Archer: The Backstory

My D&D group started a new Dark Sun 4e campaign  last night and I am really excited about my new character.  Although I had some help with “proofing” her, this is the first character that I’ve built from scratch; entirely on my own.  She did pretty well last night and I can’t wait to see if she keeps shining in combat as much as I think she will.

The original character/party design prompt from my DM called for 11th level PCs in an existing, working group of soldiers-of-fortune. We were told the group would need a warlord, some sort of tank, a psionic character, a character skilled in the Arcane arts, some sort of scout/tracker, and “a powerful wildcard”.  As a group, we need to be trained in history, nature, dungeoneering, and Arcana & Psicraft.  We also needed some sort of elemental priest.

I went for the scout/tracker and in developing her identity, she went beyond being trained in nature to being “in tune with” nature to being a nature avenger, if you will.  She is a Seeker with the Primal Guardian theme and the Voice for the Ravaged paragon path.  I wanted her to be a bow-sniper, but I gave her some “hit and run away” powers (and a cloak with a daily use teleportation ability) in case she gets sucked into melee combat.  Building this character on paper was a challenge that was a lot of fun, but the core of character building for me has always been the backstory, which I’m going to share with you all today.

Talk Like A…. Cat?

Today be talk like a pirate day, which always makes me think of my favorite scene from my favorite childhood movie.

Jed 2012

It’s been three weeks since we got back from the 2012 trip to Jed and I finally got new batteries in  to my camera so that I could look at my pictures from the trip.  Here’s some of my favorites from our hikes through the campground and on the forest trails as well as a couple from a brief visit to the shore outside Crescent City:

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The trip was far too short and it’s hard to accept that it will be almost a whole year until we get to go back.  I’m already counting down.

Dress Shopping!

For those of you who have been living under a rock, I’m pleased to announce that my  best friend and the sometimes guest author on this blog, Stripes, is getting married!  It’s a very busy and exciting time for everyone involved.   I really don’t know how Stripes manages to keep everything planned and under control.  I feel like I have way too much to do and not enough time to do it and I’m only the maid of honor!

This weekend though, I did manage to get something crossed off my list of To-Dos.  I went bridesmaid dress shopping.  All of the other bridesmaids have done this already and they’ve done it with Stripes because they live in Southern California.  I, on the other hand, live on the other end of the state and the closest retailer for the dress brand Stripes likes is an hour and 45 minutes away.  But I finally managed to make it out there this weekend and my mom went with me to take pictures of all of the options.

To Jed!

Next week, I’ll be joining Glenn’s family for their annual camping trip Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.  We’re leaving Sunday morning and will be gone until Friday.  (We’re coming back a few days earlier than the rest of the family so that Glenn and I can can go to a very good friend’s wedding on Saturday)  I can hardly wait.  This will be the third year I’ve gone to “Jed” (as Glenn’s family calls it) and I am SO excited.  I love being outside, in nature, and am such an outdoorsy person to start with that the idea of camping itself is enough to lift my spirits (I actually enjoyed camping at Wasteland — in the middle of a wind blown dessert — for goodness’ sakes), but to be going back to Jed is enough to make me giddy.  It is absolutely gorgeous up there; you feel a bit like you’ve been dropped in a Disney movie.  It’s an absolute slice of paradise.

To help get me through what has felt like a very, very long week (as most weeks before vacation usually feel), I’ve been looking at my pictures from Jed from the last two years.  While this is relaxing, it’s also a strange form of self torture.  But it’s nice to remind myself what’s waiting for me at the end of the week.  Here’s some of my favorite pictures from Jed (the one of Glenn on the rock in the river is one of my favorite pictures of all time).  If you don’t hear from me for a couple months, it’s because I found a way to stay up there and never come back.

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100 Days and Counting

Fourteen and a half weeks ago I set out on an epic journey to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks.  Along the way I discovered that what I meant by 20 pounds was actually 27 pounds.  The last time I “weighed in” (two weeks ago) on myfitnesspal, I had lost 8.6 of the 160 pounds I reported as my start weight.  Given that I actually weighed about 167 when I started, this means that I’ve really lost 15.6 pounds, which means that I’m actually doing a little bit better than my one pound a week goal (even if the website doesn’t show it). My weight has stabilized the last few weeks though because I haven’t been doing so well on my meeting my calorie goals.  I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, but I think I’m finally starting to snap out of it.  Although it’s only the middle of the week, so far this week I only went over my calorie goal on Tuesday, which is my cheat day anyway.  I’ve been doing much better with my water consumption and I’m on track to be under my weekly calorie goal (and therefore back to shedding pounds like sweaters in summer).

Design Update: Bedroom (part 2)

When we last left off, I still needed to finish the bring the brick wall outlet, repair the corner baseboard, install cedar planking for the closet floor, clean and reinstall the closet doors, install plastic trim around the windows, and install the street lamp.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve slowly been making progress on these and, thanks to a fire in Oakland that disrupted BART service and made it impossible for me to get to work last Thursday, I managed to  actually finish some of them.  I only have the last two projects (window trim and streetlight) to finish and I might be able to get those done before this weekend.  Exciting!  In the meantime, here’s some pictures of the projects I completed since the last post:

Follow Up 4: The List (Updated)

Well it’s been a little over a year since I made the five year plan, so I decided to go back and check in.  I updated a few things (noted by itallics) and was happy to find that I could cross a couple of them off.  Here’s where things stand now:

Memorial Day Hike

Sorry I’ve been Away From Blog for so long!

Here’s some pictures from a hike I took with my family while on our annual Memorial Day Lake Tahoe retreat.  These were taken (on my cellphone!) at the falls that feed into Fallen Leaf Lake.

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Hopefully, I’ll have a more wordy post for you soon.  =)

Weight What?

Before Saturday, the last time I’d been weighed was when I went to Kaiser back in February.  They weighed me at 167 pounds and I was astonished by that number; I knew I had gotten a bit more out of shape than I should have, but I hadn’t weighed more than 150 since early high school.  The nurse who weighed me told me that their scales do tend to run a little heavy, but her assurances did nothing to make me feel better.

Three weeks ago, when I started myfitnesspal, I guessed on how much I weighed.  I’d been paying a bit more attention to my food intake and so I thought maybe I’d dropped down to 160.  I put my start weight in and decided I wanted to weigh 140 and that a pound a week would be about right, meaning I’d be at my goal weight by Labor Day.  Based on all that, they gave me a daily calorie goal (I love that they don’t call it a calorie limit) of 1380.  I haven’t always been able to meet my daily goals, but I’ve been under my weekly goal all three weeks.