shanaqui's Beeminder Journal

[shanaqui]

Derailments: Oh my. It’s been quite a week. /teeth went off, mostly because my whole morning routine has been a bit off this week. (It only covers my morning teeth-brushing, because I somehow managed to make the evening one a habit a few years ago. It’s basically automatic now. But the morning one, I’m so easily thrown off.)

/planahead went off because of pure laziness, /fastfood because wife had a job thing to prep for and didn’t want to cook, and /kingdomhearts went off because I just don’t really care about that goal right now.

New goals: /nofudge is incoming to replace /enteringmeals. It allows for some flexibility and days where I just enter approximations, for now, but the idea is to scale it up as it becomes more of a habit.

/housework joined both me and the wife’s dashboards, because having a rigid list of repeating chores on Todoist was not working. It’s currently set to 60 minutes a week each, and we’ll see how that goes.

Changes to the existing goals: /enteringmeals is retiring, as previously mentioned. /kingdomhearts as well, but that one will probably be revived whenever I get round to watching the 358/2 stuff or just replaying the original game.

/bookblanket_catchup has been extended with some extra motifs on the list, and now I’m almost there! I promise there’ll be a new progress picture once I get that sorted. For now, here’s the before and after of a day of crafting this week!

Before:

After:

Thanks, Beeminder! (Caveat: those additional rows weren’t made that day, just joined! Even so, it’s a daunting job.)

Other comments: I’ve been having recurring headaches this week, probably due to dehydration. Might step up my /water goal to see if that helps – the headache symptoms do match those of a dehydration headache.

/wyrdandwonder is edgeskating a LOT. I wanted to keep it to only entering whole books, but I’d be derailing if I did that, so for now I’m entering increments. I might change my mind and derail it, though.

[shanaqui]

Busy week!

Not that it’s an excuse…

Derailments: /MITs went off, but I called not-legit because it was due to a series of awful headaches. However, I’ve figured out what caused those (I needed to sleep more) and I should be back on track!

/wyrdandwonder went off and might go again tonight. I just didn’t have the energy to read. Possibly I should’ve called not-legit, since the reason I fell behind was the headaches, but I didn’t. Too late!

/activeminutes went because… sometimes laziness feels like a viable option. Which probably means the pledge cap needs to move up.

New goals: /lightlacethrow, to encourage me to get two rows a day done on this pattern. Progress:

(That’s 9 rows, one pattern repeat.)

Changes to the existing goals: I’ve added some more autoratchets to my goals so I have a little more pressure to keep them out of beemergency…

[shanaqui]

Last week was a busy week, but mostly this week was just a tired week.

Derailments: /wyrdandwonder derailed, which was a calculated measure to get a day off and prioritise something more important (sleep). /nofudge also derailed, because I couldn’t calculate my calories accurately thanks to eating out.

New goals: /cadria is new! I just set up Rescuetime on my computer to start learning where things are going wrong, and it turns out that today alone I’ve spent nearly half an hour playing Cadria Item Shop. Which is a cute and fun game, but really not worth this much of my time. The /cadria goal limits me to 2 hours of Cadria a week. That’s pretty slim, though… so I expect problems.

Changes to existing goals: I think this week it’s been pretty quiet on that front.

[shanaqui]

And it’s been a whole 'nother week! What!

Derailments: I let /housework derail to let me build up some leeway, and then… didn’t really do that. It’s close to derailing again. Oops. /nofudge derailed because I was too lazy to keep good track of what I was eating. /caloriedeficit derailed because I was morally obligated to eat an ice cream when offered.

New goals: None, I think?

Changes to existing goals: I forgot to mention that /bookblanket_catchup was finished, last week. But it is! I got all caught up… and now I might have to resurrect it either for a) joining the new motifs, because I’m around 20 behind on joining, or b) doing the 12 motifs that have accumulated to do since the last time, because I was busy with a different project. /wyrdandwonder is now also finished – I completed the goal, and won the bet, with a little help from Danny and Bee tweaking my deadline time at the last minute to give me an extra two hours. (As agreed with the various people I’d discussed the bet with, May didn’t end until I went to sleep after midnight on the 31st.)

Other comments: I’ve been making major progress with the /lightlacethrow I made a goal for. Today I spent hours crocheting while the wife was cross-stitching, watching old episodes of The Great British Sewing Bee, so I did 21 rows in one day, fulfilling the /lightlacethrow, /craftathon and /crafttogether goals. Oof! Here’s a progress pic from the end of today:

It’s coming along!

[dreev]

@shanaqui

tweaking my deadline time at the last minute

I’d normally be all grumble grumble marge-simpson noises about last minute deadline changes except that, even beyond it being within the spirit of the original bet, as you said, it’s totally Beeminder’s fault (specifically lack of Yellow Brick Half-Plane) that you got backed against the wall like that in the first place. So I’m very relieved you made it in the end!

[shanaqui]

I am very grateful you helped me do it! I do not like losing bets.

[zedmango]

@dreev

it’s totally Beeminder’s fault (specifically lack of Yellow Brick Half-Plane) that you got backed against the wall like that in the first place

Can you explain more about how the lack of YBHP caused the problem?

[shanaqui]

@zedmango

Can you explain more about how the lack of YBHP caused the problem?

Basically, YBHP will remove lanes. The goal I was using to track the number of books I needed to have read by certain dates had a lane width, though. Although the end total required was 22, Beeminder was only driving me toward the lower bound of the lane… which turned out to be 20.55 books. Meaning, I had 1.45 of a book to read that I hadn’t accounted for. In the last… four-ish days of the goal, I realised and @dreev fixed it for me, but those last four days involved more reading per day than planned and budgeted for.

