Rainbow Dragon's Lair

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Tuesday, November 11:

8.2 km hiking
5 push-ups
Posture : 3 x DP

Consecutive days of exercise: 21

Writing: day 1 of 5 @ 2 hours/day

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Wednesday, November 12:

4 km hiking
5 push-ups
21 side kicks for @Germanamazon 's birthday
Posture : 2 x DP
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Consecutive days of exercise: 22

Writing: day off

Pushing things a bit late on the writing front this week, as I now must write for the final four days of the week to meet my goal, and I have other commitments and a bunch of chores I need to get done too. But after messing up my sleep schedule again Tuesday night, I really needed to turn in early(ish) this night. So I made the call to keep Wednesday a light day and start fresh Thursday morning. It was a good call.

Light on the hiking front this day too. The snow had melted from the roads and sidewalks. So I was able to switch back to my running shoes. (My right Achilles tendon has for some reason been unhappy about having any kind of pressure on it for months now. Even running shoes with a high heel tab have been bothering it. Tuesday's 8.2 km in boots were actually mostly okay. But I'm going to stick to running shoes as much as I can to give whatever is going on back there as much chance to heal up as fully as possible as I can.) We stayed in the Village this day and went to visit our octogenarian friend. During the summer months we have been meeting outside in her wonderful naturalized garden. But for days like this one, when it is cold and wet outside, she has cleared a space in her shed for us to meet. We put down towels and blankets for Miss Shelby, so she's not directly on the cold, hard cement. I think she was quite comfy!

 

[Mamatigerj]

for your Achilles.

 

[JCU]

 

[Sólveig]

 

[NancyTree]

I'm sorry for your achilles

 

[Syrius]

 

[Princess Sarena Rose]

 

[Haleth]

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

@Mamatigerj @JCU @Sólveig @NancyTree @Syrius @princess_sarena @Haleth thank you, friends.
We are predicted to have mild weather now for at least the next couple of weeks. So I'm back to hiking in running shoes for now which give my heel no issues.

Thursday, November 13:

12.4 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
some crow pose and crow pose taps

I could only manage two crow taps in a row. I need to work on building my skill there back up.

Consecutive days of exercise: 23

Writing: day 2 of 5 @ 2 hours/day

Worked on my writing for 3 hours and 40 minutes this day, in fact. Did not have an early night as a result. But it was an important piece of writing I needed to get done.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Friday, November 14:

5.4 km hiking
5 push-ups
Posture : 2 x DP
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Consecutive days of exercise: 24

Writing: day 3 of 5 @ 2 hours/day

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Saturday, November 15:

4 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
Run-Proof (one set, as a warmup for
3 km running in 20:53
5 min. yoga: flowing between down dog and plank to stretch things out

Hiking was short this day due to messy weather in the morning, then visiting with a neighbourhood friend in the afternoon. This friend is 80 years old and has not visited with non-family guests inside since the pandemic. But she has decided it is okay to visit in her shed, which is basically a mud room attached to the back of her house. It's not heated. But it does provide shelter from wind and rain. We have set up a little space for Shelby in there, with an old picnic table cloth as a moisture barrier, and towels and blankets on top. She is quite comfy!

Then, in the evening... I went for a run!



Okay. The above graphic is maybe a wee bit over the top. But honestly: it had been a long time. Too long.

I was smart for once on a return-after-long-absence run and kept things light, doing only 3K at an easy pace. I slipped on some wet leaves at one point and went over on my ankle. But (I'm certain thanks to the fact that I've not been neglecting my ankle strength work) I was okay and able to keep running after that. I've got a long way to go. (I need to get back to being able to do 5.5 km by January 13 for 55 for 55!) And running conditions here are going to get a lot more challenging fairly quickly. But it felt good to be back out there.

Consecutive days of exercise: 25

Writing: day 4 of 5 @ 2 hours/day

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Sunday, November 16:

17.4 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
Posture : 1 x DP
3 km running in 20:11
10 min. yoga

Consecutive days of exercise: 26

Writing: day 5 of 5 @ 2 hours/day

I made it through the second week of my return-to-writing schedule! This coming week, the goal ups to 3 hours per day. And already last week I had some very late nights because of pushing my writing time too late into the evening. These late nights have a number of negative repercussions:

• being asleep during the precious few hours of daylight we get during the winter months
• being tired during (or skipping entirely because I am too tired) social activities
• skimping on my workouts because I'm tired
• eating too much, too often, and not the best things
• significant undesired weight gain (due to the previous factors)

I need to do better.

