Epsom bath soaking in hot water ... I have so many welty skeeter bites. I can't tell anymore if it's all welty skeeter bites, or if it's rashy welts too. Sooooo itchy!!

Hellloooooooooo !

Laundry from the weekend spinning. omg scale was worse today, up another 0.6 lbs. please please please let this just be swolls! (fingers crossed)

Fitbit says rest day. Sounds good to me. Tomorrow I'll be hitting it. Today, laundry, etc etc etc, early to bed, hopefully. Another epsom salt bath soak, likely.

FUN on kidlet visit! LOl I feel ya on no 40k step day the day before! Pumped for your 75 Soft for you! Loved reading Darlene's updates, looking forward to reading yours.

Cheers!

~ mk :)

BTW, why does protein not follow the i before e rule? ;p

Good morning! Your brisket sounds spectacular!! Yes, build in those Pass Days retroactively! I am up on the scale again today. It's just a train wreck week! That's what's happening, and I'm just going to accept that that is what is happening and give myself a couple days until I feel better, and sleep regular and then it'll turn around. 🤷‍♀️

Happy Sunday, J! 🤭🐢

ohhhh, thank goodness, partial swoll whoosh! down this morning, scale kept going up up up day after day after day. Down 2.6 this morning (still 2.8 lbs up from Jul 31, tho! As of yesterday, I had been up 5.4 lbs in 10 days (again!), from Jul 31, to Aug 9 😳, darn swolls!). I signed up for a 1-week long Partner Up activity-based challenge in my F2F group, starting today. Time to move again, rest time is over!

Cheers, ~ mk :)

PS - I'm adding Power Hour and Declutter with Jennywren to my goal sheet and bingo card on my break challenge for another group Xx

Good morning sweet girl! I was wondering about you. Afraid you were bummed that I haven't been exactly FLYing lately. Big hugs coming to you through the ether ((((((((( Jennywren! )))))))))

I have been working on perfecting that Bingo board for a few months now, on and off. Whenever one of the weeks for my other challenge featured a Bingo Board, I'd play with it. We're on a 5-wk break right now. One of my teammates adapted a feature of one of my other team's internal challenges (personal exercise goal, personal nutrition goal, and personal self-improvement goal) to a really fun, appealing-colored color scheme that ties in to her 2025 personal Vision Verse (2025 Vision Verse: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7).

I built it out to encompass 12-wks, plus a bonus week, and a summary board for the weeks, with each week featuring a similarly inspired inspo verse from multiple religious and philosophical texts (thanks, Chat GPT), along with one original inspo verse penned by Chatty 5 (the newest model is Chat GPT -5O or however it's written :p). I call it Chatty sometimes, so I called its 'pen name' Chatty 5 for the credit ;-).)

Anyway, I know how we both love checking out new ways to organize ourselves (lol), so you want to see? :D. It's turtle-featured, bc my other team has a tortoise mascot. The Goals board layout inspo is from a teammate's board. The Bingo board is pretty neat, bc both the big board, and the snapshot board above it, 'color themselves in' as you check off a box as completed. The not-so-neat part of these trackers is, I haven't actually filled in many bingo squares yet, bc I was checked out for vaca, then zoomed in on spreadsheeting :p. The new week starts on Wed, so tomorrow (for sure!) I buckle down!

Cheers, ~ mk :)

Edit - I finally have the structure I want for the Bingo Board, but I haven't turned my attention yet to updating it on our link, bc I was in over my head trying to keep up with 2 teams of challenges :p (and then on top of that, I joined a third team so I could participate in the Atomic Habits read, plus I have my greenie group, which I haven't visited in a week :eek:! ). But I want to, for our bingo link, add add different colors for planned, completed, bingo, etc, and add the dropdown that allows for that. Plus, what I really want, is a 'picker' that will autopopulate my day list, pulling from the bingo boards! heh. All that is in future, tho. I'm happy with what I have, for now.

Hello Happy Saturday! I hope you're enjoying your visit with Hannah and Jonah! The heat wave broke, it's been lovely weather the last 2 days here in Maine. Got to PF again yesterday, did the other half of my bike ride, another 1/3 of my PTEs and a 4 min on the elliptical. Shocked at how hard it is to ramp back up after 3 weeks of no PTEs or PF visits bc of knee injections and traveling. Easier to keep doing stuff than to re-start stuff, that's for sure.

