life worth living weekly update – July 12th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

Another strange, but entirely awesome, week. WOOT!

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again. Not yet, but I have joined the second sleeve to be worked in the round so the end is in sight.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax. Got in plenty of relaxing, still haven’t for sure found a place to do the water aerobics.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health. Picked up even more vitamins and I’ve been using the new moisturizer every day. I like it even better than the first one.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help. When I sold the Honda I paid off a small loan that I had with Mom, my line of credit at the bank (and then closed it), and my credit card (kept that open for emergencies). I also spent some time looking at what my finances should be now that it’s just me and things will be soooo much more comfortable.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY! Yay!

 

Goals for this week:

Turns out I do have to report for jury duty, at least tomorrow morning. I’m not pleased by this, but there isn’t much I can do. It does mean that I’m going to try to get some of my work done at home, assuming I can get back into my account. I put in a request to have my name changed back to what it had been before I left on Thursday and they actually did it.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug, seriously. It shouldn’t take more than a few more days, tops.

Stress Management: I’m aiming to get back on the treadmill at least 5 times for a minimum of 15 minutes each time.

Health: I really need to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon. There’s been a bit too much crap in my diet lately.

Financial:  Even though my situation is more comfortable now, I have got to quit buying shit like I’m loaded.

 

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life worth living weekly update – July 6th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

It definitely wasn’t the week I thought I’d have, but it was pretty fucking awesome.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. No, but I did work on it.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill. I didn’t do this, but I’ve been pretty damn active the last few days.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed. I sort of did this but not as well as I should have.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious. It’s amazing how much more money I have available now that I’m truly only paying MY bills.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week. I got rid of a TON of stuff. I loaded the Jeep full 3 times with stuff we took to Goodwill.

 

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY!

 

life worth living weekly update – June 29th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over. (I think I said that last week, too.)

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I FINALLY finished the black and white vest and I did make good progress on the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Nope. Because of the severe issues with my legs I only managed one time and only for 10 minutes.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks. I got the chia breakfast thing figured out and it’s amazing. My diet did some up and down things last week but I managed to lose one pound. So yay.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off. This didn’t happen because of all the medical shit with Josh. I simply didn’t have the energy or inclination.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got. I didn’t get rid of anything but I was able to straighten up the yarn storage and figure out what all I’ve got.

 

The challenge is officially over and I officially did not do well. I’m going to keep plugging away at finishing the other two projects. I’m thinking the next time I do this sort of challenge that it’ll be just a little easier, like maybe not shopping for anything but groceries or something.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week.

 

life worth living weekly update – June 21st

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. There was some progress made. See below.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Didn’t go as well as I wanted it to so this goes back on the list. Again.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company. Mostly good with this one, though not entirely. I did manage to lose weight last week, which was a damn miracle. Still working on a balance.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously. It’s really hard to spend what you just don’t have. I did take the time to go over our budget and print a copy.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. This actually happened almost immediately after I posted last week. We didn’t get rid of much but Josh did manage to move most of his winter stuff in his cedar chest to free up some room in there.

I made great progress on the knit shrug last week, as evidenced by the one pic I shared. I need to bind off that sleeve and then start the other half. I had the kid frog the crocheted vest yesterday. It was sad, but it needed to happen. There was no fucking way to salvage that damn thing.

I have yet to get back to the black and white vest and I still haven’t touched the dragon cross stitch. I honestly don’t think there’s any hope in hell of getting this all done in time.

Goals for this week:

Staying out of prison is a legit goal, right?

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN. Sweet Ceiling Cat am I tired of this bullshit…

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got.

