I was tempted to skip doing a goal post for the first time since I began them.  Then, I realized that I had nothing else to talk about.

This was just an exhausting, rough week that has life me incredibly stressed.  It’s gotten to the point where I’m getting body itches and feeling sick.  No fever, oxygen issues, or anything more than being tired.  There’s a cough that only shows up when I start thinking about the rough stuff.  Allergies are still giving me trouble too.  So, I’m glad to have a 3-day weekend to rest and recover.

Sadly, I can’t go into details or even generalities about why the week went bad.  Life event is still going on.  My son had some challenges at school, but at least we made it through those.  Work was busy and tiring.  Maybe there was just something in the air that made things go crazy at times.  Could be pollen, but that wouldn’t explain anything more than my gasping for air.

On the writing front, I did finish two chapters of Darwin & the Beast Collector last weekend.  Technically, I wrote one chapter and realized the next one was really treading water around a single key event.  So, I mashed the 3 chapter sections together and put it at the beginning of the next one.  Well, I will next weekend when I get some writing time.  I still want to call last weekend a ‘2 chapter victory’.  Means I only have 5 more to go and the 3rd act is kicking off earlier than planned.

I did get to tinker with my notebook for 10 minutes at work.  So, I got to write most of the background of a character in ‘Phi Beta Files’.  It’s a secondary character, but it was the last of a group that plays a big role in the second book.  Still not 100% certain about a few things too.  I’m about to design the supporting cast for the main characters, which is a rather meaty group.  They’ll all be recruited for various specialties in the second book and then I have to figure out how to have them show up at times.  They’ll be part of the Phi Beta house, but they aren’t the mission agents.  We’re talking people like explosive experts, enchanters, horse breeders, healers, bards, etc.  I don’t want to have them show up and then never be important again.  I’m tempted to put all of their names into a hat and draw to choose random ones to be part of the non-mission antics that the main 4 are going to be known for.  Might be a fun challenge too because solutions to problems will depend on who I pull from the hat.

Only other thing that happened this weekend was that I got the call about picking up a CPAP machine.  I might be getting a good night’s sleep before next week is done.  The person who talked to me about picking up talked about my tests and was surprised that I had an oral device in at the time.  Apparently, that boosts me from moderate to severe sleep apnea.  Just barely.  The CPAP should help me with sleep and that can help me get energy for losing weight too.  A lot of health issues may start to reverse once I get my sleep back to functional human level.

This weekend will be a bunch of fun with my son.  Well, we have homework too and I promised to let him play Mario 64 on the Switch.  All that will be today when it’s raining too much for Pokemon Go.  Need to take advantage of the good weather because it will be too cold to walk around before we know it.  Going to the zoo tomorrow night for a special event too.  After years of missing out on event tickets for this time of year, I finally got some and we get to visit an ‘after hours’ event.  That means seeing animals active at night as well as a jack o’ lantern display.  Totally worth being tired the next day.

With the shortened work week, I’m not planning much until the weekend.  I don’t have any major appointments or events.  Things can pop up, especially with the life event.  Be nice to not have any drama, especially since I don’t have my CPAP machine yet.  I’m really putting a lot of hope on that machine.  Let’s get to the goals . . . Oh, I watched ‘Castlevania: Nocturne’ on Netflix and really liked it.  Recommended for people who enjoyed the first series.

Goals of the week:

1. Relax this weekend with my son.
2. Help him with homework and studying.
3. Pokemon Go time.
4. Get CPAP and sleep.
5. Write more December blog posts.
6. Use exercise bike more since walking time is dwindling.
7. Figure out what to watch on TV when I’m too tired to do anything else.
8. Play more Banjo-Kazooie.
9. Learn to stay out of certain situations.