[shanaqui]

Here we are again…

Derailments: None this week!

New goals: This week, /getmoving was born. I’ve found that I feel better all day – more focused, better appetite and appetite at the right times of day, better appreciation of time passing… – if I get up a little earlier than I did and start the day with some exercise. Nothing major – a seven minute workout, or a brisk ten minute walk. I’ve made the rate 4.5 days a week: I don’t want to have to do that on weekends, because it disturb’s my wife’s well-earned lie-in, and the extra .5 is just to give me some wiggle room rather than make a goal I’ll constantly fail.

Also, /tbrjune2019, or whatever I called it exactly. I found having a to-read list last month really helpful for making sure I read a range of books from my backlog, etc, though it was a bit too restrictive. This month’s 10 book goal has room for whim, but sets me on-track for reading for Hugo voting, keeps some series turning over, etc, etc.

Changes to existing goals: I’ve put in an autoratchet on /water, and also increased the requirement to 500mls, and made it effective immediately. It might help with my headaches, and it’s certainly helping make sure I replace carbonated drinks with a better option more often. In aid of this, I’ve also bought myself two adorable water bottles (so I can have one in use and one in the dishwasher) from Sass and Belle (that’s a llama one, and I’ve also ordered the one with cacti on it).

Other comments: I’m behind on the book blanket again. I’m finishing my current project and then going all-out to catch up – and properly this time! (I.e. I’m going to join the motifs as well.)

[phi]

@shanaqui

Nothing major – a seven minute workout,

that’s exactly my workout – phi – beeminder goal I found that 3 weeks in I no longer had back pain. I sit a lot in my job and at home and whilst it’s primarily a cardio body weight workout it establishes some minimum set of badly needed muscles. I use an app called “cardio” (iOS) that shoos me through those 7 minutes.

@shanaqui

I’ve put in an autoratchet on /water, and also increased the requirement to 500mls,

Why so little? I bumped mine up from 1.5l to 1.75l a day with autoratcheting with 0 buffer. I don’t think there is a way to do this without the goal being eep every day I am afraid. I eliminated all Beeminder buffering for this because my body got it’s own buffer for water, duh and obviously it does not agree with Beeminder’s idea of buffer.

[shanaqui]

@phi

Why so little?

Because my baseline was 0ml water, and maybe 500ml of other fluids (not counting the normal fluid intake you get from food) – I’ve mentioned before that I’m chronically bad at hydrating, right?!

I’d rather get used to it slowly (and have slower improvement) than chug water just for the sake of reaching my goal at the end of the day, which always feels uncomfortable to me. Actually, with the water bottle handy I’ve been drinking more my 500ml quite early in the day, and drinking another bottle full as well fairly frequently (hence the auto-ratchet), so I’ll probably step things up again soon.

[phi]

I see!

Have you tried Sodastream? I use that to carbonate my tap water which is

• delicious,
• cheap af and
• saves you from carrying around these heavy bottles of water and soda.

I love mine and even upgraded to the beefier one using the glass bottles. I don’t even put sirups in it – I enjoy the taste of just carbonated water. Previously I used to filter my tap water and then drank it plain without bubbles. The filtering removed the faint hint of sourness and bitterness. But ever since I moved the tap water tastes great out of the tap so I save myself that hassle.

So: If you don’t like your tap water plain:

• filter it or
• carbonate it!

(Not to be confused with a carborator which is badically the same thing but for your car )

And to readers from the US: Tap water here is commonly not chlorinated because we invest into expensive but awesomesauce UV water treatment so our water doesn’t taste like a swimming pool.

[shanaqui]

I haven’t! I don’t mind our tap water – I’m more picky about temperature! Must be not too cold (because sensitive teeth) but not too warm (it can’t stand for too long and get to room temp). My new water bottle is a handy size for my usual bag, fortunately. But as something to switch things up, especially if I start hitting a wall with how much plain water I can naturally coerce into my routine, I might consider Sodastream…

[phi]

ok here is a bit of shocker for you:
Sometimes I enjoy my water hot. I know, I’m radical. (:
I started doing that for drinking cold water before going to bed triggers the body’s “oh no! Core temp falling! Need to be active! Burn energy to heat back up!” which is detrimental for sleeping purposes. Took like 3, 4 times of getting used to but now I do quite like warm water. I mean in the end it’s not so different to tea really. And less work

[shanaqui]

I know this makes me a bad Brit, but… whispers

I don’t like tea… or coffee… or any hot beverage, really…

[phi]

Well well well… now I am the one who is shocked

Not even hot cocoa? Man, you are quite the special snowflake. Blue haired special snowflake.

[dreev]

You are a disgrace to your nation! I also don’t drink tea or coffee. I do like hot cocoa, and even just hot milk. Which is a little weird but better than hot water geez @phi!

PS: Just saw @phi’s reply and see that he has not noticed how “snowflake” has been used on the internet recently which actually speaks very well of him! Don’t go investigating, @phi! This actually has me wondering how I might beemind a social media diet that would keep me oblivious to all the toxicity that’s out there. (I almost said “on both sides” and then remembered that that, ironically, is a whole meme I earnestly wish were not taking up space in my brain.)

[phi]

@dreev

Don’t go investigating, @phi!

I totally didn’t end up on twitter after this
Now I know. Makes me sad. But I also found this:

I M Doge Mocenigo

[shanaqui]

I occasionally drink hot chocolate, but usually I would go for a cold drink something like 95% of the time. I was a tea-drinker as a child, but… I dunno! Something broke. Leaf juice (and bean juice) just doesn’t appeal to me!

[phi]

@shanaqui

I dunno! Something broke.

We still love you