At the end of April I took my mom shopping. We try to go at least once a year on a mother-son road trip to Asheville to hit the outlets, find some too-good-to-pass deals and eat at the only restaurant in the food court. I was terribly excited for the trip this year because I was burning out at home, feeling like all I did was workout and work. I don’t leave the house except for when I go to the gym and I was starting to get a bit of cabin fever. And regardless of how badly I wanted to go to the record store or out to the Casual Pint or even Target (or all three if I’m having a particularly good day), the fact remained that I had a daunting to-do list at home that just wouldn’t stop staring at me.

I promised Katie that if I could go shopping with my mom and have a little bit of fun one weekend I would be productive for the next month’s worth of weekends. That means every weekend of May. And by gods did I keep my word.

There’s going to be a more lengthy post about the projects coming up later this week (-ish) so I won’t go into all the details of everything I knocked out or helped Katie knock out in the last month. Just know that there isn’t much left to do all summer and that’s a great feeling. It’s also culminating in our first dinner party of the year, which I’ll also be talking about after it happens.

So if I’ve been that busy, have I also kept up with my goals? Let’s check in.

Goals I’ve Kept Up With:

Clean Eating / Evil Las Vegas

The Evil Las Vegas training program has been pretty good to me, I’ll have to say, though I haven’t exactly stuck to it as-designed. I haven’t missed any of my strength-training days but I’ve definitely decided to sleep in on more than one occasion on my active-recovery cardio days. I’ve been making up for it a bit by adding my core routine and a short bout of cardio at the end (power walking one mile) and going on occasional hour-long morning hikes in the Cove. I think I’m reaping the benefits considerably.

Visually I’m seeing a difference in my physique. I’m starting to get the v-taper back into my transversus abdominis; my back, shoulders and chest are finally bulking; my arms are noticeably bigger and my legs are thicc as always. 

From a nutrition standpoint, I’ve taken a bit from the book I finished reading (more on that below) and have altered my “diet” to be more Mediterranean. I’ve taken a few pages from the Keto book, which everyone knows I vehemently disagree with but I’ve found some useful tidbits in their “fat-as-fuel” philosophy, flawed though it may often be. I’ve nearly eliminated all sugar from my diet and have considerably cut the amount of processed foods I’ve been eating.

Add to that my two new grills (a Char-Griller Akorn Kamado and a Blackstone 1883) and you get me wanting to cook all the meats! In the last two weeks I’ve smoked chicken wings and chicken lollipops, I reverse-seared a tomahawk ribeye and made eggs, bacon, high-protein naan, gyro-style venison kebabs, mushrooms and blistered tomatoes on the flattop.

And I’m down five pounds. I dunno, you tell me.

3-Month Goal – Read 3 New Books (12 Books, 12 Month Goal)

Though it took me a lot longer than I thought it would, I was able to wrap up Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance by Christopher McDougall. I’m not saying don’t read it – it’s a good book overall but I give it a C-. While it told a great story about a rag-tag band of rebels who successfully kidnapped a Nazi general during WWII despite having no formal training, the other two-thirds of the book were made up of the author talking about his retracing of their steps (which was unnecessary) and many propaganda pieces about Keto and “functional fitness.” Eyeroll.gif, you know me. I’m now reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. My current book count for the year is eight.

Daily Music

After I wrapped up my Green Day project(s), I decided I wanted to do something different – branch out a little more with my guitar playing. Unsure of where to start, I thought it would be cool to start learning some of the popular songs by the bands I’m getting to see in the next 12 months. That led me to learning the intro, verse and chorus of Guns’n’Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” the entirety of KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Detroit Rock City” and the main riff from Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” I also picked up the rhythm riffs to AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” and “Fire Your Guns” as well as the entirety of “Thunderstruck” even though I don’t have plans to see AC/DC since they aren’t actually touring presently. Randomly I picked up Foghat’s “Slow Ride” yesterday.

Not sure if I’m proud to say it or ashamed but I’m now flirting with learning Green Day’s “Warning” album next. Oy.

House Projects

Back in my March Check-In post I revised my goal to knock out the bathroom, front door and back deck projects. Since that post we got a new curtain rod (and curtain) for the stand-up shower, I installed a new cold-water valve under Katie’s sink, we got the front door painted and installed a new lock, I replaced all the rotten boards on the back deck and we built three new posts to hold our bistro lights. There’s way, way more that we completed in the last month but I’ll expand on that in the next post – just know we’re kinda killing it on this goal now!

Goals that Need Revision:

Daily Writing

Last month I said I wanted to write two additional posts in the blog in May and that would constitute daily writing. Well, as you can see, I only managed one but that’s still pretty good. I’m renaming this goal “More Writing” with hopes of being able to report more writing projects both shared and otherwise. Because while I only ironed out a single additional post in the blog, I was able to write out the Epilogue for my Saturday Night Grindhouse book so I’ll call it a win for the month, just listing this as needs revision because of the name change.

Have Saturday Night Grindhouse Book’s Preface Ready and Have Manuscript Ready to Submit for Editing

Yeah, this hasn’t happened yet. It’s due to several factors, not least of which are me not getting around to my second round of self-edits and my host not submitting the preface I asked him to write (yet). He’s going through some shit right now so I’m not going to pester him but I do plan to have this in a ready-to-rock state by the end of the year.

New Goals:

Dreams

Years ago while reading Steve Kamb’s Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story, I wrote out a list of achievements as instructed by the author so that I could apply experience points to my life. I named it Donuts on Valhalla’s Table and it was a beefy list that I was so proud of – it included travel goals, career aspirations, hobbies and interests I wanted to pursue, bands I wanted to see live and more. Recently I told Katie that I felt like I had lost my ability to dream – that I’m stuck in the now a little too hard. I’ve knocked off items from my list of Donuts but I haven’t replaced any of them in a very long time. That’s depressing and it makes me feel broken so I’m going to start doing some creative challenges this month to help kickstart my dreaming again.

Goals I’m Letting Go:

None this month!

Rad Things from May:

Katie and I had dinner at Ale Rae’s GastroPub on North Broadway and it’s one of our favorite spots now. We learned that maybe Wednesday doesn’t hate my guitar playing and kinda sings along with me after I play a lick, which is cool. We got to visit our friend Jess as she performed with Dragonfly Circus Arts. I resoldered the output jack on my Les Paul even though I have no idea what I’m doing and kind-of fixed it (it still needs work). I finished a lot of household chores I was dreading (again, more on that in the next post). Finally, I had a crown fall off my front tooth while I was eating a Caesar salad and had to go the entire Memorial Day weekend looking like Sloth from the Goonies.

Oh, and this little thing called Max took up 100% of my time between 7:30am and 6pm every weekday. And some weekends. Plz subscribe. Thx.

-JS