 

life worth living weekly update – June 14th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

This week was really pretty odd. Josh started back to school and was gone three nights. This is good but it always takes a little time to adjust. And evidently one of my meds doesn’t like me getting a whole lot of sun. I have a rather wicked rash that looks horrid. But it was a good week overall.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I did work some on the crocheted vest though not as consistently as I had wanted to. My plan is to get the black and white vest done today.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. I walked four times on the treadmill and I can’t remember if I got 25 minutes in each time or not. I am adjusting the speed and incline so that my workout sessions are a little more intense.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I need to continue to do this so it’s going to carry over. But… I’m also going to get back to eating better. My habits over the weekend kind of went to shit. I want to lose a little weight this week so it’s back to eating salads for me. This was a little hit and miss though I feel like I did really well with the skin stuff. The only night I did do everything was last night and I had a mani/pedi yesterday. The eating better was mostly better. It would have been great if I hadn’t gone for ice cream twice. But I didn’t gain any weight last week and that’s good.

Financial:  I want to try to take a long hard look at what I’m doing with my money and where I need to make changes. (other than just not going shopping) Didn’t get to this.

Simplify:  I’m not sure right now what makes the most sense to do with this right now. And actually, I may just put it off in favor of spending more time with my 28 day challenge. I did manage to take a small load of stuff to Goodwill. There’s much temptation to dig into the closet again and get rid of a few things, just not sure if that will happen this next week or not.

This isn’t much of an update, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

For some reason I just haven’t been able to stick to the plan I had laid out for myself. I am still making progress, which is good. I also made another vest yesterday that just needs a few tweaks and then I’ll call it finished and that one wasn’t part of the original plan. But it was super quick and very funky. Anyway, I’m going to try to get back to this today.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Trying this one AGAIN as well.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. The shelf above the rod is where Josh and I keep our t-shirts and it’s an utter mess. I’d like to get him to go through his clothes sometime this week, just not sure if it’ll happen.

 

life worth living weekly update – June 8th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

So evidently I didn’t bother to change the title of last week’s post. Wow…

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. Well, sort of. I did this for several days, but not every day. I did make some nice progress though.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 15 minutes minimum. I lost track of how many times, but I did at least the 5 and often longer than 15 minutes, plus I got a lot of walking in Friday evening at the art festival and then a ton of exercise this weekend in the yard. And this morning I did 25 minutes.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I think I neglect Friday night and Saturday night but that was it. The results are wonderful.

Financial:  The bills for all of Josh’s medical stuff will likely start rolling in any day now, so I need to get back to pretending I’m super poor and stop thinking I really need new shoes and more Legos. Um…

Simplify:  We did a tiny bit of purging at home this weekend and I brought a few pieces home from my office, mostly because I’m getting a new adjustable desktop thing that will allow me to work standing up and I didn’t figure it would be a good idea to have things hanging on the wall behind that. Anyway, I’d like to keep trying to streamline things a bit. I redid some things on my desk last night to try to help. Visually it was just too much. I think what I’ve got setup now is better, but we’ll see.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Turning it up a little from last week.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I need to continue to do this so it’s going to carry over. But… I’m also going to get back to eating better. My habits over the weekend kind of went to shit. I want to lose a little weight this week so it’s back to eating salads for me.

Financial:  I want to try to take a long hard look at what I’m doing with my money and where I need to make changes. (other than just not going shopping)

Simplify:  I’m not sure right now what makes the most sense to do with this right now. And actually, I may just put it off in favor of spending more time with my 28 day challenge.

So you’re getting a two-fer today. Yay!

The black and white vest has the outer binding pretty well done. I need to go back and fix a few spots, trim excess fabric, and cut off the threads. I have measured my sample piece so I know where to cut for the arms.

The crocheted vest is getting there. The back is done and I’ve started the arms/collar stuff. I’m guessing that’s not going to take a whole lot longer. I hope.

I’ll do my best to have progress pics to show next week.

life worth living weekly update – May 24th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

Creative:  I will get that black and white vest finished before starting or going back to anything else. Almost. I have the whole outer edge done I just need to do the armholes. Hopefully tomorrow night.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 3 sessions of 20 minutes minimum. I lost track of how many times, but it was at least 3. So yay!