In order to facilitate doing better I'm going to recommit to a rule I've worked with before, and toyed with returning to on and off over the past several months but not mentioned on here lately because I wasn't committed to it strongly enough to state it publicly. Well, today I'm stating it publicly:

I am going to:

• quit solo gaming on my computer
• refrain from solo gaming at all until after I have completed 100% of my planned writing work for the day
• refrain from solo gaming at all until after I have completed a minimum of 30 minutes of working out that day (walking and restorative yoga do not count as workout time for this metric)
• refrain from solo gaming after 10:00 PM

I've already messed up on the first three points of this rule today. So today will count as Day 0. I am nevertheless committing to following these rules again beginning right now.

Let's do this!

 

[Mamatigerj]

 

[Syrius]

 

[NightWolf714]

Sounds like reasonable (though difficult as someone kinda addicted to mobile games, IMO) goals. Best of luck to you.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

@Mamatigerj @Syrius @NightWolf714 thank you!

Sounds like reasonable (though difficult as someone kinda addicted to mobile games, IMO) goals.

Not gonna lie: yesterday was a challenge! The number of times I thought: I'm just going to load up a game of solitaire while listening to the news, or: I could play Octordle while waiting for the vote, was not small. It's become almost like a reflex for me. I don't need to start dinner for another twenty minutes. I could squeeze in a game of Canoku first, and even: The weather will be better for hiking in an hour. I've got time to play Wingspan, are justifications I have used not uncommonly. But I held firm.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Monday, November 17:

7 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
Posture : 2 x DP

The sidewalk plough came by this morning and cleared the snow from our sidewalks. And then the road plough came and shoved the snow from the roads back onto the sidewalks! There were big ridges of slush and ice and even big icy snow boulders over a foot across deposited in some cases right down the middle of the sidewalk. And ponding of sub-zero salt water literally everywhere where curb meets road. Not exactly fun times for hiking. I wore my boots for our morning hike, and my Achilles was not happy. So I did our afternoon hike in running shoes. Not awesome footwear for the conditions, but it doesn't hurt to wear them. I skipped running because the conditions underfoot were too treacherous and also skipped Aikido because I would have had to hike there and back. An extra 10km in addition to Shelby's walks, in the dark, and on sidewalks I'm not as familiar with as those in our subdivision, was just not happening in this day's icy, slushy, messy conditions.

Consecutive days of exercise: 27

Writing: Day off.

Gaming Rules: Day 0

In other news: Canada's MPs did their arithmetic correctly on Monday evening, and we have been spared a Christmas election! Yeah!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Tuesday, November 18:

4.3 km hiking
5 push-ups
Posture : 2 x DP
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
20 min. yoga: Feel Good

Consecutive days of exercise: 28

Writing: Day off. I don't love starting the week with two days off in a row. But it was helpful to do so in this case to enable me to do a reset and get back onto an earlier sleep schedule.

Gaming Rules: Day 1

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Wednesday, November 19:

7 km hiking
5 push-ups
3 km running in 19:18
5 min. yoga: restorative

I felt tired before I started the run but pushed myself to get out there and do it anyhow.
I felt tired during the whole of the run. In an "Ooph! This is too hard. Let's stop and walk," kind of way.
I pushed myself to keep going.
I finished in my fastest time this week, keeping every km below 6:30. (Which is still crushingly slow for me. But progress is progress.)

Consecutive days of exercise: 29

Writing: Day 1 of 5 @ 3 hours/day

Gaming Rules: Day 2

 

[Mamatigerj]

 

[Syrius]

 

[JCU]

 

[TopNotch]

every km below 6:30. (Which is still crushingly slow for me

Some people.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Some people.

My PR for 3000 metres is 10:59.41

That was on a rubberized track--which is significantly faster than road running--competing against some of the top women in my country--which definitely pushed me to go faster. But I could run a sub 12-minute 3K when I was 10 years old. For many years, 5 min./km, sustained over 6-8 km, was a relaxed, easy pace for me. And I am not so old that age necessitates my being so very much slower now than I was back then.

I did not say a 6:30 pace is crushingly slow for everyone. I said it is crushingly slow for me.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Thank you @Mamatigerj @Syrius @JCU .


Thursday, November 20:

13.2 km hiking
5 push-ups
3 km running in 18:28
Posture : 2 x DP
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Shelby has apparently had enough of being short-changed on her walks. We stayed within our subdivision for both walks this day. But Shelby insisted on walking every which way except back home on both occasions. At one point she tried to convince me we should just walk around in circles, repeatedly walking the block on which one of her friends lives who maintains a self-serve treat box outside his home filled with freeze-dried liver treats.

The run felt rough again. Not so much in a "I want to quit" way this day as in a "I want to slow down" way. I did not, however, slow down. (Well, I did, marginally. My 3rd km was 4 seconds slower than my 2nd. But that's not horrible for where I'm at these days.)

