Wellness, Part Trois (and Packers and Station Eleven, too)

 It's been four full months since my previous post here, and also of weight loss maintenance.

Even through the holidays, I have been below my second goal weight of 170 pounds, and during an especially active period during which I biked 40 miles in one September trip and completed a 50-miler the next month, I dropped down to 165 pounds, a full 50 under where I started on June 5th.

I'm confident enough in my routines and habits that I ended my Noom subscription in November, and around a week ago, I stopped logging my meals in the Lose It app, too. Weight is still being tracked daily just to ensure I am on target, though imagine there will be a time when that'll be done weekly or even not at all. I've remained stable all through the past several days

Google's year-end update of activity was enlightening and encouraging:

Though the brisk pace of my walks at just over 4 miles per hour did not change since the time I transitioned from using a Fitbit to a TicWatch running Google's WearOS mid-October, it appears that's sometimes tracked as running rather than walking. Icy roads and paths have made keeping up my lunchtime routine and longer weekend hikes daunting, but I've done it, and fortunately had bruises rather than breaks from four bad slips and spills this month. 

On the topic of bruising: last night's Packers loss to the 49ers, in a season when they were again the 1st seeded NFC team but this time had the most promising roster of players in years, will smart for a long time. Noah was devastated. Laying next to him in his bed for a long time, comforting and processing through it with him, helped me, too.

I'll miss seeing the players who made up this year's Green Bay team play together. Like I have for the past half-dozen years, I've gotten to know them well through all the human interest pieces on their website, and many interviews other places. Instead of a shot at another Championship and then the thrill of a long-anticipated trip to the Super Bowl, they clear out their lockers this coming week.

It was difficult to settle into sleep and then stay asleep last night, but I woke up at peace this morning, rising almost three hours later than I would usually get up, going through my morning routines, then shoveling the few inches of snow blanketing the drive, our monthly Wine Club tasting followed by lunch at Cooper's Hawk. In exactly a month from today, if all goes as hoped and planned, I'll spend my first night on Anna Maria Island for the first time in a few years, joining Melanie and her parents there for my extended Mid-Winter Break in the Florida sun. 

Life moves on. Life is good.

And, sometimes, even often as of late, life can be tough. 

Station Eleven has been a favorite since my first read of it at our Cobmoosa Shores beach rental cottage several years ago, an eerie place to do so with its post-pandemic setting around Lake Michigan. Watching the television adaptation in our present situation was even more affecting.

Its presentation of events as block-lettered time before, during, and after an apocalyptic flu brought home the fact that we're now approaching Year Two of our own virus-altered world. Most such stories feature widespread and near-complete death of the world's human population. COVID-19 hasn't been as devastating, but in addition to the many people gone from our lives, we're continuously grieving other sorts of losses. There's uncertainty when some of the missing pieces will return, when what a grade school friend and fellow teacher recently named as "chronic low grade trauma and stress" will finally abate. In the meantime - we mask when around others in public spaces, adapt school activities to minimize potential exposure and spread, and find all the ways we can to stay connected with and care for one another. 

Bookmarks

 It's the time of the year when days stretch out leisurely, windows open, buds appear on branches, and we shake off the crusty stuff also seen in dark corners of parking lots.

It's also time that our family typically does some clean-up - both of physical things as we make room for the kids' latest birthday gifts, and also of the more sedentary routines of winter.

Walking outdoors has been invigorating.

By sticking to a schedule of gradual progress each day, I managed to finish off my spring continuing education course well ahead of spring break, while simultaneously mapping out adventure opportunities for the getaway to rural northern Georgia we're making then. 

Our Pathfinder 2nd Edition RPG campaign has kept me connected to friends through the the colder, darker months of seemingly endless COVID quarantine (I am vaccinated, Melanie is not yet) and I'm hard at work learning Roll20 to help our online sessions run smoother than they do through kitbashed Google tools.

We watched all of The Mandalorian Season 2, The Boys Season 2, Fargo Season 4, and WandaVision - and Melanie many more whole seasons and series aside. The kids have been digging The Clone Wars (which they jokingly call "Star The Clone Wars Wars" every time they sit down to watch it together) and we are all pumped for the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Solider later tonight. Somehow, I missed that Invincible released!

Well, no mystery, actually - virtual teaching has been consuming almost all of my time for months now. We've only got a handful of sessions of IMAGE left after the break, and this year, doing the marathon of qualification testing will actually feel like a relief, I think.

I'm only writing here because I cleaned out the bookmarks for my Google account. Wow, was it a trip - gong back years and years to around the time I finished up my Masters, changed teaching positions, and we packed and moved (into storage and the in-laws' house, back out of it once we found a new home) all in the span of a few months. There were links to the We Are Comics movement that sprang up in 2014, GameFaqs (!) guides to the Final Fantasy Dimensions mobile game, 13th Age RPG fansites that are no longer active, and a slew of stagnant blogs.

The only link from the "Blogs" folder that actually survived was this one. I figured I'd better breathe a bit of life into it until the time it can get more attention. I hope any who are reading are well, too!