Health:  I will figure out how to easily add my food intake in the Fitbit tracking app. Oh I figured it out just fine, and learned that I’m really mostly lazy. Doh!

Financial:  Friday is payday for both of us so it’ll be time to pay the piper. Until then I need to minimize how much goes out. I did really pretty good with this.

Simplify:  One of the tasks on my list is to make another go through my jewelry armoire, so that’s up for this week. Done!

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 15 minutes minimum.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. Because I wear sandals so much my heels are trashed. And my hands are usually all dried out and cracked as well. I’ve found some stuff for my heels that I put on before bed and then yesterday I gave in and got a jar of coconut oil. I’ve been having so much trouble again with everything else that I figured it was worth a shot. It absorbed right in and smelled great. So I need to do my hands and feet and every night before bed.

Financial:  The bills for all of Josh’s medical stuff will likely start rolling in any day now, so I need to get back to pretending I’m super poor and stop thinking I really need new shoes and more Legos.

Simplify:  We did a tiny bit of purging at home this weekend and I brought a few pieces home from my office, mostly because I’m getting a new adjustable desktop thing that will allow me to work standing up and I didn’t figure it would be a good idea to have things hanging on the wall behind that. Anyway, I’d like to keep trying to streamline things a bit.

gearing up for…?

Tags

28 day challenge, crocheting, cross stitch, finishing stuff, getting back my mojo, goals, knitting, motivation, projects, pushing myself, sewing, stress management

Ok, let’s get a few little updates/reminders taken care of…

Next Friday is the second Summer Drawing Challenge. The prompt this time is flower. If you want to join the fun try to have your drawing ready by then.

My getting healthy personal project is coming along nicely. In spite of eating out twice this last week and having a bit of candy I still managed to lose 1lb. I’m quite pleased by this. I have been on the treadmill twice so far, once for 20 minutes and once for 30 minutes. I need to get a new pair of walking shoes before I get back on as the ones I have are hurting my feet. That’s on the schedule for either later today or tomorrow morning. The Fitbit is helping with this immensely.

Anyone who is interested in doing a 28 Day Challenge, don’t forget that we’ll start on Monday, June 1. I would encourage you to be finalizing your project selection and to start making your list of the 28 one-hour tasks you’ll need to complete to get your project done.

I am not going to be quite that structured with mine this time, but I have a reason. These are my four started projects that I’m going to try to finish and my general plans to do that.

crocheted vest

What you see is the pictures I found of this lovely little vest, but I couldn’t find a pattern, at least not in English. So I’m winging it. The yarn was a gift from my knitting pals when I first went into the hospital back in 2006. I’ve already made a knit sweater out of it, but I wanted something I could wear any time of year.

I’ve started the back and I’m maybe 1/3 of the way done with that. I need to finish the back section and then figure out how the sleeves/collar are constructed. I honestly think if I just sit down and do this it shouldn’t take even the whole week I’ve allotted for it.

knit shrug

I started this shrug much earlier this year. The way I do these is to start in the middle of the back using a provisional cast on and then work down the sleeves. I tend to make the sleeves as long as I have yarn for, but I might not do that this time. Part of the issue I’m having with this is that I decided I wanted to add some shaping to the sleeves, which is great, but it’s been so long since I picked it up and I didn’t bother to write down what I was doing, so now I’ve completely forgotten.

This is probably damn near 1/2 done and would probably only take 4 or 5 days of concentrated effort.

black and white vest – sewing project

I realize that you really can’t tell anything about this project just from the pic, but you should be able to see how beautiful the pattern is on the fabric itself. This was inspired by a gorgeous vest I got when Mom and I went to Pella. Very flowing, soft fabric, incredibly flattering. I decided to look closer and see if I could reconstruct it. Turned out it’s just a rectangle of fabric with the raw edges covered in satin bias tape and then two arm slits cut in the middle, also finished with bias tape. So that’s what I’m doing. I have the tape pinned on 3/4 of the way around the outer edge already. I need to finish that pinning, sew it, and then do the arms. In all honesty this should be the fastest project of all of them, maybe 2 days.

dragon cross stitch

This one will be my problem child.