Consecutive days of exercise: 30

Writing: Day 2 of 5 @ 3 hours/day

Gaming Rules: Day 3

This was a stressful day for financial reasons. But I need to keep things in perspective. I'm not crushed yet. And stressing out over things I cannot control to an extent that prevents me from doing the things I can serves no one.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Friday, November 21:

5.6 km hiking
2 x 5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Slacker day because we went to visit our friend. We really must start getting out earlier on garden/shed meeting days, so Shelby can still have a proper walk before we visit. But, well, I had a lot of other things on my plate this day.

Consecutive days of exercise: 31

Writing: Day 3 of 5 @ 3 hours/day

Mostly working on a letter to the Premier of my province, who is preparing to pass a boneheaded and cruel piece of legislation on Monday.

Gaming Rules: Day 4

P.S.: Tomorrow (Sunday, November 23) is the last day to sign up for this year's Secret Santa Workout Gift Exchange. Come join us!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Saturday, November 22:

12 km hiking
5 push-ups
yoga: a bit of down dog

Another slacker day. But Shelby and I did do a nice hike. So I'm counting it as good for the streak.

Consecutive days of exercise: 32

Writing: Day 4 of 5 @ 3 hours/day

Gaming Rules: Day 5

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Sunday, November 23:

3.9 km hiking
5 push-ups
40 calf raises
yoga: a bit of down dog

Another slacker day on the workout front. (I had an important writing project I needed to complete by Monday morning. So other things necessarily took a back seat to that this day.)

Consecutive days of exercise: 33

Writing: Day 5 of 5 @ 3 hours/day

I made it through the third week of my return-to-writing schedule! This coming week, the goal ups to 4 hours per day.
In order to facilitate a better sleep schedule, however, I have modified the goal to allow myself to work ahead of schedule. i.e.: I don't need to write for 4 hours on 5 calendar days in order to meet the goal. I can spread the 20 hours out across six or seven days. I can write 5 hours one day and then only 3 the next. Etc. So long as I complete 20 hours in total for the week, and I do not fall behind schedule (I must have hit at least 16 hours by the end of the 6th day, at least 12 hours by the end of the 5th, etc.) I will call it a win.

Gaming Rules: Day 0

Had to zero my Gaming Rules streak because I was so tired I forgot what the rules are.


But I got the letter to my Premier finished. This is an important win.

 

[Mamatigerj]

I am so glad that your return-to-writing schedule is going well; i know how important that is for you!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Thank you @Mamatigerj .

Monday, November 24:

8.4 km hiking
5 push-ups

I seriously need to start doing more than just hiking and push-ups or I'm going to need to zero my exercise streak again. This was a stressful day though, so I'm giving myself a pass.

Consecutive days of exercise: 34

Writing: Day 1 of 5 @ 4 hours/day

Polished my letter to the Premier of my province begging him not to enact a corrupt and cruel piece of legislation he had scheduled for its final reading and vote today. Then I went to bed. When I awoke again, the bill had already passed. (Not a surprise. The Conservatives have a majority government in my province so can and do do whatever they want, and the Premier is all about doing favours for his corporate buddies. He cares not at all about the people of Ontario. But the things I wrote in my letter needed to be said--even if actually sending it to the Premier was an exercise in futility.)

After the Cons rammed that particular horror show down the throats of Ontarians (without public consultations or proper debate within the Legislature--Ford doesn't care about either of those things) it was Opposition Motion Day. The NDP introduced a motion to repeal the just-passed Bill 60. Several NDP and Liberal MPPs spoke in favour of the opposition motion. (Speaking across the aisle at empty seats. The Conservatives got what they wanted. They couldn't be bothered to stick around to hear the Opposition's motions.) Then one lone Conservative stood up to speak in opposition to the motion.

I was watching all of this on re-play, not live--a good thing since the Con's speech was so offensive, I had to stop and take breaks from listening to him. He blathered on for 34 minutes, during which he said not one single thing that was relevant to the debate at hand. He addressed not one single concern that had been raised by the opposition members (or the 150,000 Ontario citizens who had written to Ford's government begging him not to enact Bill 60). He said a bunch of wildly disingenuous things though. He for some reason went on at great length about the guy who used to be Premier of Ontario 30 years ago. But mostly he spent his time mocking the Opposition. This was literally the point of his speech: to mock members of our Provincial Parliament.

I'm not a violent person. I don't solve problems with my fists. But the urge to forcibly wipe the smug grin off that man's face was not mild. Canadians are largely inured to our politicians behaving badly. They yell and jeer at one another on the regular. But this guy was something else. His performance was truly despicable.

After debate on the opposition motion to repeal Bill 60 concluded, the Speaker asked for a voice vote. There were clearly more MPPs present who voted in favour of the motion to repeal Bill 60 than against it. But the few Conservatives who were present shouted very loudly. And the speaker declared, "In my opinion, the Nays have it."

