Bringing this to something resembling a point, I’ve started (as in what time is it now started) trying Mindbloom. Lifehacker recommended it as a way to set goals and keep some balance in your life.

There’s a bit of a learning curve but basically the site is free (there’s pay features if you want ‘em but they’re not required). You create an account then select areas of your life you’d like to work on, like health, creativity, career, etc. Then you make some goals for yourself to help enhance those areas of your life and you add in things to inspire you to do them. There’s also a free iPod app that can be set to remind you to do these things during the day.

You can set your own actions/inspirations, pull them from the libraries of already uploaded things, or do combinations of both.The whole thing then becomes like a game where doing your actions and taking in your inspirations gives you points and you can level up and there’s a little symbolic tree that grows with what you do.

I like the concept of this because I’ve used a similar goal setting program in the past and liked it, and this one includes the psychological encouragements that have been shown to help increase success in these things.

One aspect of it is that you can connect with friends who are also doing it and provide encouragement to each other. Then you get to see how each other’s trees are doing and, I dunno, make a forest or something.

Anyway, as I say I’m only just starting it but it seems good so far. Figured no harm in asking if anybody else would like to try it and make an encouraging forest with me.

Let me know and I’ll find out how we would connect. I think one way is to search for a name, so I’m down there as TeaBQ if you want to find me. All are welcome! =)

If you need more info before deciding, you can check out the Mindbloom overview.

You may find said feed here: http://yogapantsgirl.livejournal.com/

Ta da!

(Or more accurately I emailed in sick to work, which I LOVE because it involves zero amount of talking.)

Now I don’t say that I’m taking a mental health day even though I am in the truest sense of those words. I say I have a migraine. As I’ve mentioned before, migraines are a useful cover story because I do get them, and you get to give essentially the same story about them after the fact (“Yeah, I just could not get out of bed, my brain was not letting me.”)

Turns out that not long after I actually did come down with a bad headache. Yay?

I suppose it’s possible that the mental stuff was a precursor to the migraine. Or that the mental stuff was triggered by the same things the migraine was (quick! guess which week I’m currently in!). Either way it went from simply wanting to be in peace and quiet for the sake of trying to calm my nerves to wanting peace and quiet because OMG LIGHT HURTS MAKE IT STOP.

I was hoping to go back to work today but again when I woke up my brain was just not having it – this time primarily because of the headache. So one more sick day was taken. It helps that I have the sick days to use and counter resets at the start of July.

Most of the morning was spent in bed. I have since gotten up and been able to do things like have some breakfast and read things online without praying for the sweet release of death. Fingers crossed that these are all good signs.

Of the many reasons, the one that pushed me over the edge was that I felt like the cartoons were causing mission creep here at the blog. I want this to be more about, well, me. YPG is obviously based on me, but not enough that she gets center stage over here.

So please! Go forth! Follow on Tumblr! Subscribe to the RSS feed! Or totally ignore it if you never liked the comics in the first place!

I’m still getting the layout and whatnot set up, but you can find her over at http://yogapantsgirl.tumblr.com/

All future YPG updates will go over there. I may link to them from here, but the postings go there.

Thanks everybody for the support!

I know, crazy right?

Anyhoo -

I’m pondering giving Yoga Pants Girl its own Tumblr. Reasons for include making the posts both easier to find and easier to avoid. (I would still link to them from here). Tumblr also makes things easier to share, for thems who might wish to do such things.

Reasons against would include me not knowing how long I’ll be doing it. This could be years, this could be done in two weeks. Who knows? So it might be silly to start a whole place for something that could be over by the time I’m done designing the Tumblr theme.

On the other hand there’s always the possibility that if I give it its own space I’ll be even more inclined to continue it because now it’s got an identity separate from this blog.

Of course it’s not like Tumblr costs anything so if I didn’t do much with it I would’ve wasted nothing but time.

Which then brings me back to the concept of the audience. So – thoughts? Anybody have a preference? Input? Pie?

I’m just saying things might look different around here.