November 30:
A full and productive day. Up at 6AM for gaming with
@'rin and
@sleep_twitch . Then breakfast. Then a hike with Shelby. Shelby got short-changed on Friday due to my Thursday night stunt. So this day we did a proper walk, first through the Village (where Shelby, unsurprisingly, made a new friend), then off to our local conservation area. Shelby insisted that we not skip the grove that is across the road from the main trails. So we did that. Then back to the trails around the savannah and along the ponds. Where we saw a big ol' beaver!
I have seen evidence of beavers (gnawed trees) in this area before. But this was my first time seeing the animal in person in this area, and my closest encounter with a beaver ever.
I spotted him first in the water. Then he dove under a sheet of ice. I thought that was likely the last I would see of him. But there was a good look-out spot just a bit further along the trail. So we went to that. I was looking out over the pond where the ice sheet ended, thinking the beaver might re-surface there, when I heard rustling in the brush nearby. I turned to look, and there was the beaver, climbing up out of the water not 10 metres from where we were standing! It climbed up the embankment until it was pretty much level with us, then got to work on a tree.
We watched the beaver work for maybe five minutes. Then--because she was being so quiet--I turned to see what Shelby was doing. She was just standing there watching, perfectly still and quiet.
"Good girl, Shelby!" I whispered. Not quietly enough. Because then the beaver spooked and rushed back into the water. Still: it was a pretty sweet encounter!
After our hike, some lunch. During which I accidentally knocked over my water. A full beer-stein of it. All over my desk, my chair, the floor (hardwood floor, near a box of printer paper and a computer tower). Oops! Since I had to move so much stuff to clean up the mess anyhow, I took advantage of the opportunity to re-organize my work space the way I have been meaning to.
My work space is in a sun room that's off the dance hall. It's a decent-sized room. But narrow. There are windows all along three of the walls, and the fourth wall has French doors in the middle of it. (Fancy. But I don't close the doors to my office ever. So they just get in the way.) My desk is tiny. (It's one of those wheeled jobbies for swinging over a hospital bed.) But there's also a futon in here (for Shelby), huge radiators right smack dab in the middle of both short walls, a cupboard for my art supplies, a filing cabinet, plus various other storage solutions cobbled together from crates and plastic storage bins. It was cramped, and a mess (because I didn't have enough storage solutions in here for all the gear I use on a regular basis), and my monitor was jammed into a corner--which was fine for working at my computer but less fine for when I need to see the screen for a workout I am doing in the dance hall. So I did a little re-org:
Much better!
Then I re-organized my dance hall to put my ghetto blaster and CDs in there (where they belong! Plus, I need the space in the feast hall--where they had been previously--for overflow kitchen stuff.)
By the time I had finished all of this, my new toy had arrived. So, of course, I needed to put that together!
What should I call her?
Now I wanted to do ALL THE THINGS! My music was in the dance hall. Perfect for dancing! But I could now also see my computer monitor from the middle of the dance hall. Perfect for doing a video-guided yoga flow. (Which I love and have many of but have not done at all since moving here due to the whole not being able to see the screen from anywhere I had space to move issue.) But then there was my new toy, all shiny and new and red, sitting there patiently waiting for me to get back to my pulling work. On the other hand, the Challenges I am the most behind on are the ones in my evening schedule. I need to stop skipping them!
What to do?
Shelby made the decision for me. She reminded me that she had not been outside since we got back from our visit with the beaver. Which had been a long time ago by that point. So we went out for our evening walk.
By the time we got back from that, and I'd stripped off all of the clothing it's necessary for me to put on to go outside here this time of year, it was after 9:30 PM. And I still had some work I needed to finish up this day on my computer. So in the end I only had time to do one workout. Le Plat Principal won out.
Le Plat Principal:
Push & Pull (modified to body rows in place of pull-ups): Day 20
Better Arms: Day 20
Flex Hang (modified to active hangs): Day 20
Power Grip: Day 20
2000 One-Legged
Calf Raises*: Day 20
* I'm repeating this challenge doing one-legged calf raises now. For rep days I will complete the set # of reps on each leg. For hold days I will do 3 x 30 seconds on each leg.
The handlebars on my new pull-up tower are not as cushy as the ones on my doorframe bar. But they are grippy enough and do the trick. (The middle section, useful for close-grip work, is nicely cushioned. But not the handles that extend outside the frame.) I did not feel awesome about doing body rows from the cross bar on the tower. (From a weight-bearing perspective I expect the tower could handle it. But the positioning is a bit awkward. And that bar isn't designed for hanging from, so isn't the most comfortable for that purpose.) So I've switched to doing parallel grip body rows using the triceps dips handles. (The tower works great for this.) I did not love doing triceps dips from the lower support bars of the tower (due to the same uncomfortable grip issue as trying to do body rows off the middle bar). So I did those on my cork yoga blocks. (Sure, one could do full-on hanging triceps dips using my new toy. But I cannot get back up again from those if I lower more than ~ 1/4 of the way down at the moment. Plus I started this Challenge doing the heels-on-the-ground version of dips. So I will continue with the heels-down version to complete the Challenge. I find doing dips from my yoga blocks to actually be more intense than they were on the bar I was using in the park. Plus they feel safer for my shoulders and also feel like I am targeting the work in my triceps better when using the blocks. So wins all around here.)
By the time I'd finished Le Plat Principal it was my screens off curfew. So I shut down my computer. After that I just did my Quiet Room yoga flow. (Don't need the computer for that, since I have all of Angie's music on CDs.)
Mileage:
running:
- The spirit was willing. But I ran out of time.
hiking: 11.2 km
Writing:
nothing this day (just some SS administrative stuff)
new fiction words: 0
fiction YTD: 148,126 + ? (still have some hand-written stuff to type up)
story-a-week challenge: 45 of 52 completed
54 stories in my 54th year challenge: 45 of 54 completed
writing days this week: 5/5
French:
CBC Gem
Scheduling Habits:
GOBOT:
SOOT:
GBOT:
GR:
Cumulative Habit Scores:
Gaming Rules: 6
SOOT: 4
GBOT: 4
Streaks:
Consecutive days of working out: 83
Consecutive days of French study: 1475
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Posts: 900
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For your snow problems.
I hope the concert goes well 
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