introduced them to me; they 100% would not exist without you. It was too good an opportunity to pass up! *evil laugh* Glad you enjoyed it man - I had a lot of fun.