I honestly can’t remember when I started this, though it’s entirely possible that it was pre-Dx, so 2006? Maybe? I went through a phase where all I did was cross stitch and blackwork projects. I was smart enough to keep everything together so, as long as my hands cooperate, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to finish. My biggest concern with this is that I have no fucking clue how long he’ll take. Because of that I’m really thinking he’ll be last.

So here’s the order I’m planning to attack these in:

1. black and white vest
2. knit shrug
3. crocheted vest
4. dragon cross stitch

And I might actually see if I can’t get the b/w vest cranked out this weekend since that was on my list of goals for this week anyway. I’d still do the other three projects for my challenge and I’m still quite certain that it’ll be challenging.

Anyone else out there with me?

well that was not as useful as expected

Tags

28 day challenge, anxiety, getting creative, goals, motivation, skin conditions, stress

Apparently y’all are just as noncommittal about what I should do for the June challenge as I am. I guess I’ll just have to make up my mind for myself. Oh the horror!

Part of why I want to embark on this little journey right now is because I really kind of feel like I’ve lost my mojo when it comes to taking charge. I’m a little behind with some rather important tasks at work, I’m kind of half-assing it with the whole getting healthy thing, and I honestly haven’t really been finishing things lately. I find all of this frustrating and I want to do something about it. So I’ve decided.

The theme for my 28 Day Challenge will be finishing the craft projects that I have started. Those projects will include:

• a knit shrug (almost half done)
• the black and white vest (probably about 1/3 done)
• the crocheted vest (not even 1/4 done)
• small dragon cross stitch (about 1/3 done)

That gives me one week to finish each project. I’m committing a minimum of one hour per day. If I finish a project in less than a week I will almost certainly start on the next. And I might cheat by getting back to the black and white vest before Monday since I had said I wanted to try to finish that for this week’s regular goals. Hey, it’s my party and I will cheat on myself all I want. I plan to post my official plan on Sunday and then start in earnest on Monday. Progress reports, complete with photos, will be made on Sundays. (last time it was Fridays, but this feels more right somehow, so I’m just going with it)

We had the appointment with the plastic surgeon yesterday to discuss options for Josh’s ass. It’s finally starting to heal but now that the swelling from the infection is mostly gone it’s a lot easier to see where it tunneled under the skin from one site to another. It actually changed the contour of his ass. Weird, to say the least.

Anyway, the surgeon said that Josh is definitely a candidate for surgical intervention for this shit. He explained what he’d need to do, that it would be an outpatient procedure, and that Josh would be off work for about a week recovering. Insurance would cover this since it’s medically necessary and not at all cosmetic.

Here’s the crap part; there’s no guarantee that the infection wouldn’t come back in another location and then that could potentially require surgery as well.

So next week we’re going to see my dermatologist to see what she can offer. We’re already doing all of the preventative things at home that are possible, the surgeon confirmed that yesterday. The dermatologist had mentioned antibiotic therapy as a possibility and Josh is probably more of a candidate for that than I am given that I’m allergic to damn near all antibiotics. There’s also some kind of blue light thing that she’s mentioned before, but I can’t remember if that’s only really effective during flare ups.

At this point we really don’t have quite enough information to make a decision, hopefully the visit with the dermatologist will give us that. I know that I don’t want to see him have to go through this again if we can possibly avoid it. Beyond that, I don’t know much of anything.

 

need y’all’s input

Tags

28 day challenge

I realized last night that while I really want to do this 28 day challenge in June, I have no freakin’ clue as to what I want to use it for. DUH! So I’ve been doing a little brainstorming while eating my salad for lunch and came up with some possibilities. I think they’re all decent and would be good things to do, I’m just curious as to what y’all think.