WTELF? (This part is all performative anyhow. Obviously someone is going to request a roll call vote. But the Speaker blatantly miscalling the voice vote seemed over-the-top, even for this government.)

Anyhow... a roll call vote was requested. Which gave the Cons ten minutes to get all of their people to return to the Chamber to vote against the motion. All the opposition MPPs (NDP, Liberal, and Green) voted in favour of the motion. But the Conservatives have a majority and voted against it. So the motion was defeated.

Which, again, was the expected outcome. With the exception of the one MPP's 34-minute speech (which was truly vile and left me feeling absolutely repulsed), nothing about today was shocking. But spending a good chunk of my day witnessing a corrupt and cruel piece of legislation be inflicted on my province was not a good experience.



After that, I didn't even try to restart a Gaming Rules streak this day.

Gaming Rules: Day 0

In the evening, Shelby and I went for a nice, decently long walk. And I did some stuff for Secret Santa, and checked in with a few Bees' threads here in the Hive. So my day was not 100% horrible.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Tuesday, November 25:

7.6 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves
yoga: did some holds in downward-facing dog, plank, gorilla, and crescent lunge with a rear hand clasp

Shelby got lots of treats at the vet's this day. (She wasn't even there to have a procedure done. She was just there for the treats!) Then we ended up walking past her friend Kevin's treat box 4 times! Shelby was happy!

We saw Canada Geese, Mallards, Northern Cardinals, a Great Blue Heron, Bluejays, a Downy Woodpecker, a Hairy Woodpecker, Black-capped Chickadees, an American Goldfinch, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Cedar Waxwings, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker on our hike. So I was happy too.

Consecutive days of exercise: 35

Writing:

30 minutes Secret Santa stuff.

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 0
Actual hours week-to-date: 4:30
On or ahead of schedule?

Working on happy, Secret Santa stuff this week is a nice change from last week's stressful political writing.

Gaming Rules: Day 1

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

I am deeply disturbed, repulsed, angry, and heartbroken that this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/lond...this-past-weekend-won-t-be-the-last-9.6990896 happened in my neighbourhood last weekend.

Please know that the individuals who occupied that bridge do NOT reflect my views or the views of the vast majority of people in my neighbourhood. In Wortley Village, we welcome our neighbours from all corners of the world. We do NOT, however, welcome white nationalists or other racists or fascists! Hatred is NOT welcome here!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Dear Santa,

I hope you are keeping warm up there at the North Pole and not working your elves too hard.

If you've been checking up on me you'll have noticed that I've been somewhat of a slacker on the workout front lately.
There's not really a good excuse for that. (I've been a little stressed. But not working out doesn't help with that!) Bottom line: I'm trying to do better. And I need to get back in shape to be able to complete my birthday workout in January. (That will be 55 for 55 this year!) So please feel free to give me a harder workout than what you've seen me do lately!

I love running, dancing, and flow styles of yoga and am trying to do more of all three. But other bodyweight strength-training is cool too. If an exercise is in DAREBEE's Video Exercise Library, I should be able to do it in at least a modified form. On the yoga front: I do not practice headstands, shoulderstands, chinstands, or elbow balances. But I can do and enjoy handstands, forearm balances and other arm balances (crow, side crow, 8-angle, firefly, flying man, grasshopper, pendant, flying pigeon, etc.) and anything else in the Pocket Yoga Pose Directory I should be able to do except for poses that require one to put one or both feet behind their head. (I'm not that bendy!)

For equipment I have:

• yoga mat
• yoga blocks (cork and foam)
• yoga strap
• yoga wheel
• Tai Chi sword
• resistance bands of various lengths and strengths
• hand weights
• Swiss ball
• foam roller
• pull-up bar (can be used for hangs, assisted pull-ups, negative pull-ups, and tricep dips. No kipping!)

I guess that's all my pertinent details. I don't have any injuries or other workout restrictions to report at present. So, in short: Bring It!

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Wednesday, November 26:

13 km hiking
5 push-ups
18 min. yoga: Awakening Yoga: The Opening - some tough lolasana prep work in this one!

I fetched groceries this day. Which is not too taxing of a workout since I was gifted with a wagon. But it still involved some lifting and carrying of things, including up and down stairs.

Consecutive days of exercise: 36

Writing:

2 hr 45 min. Secret Santa stuff.

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 4
Actual hours week-to-date: 7:15
On or ahead of schedule?

Gaming Rules: Day 2

Our friend Oreo is visiting us. My sleep was somewhat disrupted due to disagreements over who should sleep where. This resulted in one of those dreams that is so mundane, one is 100% convinced it is real. In this dream, I woke up to discover that some of my furniture had been moved around. The shelving unit that is normally beside my bed wasn't even in my bedroom anymore. I soon discovered it had been moved into my hallway. I was perplexed by this because a dog would not be able to move that unit, even empty. But the unit had not been moved empty. It still had all the things on it that usually live on it, including a large number of books. There had to have been at least one, and likely more than one, intruder in our home! Why? How? What had they done besides move my furniture around? Why had the dogs not alerted me to their presence? Why had it not woken me up? I was surprised but much relieved when I awoke for real and discovered that the shelving unit was still right beside my bed where it belongs.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Thursday, November 27:

11.6 km hiking
5 push-ups
100 basic burpees
Posture : 2 x DP
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Did the burpees in sets of 10 and 20. Not gonna lie: the first few were rough. But my body remembered how to deal with them fairly quickly.

Consecutive days of exercise: 37

Writing:

1 hr 45 min. Secret Santa stuff.

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 8
Actual hours week-to-date: 9:00
On or ahead of schedule?

Gaming Rules: Day 3

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Friday, November 28:

3.8 km hiking
5 push-ups
100 basic burpees

The wind was bitter this day. We just walked to our friend's house, visited in her shed for a while, then walked back home. Oreo received many compliments for his Santa suit.



He was surprisingly good about letting me dress him up in all of that.
(Shelby wore her little shirt, with Oreo's other winter coat--yes, he has two!--on top of it. She allows me to put the simple wrap-around coats on her, though she does not love them. I don't think she would tolerate a get-up as involved as Oreo's.)

Consecutive days of exercise: 38

Writing:

3 hrs. Voice exercises, DAREBEE Help Desk

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 12
Actual hours week-to-date: 12:00
On or ahead of schedule?

Gaming Rules: Day 4

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

DECEMBER PLANS
​

I need to sit less, move more, not give up my writing, but also get a bunch of writing-adjacent work done this month.

I am on track to complete my return-to-writing challenge on November 30, but the last couple of weeks have been a tough slog, and I've messed up my sleep schedule royally to get through them. I need to do better on this front. I also need to improve my diet and get my weight back under control. To this end, I'm going to try the following plan for December:

1. Complete multiple short workouts each day. The idea here is to never sit for more than one hour at a time by breaking my desk time up with mini workouts. The workouts I'll be using for these breaks are:

• Touch the Bar - I won't be following the daily schedule to begin with. I'll likely just focus on hangs until I've built up more strength. But I will follow the basic rule of doing something on the bar every day.​
• Posture - an oldie but a goodie, and truly great therapy for counteracting sitting. Minimum one set per day with Dragon Protocol (30 seconds per exercise). More sets can be done any day I'm doing a lot of desk work and need a higher number of breaks.​
• 2-Minute Abs - this looks good in general and is perfect for my mini workout needs.​
• 2-Minute Mobility Challenge - it's nice to do the current Challenge alongside everyone else, and this month's is time-limited, so it fits perfectly with my needs.​
• Fit December - an annual tradition, and I can generally complete the workouts in a short enough time to make them work with my mini workout schedule​
• Run Proof - a little extra lower body work to help keep me in good running form. Minimum one set per day. But I may do more on days when the weather keeps me from going for an actual run.​
• Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves - saw @f1shie and @Syrius doing this one, and it looked good. It's easy to fit in and a good complement to Run Proof. I'll likely do the calf raises one-legged since Run Proof already has the two-legged variety.​
• Tree Decorating - whatever reps of whatever exercises are necessary to help decorate the DAREBEE Tree this year.​

2. Get outside for a run as many days as the weather permits. These do not need to be long runs. 3K is fine. But I want to get back into the habit of running regularly. (In my head, I'm still "a runner". So, when I don't do it, I live with an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance re: my own self-identity.)

3. Practice yoga asanas every day. On Aikido days, days on which I go for a run, and/or days on which I complete a Secret Santa workout, this can be a very short practice (such as my Quiet Room or I See Fire routines). But on days when I do none of the above, this needs to be a longer, more intense workout.

4. Track my diet and work towards eating more homemade food and fewer snacks. I'll be logging this in a separate thread in the Kitchen. (Please follow me there if you're interested in this aspect of my health & fitness journey.)

5. Commit to doing the Get to Bed On Time Challenge. This Challenge was actually inspired by me, back in the day. But currently I am one of the worst examples of not doing it. For the month of December I will commit to getting to bed by midnight every night. (I want to work up to an earlier bedtime than this. But we'll start with midnight for now.)

6.

Spoiler: weight talk

Currently I weigh 160 lb. I want to weigh 135 lb. I'm going to log my weight on the first of each month, in spoilered text, in this thread.

7. Maintain my 20 hours/week writing work goal, with the stipulation that I may not fall behind a schedule that would enable me to complete the 20 hours without working more than 4 hours in any one day. (I'm allowed to work ahead of schedule. Just not to fall behind.) The specific content of this work will be broken down as follows:

• a minimum of 30 minutes per day, for a minimum of five days per week, must be fiction writing
• the remaining 17.5 hours per week may be non-fiction writing and/or writing-adjacent work such as research, and studying writing craft (including slush reading, which I need to do a lot of in December)

Let's see how this goes!

 

[TopNotch]

Re #6. As my children would once have said: "We're twins!"

 

[agc]

But spending a good chunk of my day witnessing a corrupt and cruel piece of legislation be inflicted on my province was not a good experience.

Quick internet search but I'm assuming this is the bill limiting what unions could spend their money on in which case 100% with you, booooo for that bill. I think Australia is fairly similar to Canada politically, a right wing party (not as right as USA) and another party which people think of as left wing in comparison but aren't really, and that aren't very inspiring/progressive but "at least they're not as bad as the other party". I dunno, I've only got a limited understanding of Canadian politics but you don't have preferential voting right? So basically it's vote for a major party or throw your vote away?

(Deleted a rant on the topic of unions. Not the place haha)

I am deeply disturbed, repulsed, angry, and heartbroken that this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/lond...this-past-weekend-won-t-be-the-last-9.6990896 happened in my neighbourhood last weekend.

There's been a bunch of similar rallies in Australia recently, which is pretty concerning.

(Deleted a rant about how the police treat white nationalist protests vs other protests. Not the place AGAIN!)

DECEMBER PLANS!​

So many plans!!! Seriously impressed - do you thrive off setting high goals and find it motivating? Or maybe it just looks like high goals to me and this is normal for you?

I set goals for fun at the start of the year but don't really pressure myself to do them. But for me I find easy-to-achieve goals motivate me more; if I set high goals I end up in an all-or-nothing mindset where one stuff-up ruins any motivation.

Good luck with your December plans! Also appreciate the weight stuff being in a spoiler. I mean, it's your thread you can format weight talk however you like. But just wanted to comment on it - my partner has a history of eating disorders so whenever I see people putting weight talk in spoilers I like to show appreciation

(Didn't delete a rant this time!)

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Quick internet search but I'm assuming this is the bill limiting what unions could spend their money on in which case 100% with you, booooo for that bill.

The bill I was referring to is a provincial bill in Ontario. It's an omnibus bill that does a bunch of bad things including:

• allowing for the privatization of municipal water supplies.
• giving the provincial government powers to block the construction of new bike lanes. (Which should fall under municipal powers since bike lanes are on municipal roads, not inter-city highways. But our current Premier is fond of ripping powers away from municipalities and consolidating them unto himself. He's also weirdly anti-cyclist.)
• stripping important protections away from residential tenants, including stripping from us the right to presumption of innocence. (Which should be a human rights violation under Canadian law. But this did not stop our Provincial government from passing the bill.)
• giving even more power and privilege to landlords in a system which already heavily favoured landlords, and provided largely toothless protections to tenants, in a rental market in which residential rents are already outrageously high (my own rent is greater than 2/3 of my total annual expenses!), waiting lists for affordable housing are up to ten years long, and every city in the province now has homeless encampments. (The number of Ontario citizens experiencing homelessness has almost quadrupled under the leadership of our current Premier.)

I don't think this particular piece of legislation attacks unions. But I could be wrong. The Conservatives crammed a bunch of things into it, and then rammed it through the Legislature without committee hearings or public consultation, and with extremely limited debate, in efforts to create overwhelm and rush the legislation through before Ontario voters could notice just how horrible the thing is.

I think Australia is fairly similar to Canada politically, a right wing party (not as right as USA) and another party which people think of as left wing in comparison but aren't really, and that aren't very inspiring/progressive but "at least they're not as bad as the other party".

We have three main national parties in Canada: the Conservatives, the Liberals, and the New Democratic Party. We also have the Bloc Québécois, which only runs candidates in Québec, and the Green Party, which has, for several elections now, succeeded in electing one MP.

Since the Bloc's support is concentrated solely within a small percentage of ridings, they elect an oversized number of MPs relative to their popular support. Since they only run candidates in slightly less than 23% of our total ridings, they pretty much can never form the Government. They do, however, usually elect enough MPs to have official party status in our House of Commons, and once they actually formed the Official Opposition.

We also have fringe parties, some of which are very scary, some of which are just ridiculous (we have a "Rhinoceros Party" which promises, if elected, not to keep any of its political promises), and some of which are single-issue parties that just don't attract enough interest to be relevant. None of them currently have any electable candidates under our FPtP electoral system.

Of the five parties which can currently elect MPs to our federal Parliament, the Liberals, NDP, Bloc, and Greens are all considered left-of-centre, and the Conservatives are right-of-centre. How far left or right shifts around, depending on who is the party leader at any given moment.

Generally speaking, Conservatives in Canada have shifted further right in recent decades, although this is not a linear progression. The current federal party leader is pretty far right, but his immediate predecessor was more centrist than the guy who preceded him. Though even the current Conservative leader (Pierre Poilievre) is not as far right as the current Republican Party in the US. (Our Conservative Party, for instance, would not try to pass legislation restricting women's access to reproductive health care. There are some people in this country who would support such legislation. But not nearly enough for anti-choice legislation to pass here. Also: a very large majority of Canadians like our single-payer universal healthcare and think our southern neighbours are nuts for refusing to enact similar legislation in their own country.)

Also generally speaking, our NDP is further left than our Liberal Party. However, the Liberal Party has generally shifted to the left in recent decades. So it's now closer to the NDP than it used to be. In 2015, when Tom Mulcair was leader of the NDP, and Justin Trudeau leader of the Liberals, the Liberals were arguably more left than the NDP. Currently, however, under the leadership of Mark Carney, the Liberals have shifted back towards the centre. Also: the NDP had their worst showing ever in this year's election and did not elect enough members to have official party status in our current Parliament. (Yet they still have some negotiating power because the Liberal Party is just two seats shy of a majority, and the NDP have enough seats to push them over the top.)

It's interesting times we are living in, to be sure!

I dunno, I've only got a limited understanding of Canadian politics but you don't have preferential voting right? So basically it's vote for a major party or throw your vote away?

Correct. Our electoral system, provincially and federally, is first-past-the-post.

The city in which I live now actually used a ranked ballot in their last municipal election. But our beloved Premier has since enacted legislation to ban this. (Yet another example of his stomping all over matters which should be municipal--not provincial--concerns.)

There's been a bunch of similar rallies in Australia recently, which is pretty concerning.

I am sorry. This type of behaviour is on the rise in many places these days. It is concerning.

(Deleted a rant about how the police treat white nationalist protests vs other protests. Not the place AGAIN!)

In the case of the event I posted about above, the protesters' behaviour did not rise to a level that would warrant police intervention. They were standing on a sidewalk. They did not disrupt vehicular or (as far as I know) pedestrian traffic. Their signage was certainly hateful, but did not cross the boundary into what would be defined as criminal hate speech in Canada. These groups engage in a lot of activities which are designed to be threatening without actually landing any of the group members in jail.

So many plans!!! Seriously impressed - do you thrive off setting high goals and find it motivating? Or maybe it just looks like high goals to me and this is normal for you?

I do find challenging goals motivating, yes. If I set goals which are too easy, I won't take them seriously.

All of the goals I've set for myself for the next month are things I have achieved before. So I know I can do them. (I've not used this specific list of mini workouts before. But I have pretty religiously followed a schedule of taking regular breaks from sitting to do physical exercise at various times in the past. This practice has a large positive effect, is not that difficult for me to maintain, and is becoming even more important for me to do as I age.)

I set goals for fun at the start of the year but don't really pressure myself to do them. But for me I find easy-to-achieve goals motivate me more; if I set high goals I end up in an all-or-nothing mindset where one stuff-up ruins any motivation.

I see failure as a normal part of life, and an opportunity for growth. I likely will mess up on some of my goals from time to time. But this is okay. I can fail this week but still succeed next week. Also: I've structured my December plans with a lot of small goals. I will need to work hard to meet all of them. But I will almost definitely achieve some of them. So I will end the month with at least some wins. Which will feel good, even if I don't achieve a perfect score.

Good luck with your December plans!

Thank you.

Also appreciate the weight stuff being in a spoiler. I mean, it's your thread you can format weight talk however you like. But just wanted to comment on it - my partner has a history of eating disorders so whenever I see people putting weight talk in spoilers I like to show appreciation

Thank you. As you say, here on DAREBEE we have broad freedom to write about what we like in our personal threads. Other Bees can choose to follow my thread or not, as they like. But I know many people are sensitive to talk about weight who might otherwise want to read about and cheer on other aspects of my fitness journey. I do not want to alienate these Bees from following my thread. Hence the use of spoilers.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Saturday, November 29:

8.8 km hiking
5 push-ups
Glutes, Quads, Hamstrings, & Calves

Consecutive days of exercise: 39

Writing:

4 hrs. Voice exercises, DAREBEE Help Desk, planning

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 16
Actual hours week-to-date: 16:00
On or ahead of schedule?