I'll check in again tmo. Cheers! ~ mk :)

Oh gosh, your parents are becoming frequent fliers at the hospital !! Glad you had a nice visit with Hannah & J. No worries about being MIA! I still chatted at ya :D. lol ~

Happy Monday! I got to the gym twice last week. Considering trying to visit today, but I don't know. Insomnia allll night. I shut off lights too late, and it felt too late to take nighttime supps & melatonin, but I should have anyway! At 6:30, since I was wide awake, I ordered a pile of Wendy's breakfast biscuits (lol, they're having a sale, only $1.00). The guy said they didn't have enough biscuits made yet, so I did my Drops Turkish app while I waitied, still no biscuits ready, so I started marching up and down the parking lot to get my steps, heh. Auto-clocked a 12-min walk on Fitbit, lol. I did get a whole 3h 38m sleep score 65 Fair from 08:39 - 12:48 tho. Burrrbbbggggghhhhbbbb !! Hoping the sun in my eyes for ~ 25 mins this morning, plus a very short sleep will compensate for the damage I did to my circadian rhythm by staying up all night .🙃

No Power Hour plans today, but tomorrow ….. !! Xx

Just posted in my Waistaways F2F group (where I'd asked if anyone was interested in joining me on a 3-mo (4-mo?) fall (to end of yr?) sprint, focusing on goals (the boards under the bingo boards), and playing a monthly bingo game, to make a game of it. Copy/paste:

I started fleshing out my BINGO boards for September and October, bc my Hogwarts Slytherin House Common Room is using Bingo this coming term, too (just found that out recently, the new Howarts term starts on Monday). That game structure is 2 boards for 8 weeks, which is kinda a pretty close cousin to what I proposed for our little den here (monthly boards for the fall - Sep, Oct, Nov), maybe go to December and finish out the yr!

One of my housemates asked AI for a Hogwarts-themed list of tasks, and I loved every bit of it, so I adopted it wholesale, and then filled out the rest of the tasks, to reach 50 (bc I was populating 2 boards for my hogwarts slytherin house games). This was the list she posted (her post first, then the list):

I asked AI to come up with some HP Bingo tasks—here is a sample of what it returned! You can also ask for easy, moderate, and challenging tasks. Have fun!

Fitness & Movement (Physical Challenges)

1. Climb the Astronomy Tower → Walk 8,000+ steps in one day.
2. Duel Practice → Do a 15-minute strength workout.
3. Quidditch Warm-Up → 20 minutes of cardio (walk, run, bike).
4. Transfiguration Training → Try a new exercise you don’t usually do.
5. Charms Class → Dance for 10 minutes, no matter how silly.

🪄 Flexibility, Balance, & Restorative Movement

1. Patronus Power → Stretch or do yoga for 15 minutes.
2. Ravenclaw’s Poise → Practice balance (tree pose, heel-to-toe walk).
3. Wingardium Leviosa → Do 10 minutes of deep breathing/meditation.
4. Invisibility Cloak Cooldown → Take 10 minutes of quiet stillness after exercise.
5. Time-Turner Reset → Take a restorative nap or lie down for 15 minutes.

🍵 Nourishment & Hydration

1. Butterbeer Break → Drink at least 8 glasses of water.
2. Herbology Harvest → Eat 2 servings of vegetables in one meal.
3. Potion Master’s Brew → Swap one sugary drink for water or tea.
4. Hogsmeade Feast → Cook a healthy homemade meal.
5. Honeydukes Treat → Enjoy a mindful treat—savor it slowly.

🌙 Sleep & Rest

1. Potion Master’s Rest → Get 7+ hours of sleep.
2. Lumos Off → No screens 30 minutes before bed.
3. Common Room Wind-Down → Do a calming bedtime routine.
4. Dreamless Sleep Potion → Journal or brain-dump before bed to clear your mind.

✍️ Reflection & Mindset

1. Sorting Hat Reflection → Write down 3 things you’re grateful for.
2. Daily Prophet Entry → Journal for 10 minutes about your day.
3. Mirror of Erised → Visualize your future self for 5 minutes.
4. Defense Against the Dark Arts → Write down one negative thought and reframe it.
5. Remembrall Moment → List 3 things you accomplished this week.

🦉 Social & Connection

1. Owl Post Connection → Send a kind message to someone.
2. House Points → Cheer on a teammate or friend in their goals.
3. Great Hall Meal → Share a meal with someone (in person or virtually).
4. Prefect Duty → Help or encourage someone else today.

🎉 Fun & Play

1. Yule Ball Dance → Dance to a favorite song.
2. Weasley Prank Break → Do something silly just for joy.
3. Marauder’s Map Adventure → Explore a new walking path or route.
4. Hogsmeade Outing → Do one fun activity outside the house.
5. Library Escape → Read a non-work book for 20 minutes.

Fun, right!? Those total 33, so I added on 17 more, so I'd have enough tasks for two 5x5 grid boards:

So tonight I plugged the tasks into a randomizer, and populated two monthly boards. This will be my September board for our WaistAways intramural game. Snapshot view - September's board:

Detail view - September's board:

And this will be my October board for our WaistAways intramural game. Snapshot view - October's board:

Detail view - October's board: