Knight of Pentacles

 It's funny that I posted about eustress last week because things very quickly devolved into DISTRESS Monday morning I haven't been able to pull it back yet, despite great effort. I won't bore you with the details, but I will just say that there wasn't a lot of time or spoons for Kung Fu this week.  Here's hoping that next week is better. Song of the day: Blood Moon by Yoav https://open.spotify.com/track/1YegsgkeDg7dTvEr9QHD2l?si=4c833317f4dd4048

I took over a different project a few weeks ago.  This one is fast paced, lots of sub-trades to coordinate, lots of small details to keep an eye on, lots to do.  It also came with my first ever office trailer!  Complete with white boards for keeping track of things (like push ups and sit ups), and wall space for sticky notes.   I love this situation, because it allows me to dig in and go into the state of EUSTRESS.  "What's that word, Kat?" You say Well, I'll tell you. Eustress is a term to describe a positive form of stress.  I know that sounds contradictory, but it's true.  It's a state of moderate psychological stress that causes benefits.  You can think of roller coasters, or scary movies, or a really good workout.  Or think of when we were getting the hall ready for the banquet this year: there was lots of activity, things were getting done, but everyone was feeling good about it. Ooh, I just found a neat little diagram that illustr...

  I'm not overly happy with my numbers from September, but I'm not overly happy with myself in general for September.  I was working too much and stressed out, and fell back into some less than stellar habits for comfort.  But habits like that tend to just make life less organized and more stressful. So, at the beginning of October I banned myself from social media and alcohol.  I'm still working on getting a better diet going, but it's getting there.  Things are hopefully settling down at work so that I'll get home in time to get to class.  We spent most of the weekend cleaning and organizing the house so that we can all have less cluttered minds. Time to get this train back on track. After this blog I will post my numbers every time. Song of the Day: Railroad Track by Willy Moon https://open.spotify.com/track/3OsHe57toPHcaJjPt0PEKx?si=2e7b089c782f4275

 August was not a great month for me, Kung Fu-wise.  My focus was on other things, so I'm hoping that with the coming of Autumn I can re-focus.  Here are my numbers: Pushups: 18400 Situps: 18400 Lao Gar: 158 Bat'leth: 136 Sparring: 58  1609 kms: 1825 DONE Relationship mending: progressing Blogs: 35 (a couple behind) Online presence: there was a bit of a blip but I'm getting back to it 3 performances: DONE (looking forward to more) Lion Dancing: DONE (also looking forward to more) Tiger Challenge: DONE No Missed IHC Meetings: I think I have missed 1 non-mandatory one Core Curriculum: Doing ok.  Want to do better. SRKF Projects: BTSW DONE!  What's next? Mastery: doing good, can pretty much get through most of it with a little prompting. Unfinished projects: 2 done, 1 getting started this week. Meditation: 436, could be WAAAAAAAY better Books: 3.5, need to get back on it. Craft Projects: 1.5 Work Performance: 8 out of 8 months good. Leg Exercises: 6050 You kno...

This week has been a heavy one for me.  My Dad is still in the hospital.  Work has been insane.  Frankie is had her birthday party on Saturday and then starts kindergarten this week.  I was really looking forward to throwing myself into work at the Kwoon, but my preparations were slightly thwarted.  My phone died.  My truck died. Everything's going to be ok, but I am running on very few spoons.  And when I made that comment at the potato bake earlier nobody knew what I was talking about, so here I present to you:  Spoon Theory!   Spoon theory was originally coined by blogger Christine Miserandino, to describe what it's like living with lupus.  (you can view a pdf of her original post here:  https://cdn.totalcomputersusa.com/butyoudontlooksick.com/uploads/2010/02/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf).  It has since been adopted by the chronically ill and neurodivergent communities, and I think it's great because pretty much everyone ca...

 My life has been chaos lately.  My Dad has been in the hospital since July 31st. He's 81 (soon to turn 82!) and his health has been on a steady downward decline for a while, but this last little while has been a big hit to him and to his immediate family.  We know that he has multiple health problems, and this has been an opportunity to find out exactly what most of them are.  But at this point we just want to make him comfortable and take him home.  It's an uphill battle. So, I have been taking my Mum to the hospital almost every day on my way to work, and picking her up on my way home (most days).  And dealing with work stuff, and normal home stuff.  It hasn't left a lot of time for Kung Fu. But Kung Fu is never far from my mind. I'll admit, my numbers and class attendance have suffered, but I've been trying to keep up with things where I can.  And I have a plan that will start up in September for doing some catch up.  In the meantime, I'm...

This is a bit late, my apologies. It's been a busy summer, so my progress has not been what I wanted, but it has been at least consistent on the main requirements.  I did just find out what my next work assignment is, and there will be a lot of downtime, so I plan on using it to my full advantage. I'm excited for back to school week. Song of the Day: The Sound of Music by Laibach https://open.spotify.com/track/58EsIYlSfnFmyExAmALDFQ?si=517785a878fb4d82