Gaming Rules: Day 5

 

[agc]

It's an omnibus bill that does a bunch of bad things including:

• allowing for the privatization of municipal water supplies.
• giving the provincial government powers to block the construction of new bike lanes. (Which should fall under municipal powers since bike lanes are on municipal roads, not inter-city highways. But our current Premier is fond of ripping powers away from municipalities and consolidating them unto himself. He's also weirdly anti-cyclist.)
• stripping important protections away from residential tenants, including stripping from us the right to presumption of innocence. (Which should be a human rights violation under Canadian law. But this did not stop our Provincial government from passing the bill.)
• giving even more power and privilege to landlords in a system which already heavily favoured landlords, and provided largely toothless protections to tenants, in a rental market in which residential rents are already outrageously high (my own rent is greater than 2/3 of my total annual expenses!), waiting lists for affordable housing are up to ten years long, and every city in the province now has homeless encampments. (The number of Ontario citizens experiencing homelessness has almost quadrupled under the leadership of our current Premier.)

Oh wow, that is so much worse than what I thought it was!

I have once again deleted my rant before posting but know I am totally on board that all of those things are horrible policies.

We have three main national parties in Canada

Thank you for that info, very informative!

I do find challenging goals motivating, yes. If I set goals which are too easy, I won't take them seriously.

I'm the opposite! For me, easy goals build momentum. If I set goals which are very challenging I won't take them seriously as I don't see them as achievable. More on this below though.

I see failure as a normal part of life, and an opportunity for growth. I likely will mess up on some of my goals from time to time. But this is okay. I can fail this week but still succeed next week. Also: I've structured my December plans with a lot of small goals. I will need to work hard to meet all of them. But I will almost definitely achieve some of them. So I will end the month with at least some wins. Which will feel good, even if I don't achieve a perfect score.

That sounds like a healthy viewpoint to have (shoot for the stars and if you miss you'll land on the moon or however that saying goes). I don't beat myself up for failing so much anymore, so I've got that part of the equation right. But because I'm more content with letting things fall as they will, I'm perhaps less ambitious (and less interested in being ambitious too, if that makes sense?). I struggle to hold both the content-ness and ambition at once. And I think I'm okay with that. (Or is that the too much content-ness speaking? Haha)

So I appreciate your insight here - I'm actively trying to be less of a perfectionist in general so you've inspired me to set some more challenging goals in the new year (and if I don't do them perfectly, to still appreciate what things I do achieve).

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

@agc I've been criticized for not being perfect. I've been praised for accomplishing things that were so easy, I would have needed to deliberately try to not accomplish them. I've been viciously attacked (verbally) for refusing to even attempt things which I knew were dangerous and likely impossible. And I've been told off for having any self-improvement goals at all.

For the sake of my own sanity, I've had to develop a healthy perspective on these things! And I think I've achieved that.

Perfection isn't possible. But this does not mean there isn't value in striving to be excellent.
Seeking to better myself does not mean I am unhappy with who I am now.

I like myself. Right now. In this moment. I like the person who is Laura Rainbow Dragon. I think I have done good things with my life thus far, and that I continue to do good things. I think the world is a better place because I am a part of it.
Yet I also seek to be a better version of myself tomorrow than I am today.
Both of these things can be, and are, true simultaneously.

Our modern world places a lot of pressures on humans that I think can make these truths difficult to see.

Congratulations on the successes you've had on your own journey already. And best wishes for the work still ahead.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

Sunday, November 30:

3.9 km hiking
5 push-ups
dead hangs - 1x wide + 1x shoulder-width grip to failure

Very messy weather in the morning. So Shelby and I did not make it out for a walk until the evening. (That dog has blessedly great bladder control!) We went to visit our octogenarian friend, so did not do a lot of mileage. We had a nice, cozy meeting in our friend's shed. Then walked home on snow-covered streets lit up with many coloured winter holiday lights. There is much about Canadian winters that is difficult. But I appreciate their beauty too, when I can.

My pull-up bar has a foam-covered gripping surface inside the frame, and hard plastic-covered gripping handles outside the frame. The plastic handles are hard to hold on to. The widest grip I can do on the foam-covered bar is my shoulder width. I am practising hangs in both positions.

Consecutive days of exercise: 40

Writing:

4 hrs. Voice exercises, DAREBEE Help Desk, Secret Santa stuff

Weekly target: 20 hours
Minimum target hours week-to-date: 20
Actual hours week-to-date: 20:00
On or ahead of schedule?
Week #4 of my Return-to-Writing Challenge was a success!

Now to keep the momentum going!

Gaming Rules: Day 6

 

[Princess Fancy]

Congrats for your return-to-writing challenge!

 

[Syrius]

Congrats on week 4 of returning to writing!!

 

[Fremen]

Congrats

 

[Maegaranthelas]

I like the person who is Laura Rainbow Dragon.

Me too, I like this person a lot! Kind and compassionate, striving for a better world, and willing to speak up for others who need the support.
What an excellent person to get to be internet friends with

 

[Sólveig]

Congrats and welcome back to writing!