​For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here.

AFTER-ACTION REVIEW
Overall I've been feeling better mentally, and have more spoons. That means that I got a lot done, particularly reading five books and watching a whole season of She-Ra! 

I've also decided I'm ready to do a couple more big, fun, projects for June. That'll help taper the yard tending goal, which is hard to work on when it's too hot out.

There's also a new section for sewing/beading projects. I have all of those supplies at home and should be using them/enjoying them! There's one more general basement project that I want to finish this month, then I'll probably take that off next round and just have the sewing/beading projects. Eventually I'd like to work on basement projects again, but most of them involve extra supplies that I don't have right now and don't want to go out to get. 


MINIGOALS
Start and finish Guide to the Louvre
Watch another season of She-Ra
Check finances for last month
​Catch up on sewing/beading projects

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here.

AFTER-ACTION REVIEW
A pretty low-key check in here.  A reasonable amount got done, other than the weeding. That's because it's starting to get way too hot around here. I live in the north for a reason, and that's so I can shovel my worries away. I don't function in heat well, and with it being above 80 I'm simply not forcing myself to go outside for yardwork. (I have been going for walks in the evening.) It should cool off again in a week, so I'll restart yardwork then. 

I did read more of the horror book and decided that it was not worth finishing and dropped it. I didn't add it to the reading list since I dropped it. (It was just boring. Horror shouldn't be boring.) I'm 40% through a murder mystery now and almost done with the one I have about French Food. So those are next on the docket. 

Other than that I've been feeling a little listless. I think having so few major goals is not as rejuvenating as I had expected. I get a lot of joy and energy from finishing things and seeing/talking about the finished product. I'm going to think about it until the next checkin and probably change it up a little bit for next month. I'm not ready for a major change yet, but start to build up. Normally the summer is when I get a lot of my best work done at home and at work, but I also have much more momentum than I do now. So I'd like to retap into that a bit, if possible.


MINIGOALS
Finish French food book
Finish murder mystery book
First draft of short story
Start watching She-Ra

We're all stuck at home and many are getting bored which is making them do new creative activities to keep their mind busy. Is this needed, is this normal?

In fact the study that I just read went over 11 studies involving spending 15 minutes in a room with absolutely nothing else to do but think. The most dramatic finding was that over 2/3rds of men and 1/4th of women would rather hurt themselves with a shock than continue to sit with just their thoughts! 

Additional studies looked giving a suggested topic to think about during the 15 minute time period, however none increased the enjoyment of the thinking time. Another study looked at if the boring lab environment was to blame, and encouraged people to do nothing for 15 minutes at home, which did not bring up anyone's reported enjoyment. 

Disliking being bored is pretty normal for today's average person. When doing anything is better than doing nothing I'm extra thankful for all of the video games to keep people entertained during this crisis.

I would love to see a followup study looking at a writers brain during that 15 minutes of absolutely nothing to do but think. I hypothesis that those with active creativity and curiosity would enjoy it significantly more!

Read the original study text here! Do you think you could survive 15 minutes without shocking yourself?

​​For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
A solid week. Two of those weeding days the weather was particularly bad so those are gray. Two other days I didn't do anything weeding wise, but the SO did so I counted them as green too. There was no as much focus on the masterclass as I would have liked, I've still been gaming a couple hours a day and probably needing it. Trying not to guilt myself. I did 1 activism activity and was able to help 1 local friend. Blog posts should be soonish. 

The big news in the house is getting my new phone, which is through a new service. The transfer seems to have gone off correctly. I love my new phone. The new service is medium so far, I haven't been able to test a couple of the new features yet. We'll see, I'm still getting used to it all!


MINIGOALS
Masterclass progress
Blog posts
Progress on reading horror book

​For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Ah yes, the fall of man is his hubris. After a stellar week last week I thought I could try for a little more. That I was finally through the change and might be able to start excelling. Little did I know how wrong I was. Monday and Tuesday were ok, other than staying up a little too late on my new phone. Wednesday was full of allergies but otherwise functional. Thursday was more allergies and lower brain power. Friday though, Friday. At work it was bad with me getting saddled with five issues all because people weren't doing their jobs. Around half way through the day I got a migraine, which lasted the entire weekend. That threw my sleep schedule off completely. Friday after work I got home and collapsed into bed, then got up at 9PM and stayed up until 2AM and it spiraled from there. Somehow I still managed to get to bed at an ok hour and wake up before my alarm this morning. To everyone's surprise including my own. 

So, I think that the results showed exactly that. The one gray day for weeding was a day where it was snowing and I wouldn't have weeded even if I did want to get out of bed. 

Three learned lessons:
1) After looking at my mood tracker it looks like my migraines might be related to allergies. I'm going to try to take more proactive allergy pills and see if my migraines go down. 
2) Just because one week is good does not mean the next will be. These are hard times, keep expectations reasonable. 
3) Keep to my sleep schedule as much as possible. I'm not completely sure, but the Mon/Tue of going to bed 30 minutes late might have triggered this whole thing, or made it worse due to lack of sleep. I've gotta take care of myself in this way!!!

MINIGOALS
Bed by 11PM every night
Confirm all phone bill related changes

​For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
It was honestly an excellent week. I felt like the last four weeks my brain had shut off and I didn't have the focus or drive to work on anything complicated. Luckily a lot of my weekly goals were already subdivided into bite sized tasks. (By design, they should be easy to complete but still bring me closer to my end goals.) So I didn't completely stagnate out during those weeks. This week though my brain and drive were back and I got a lot done!

Importantly the outline got completed! It's still a bit rough in some places, but probably still the most complete outline I'd had before writing to date. For now I'm ready to put it on the side and have some fun with other projects. 

Book wise I ended up finishing another two books since Wednesday. Honestly if I didn't have the other goals to complete I might have read the entire time, my brain is CRAVING it right now. 

On the reoccurring monthly goal front I went over my finances which looked great. I used to spent a lot of money on eating out, so staying inside has been saving me on food and gas! That meant that I could reward myself with a mixer and blender. After a bit of searching I realized that mixer tech had not advanced that much in the many years since my mixer was created. (1937) What I would really like is a bread hood and official wisk attachment, but I could not find one for my old mixer. I've tabled the idea for now and hope that a good solution will fall into my lap when the right time comes up. On the other hand I did get a new blender. I'm more excited than I originally thought I would be about this. I'm really a texture eater so having a blender that can make a really smooth smoothie is, I think, going to make all of the difference. 

On the one time monthly goals list there are two new/old goals. My phone is dying, it won't save anything new. I'm lucky that what is already on there is still working. Therefore we're bringing back up the new phone bill and arrangements for student loan payment. The extra motivation from my phone dying should make them get completed that much faster, I hope!


MINIGOALS
Take care of some 518 emails that should get responded to.
​
Work on the 'masterclass' for this month. It's still a class, but not through the official sight, but I'm putting it into the same goal since it's fulfilling the same education goal. I intend to listen to all of the classes and do the homework to get at least one new or revised short story done.