Weeks 1492 and 1493

Sheesh - I’m not off to a great start this year when it comes to my reflections. I am essentially at a full month of combined weeks of reflection. 

That’s a problem I can address next Sunday. 

While I definitely have wasted time in the last couple of weeks, it has been incredibly busy in my personal life as we closed on a house in two weeks and spent 01/15/26 moving and the remainder of the weekend unpacking and settling in. Thankfully, most of the unpacking was done by Sydney on the 15th and we have just been fine-tuning and wrapping up at our old apartment since. 

With a quick close, most of my free time for the past two weeks was spent combing over a ton of legalese, ensuring that I understood the ins and outs of the decision that we were making. 

Most importantly, I was combing through documents to ensure that we weren’t going to run into issues with having four pets (two dogs and two cats) and to ensure that there aren’t breed restrictions on Great Danes in our HOA. 

The house we picked is only 1.5 years old. The logic in getting a newer build was that there would be more warranties that carried over to us and less that we would have to do immediately with the house. 

Being 6’9”, a lot of older houses weren’t an option as I am past the point where I am willing to duck through all of the doorways and unwilling to feel uncomfortable or inconvenient in my own house. 

We got almost everything we wanted with our compromises being that we have a two car garage instead of a three car garage (we wanted a gym in the garage instead of the basement) and the house is a duplex. 

Regardless, it has been surprisingly relieving getting a place that is ours. Knowing that we never again have to worry about rent changing. Knowing that we won’t have to worry about moving for a long time (we plan on living here at least 5-10 years). 

I view this decision as a psychological win. 

Syd does interior design and this gives her a place to experiment without fear of repercussions (although this is ironic because she is fearing the repercussions of living with the mistakes) and a place that is ours. We aren’t counting on the value of the home skyrocketing or anything like that and that gives me a lot of mental peace. 

We don’t need that to happen, it’s a plus if it does. 

Also, I caught a gas leak in the first couple of days that has likely been ongoing for the last year from the gas stove being installed without any dope tape. Welcome to home ownership! 

Syd and I also shared a sweet moment when we first let the dogs into the back yard. One of my hopes was to purchase a house with a yard so Hank could live out the last of his days sunning himself in it. Unfortunately, he had heart failure before we could realize this. 

Letting the dogs out into the yard for the first time made me cry. While I don’t believe a yard is a substitute for walking your dogs or training them - I love knowing that Truman and Ellie have a place that is theirs. A place to have a good romp in the snow at a moment’s notice. A place to relax in the sun. I place to sniff and not be limited by my desire to not be freezing my ass off. 

The tears were tears of joy and tears of sorrow. Joy for the pets we have and sorrow for the ones that didn’t get to experience having a place of their own. 

Now for a seamless transition…

On top of the house purchase, I was way overdue for an oil change (I was about 10k miles in) and learned that gear oil is supposed to be changed every 20k miles. My Outback has 91k miles on it and I’m 90% sure I have never done one of these…

Now to the juicy deets. What have I been doing to get closer to my goals?

Not as much as I would like. 

I barely worked with the dogs. I barely did Japanese. I was consistent in going to the gym except for last week when we started the move. 

With the move, I will be moving gyms and have been feeling anxious about going to gyms that are more crowded than mine but this move is partly about convenience and I don’t want to drive 20 minutes each way to the gym when I can drive only 5. 

That’s a lot of my life lost when you consider that I go 5x a week. 

I have been enjoying the RP Hypertrophy app overall (especially now that it is an app). I like that if I’m not getting enough of a pump, it increases the number of sets and allows me to push harder. I prefer RPE to RIR so that has been an adjustment and I try to err on the side of doing too much as it often feels a bit too easy. 

I’m curious how I will continue to feel about this as I keep working out. 

I was starting to move the needle with my diet and gaining weight but weighed in for the first time in a few days on Sunday (usually, I weigh in daily) and I was only 230. I should be right around 234 if I were perfectly on track. My goal is to go into my cut at 240 and my cut begins the first day of March (I am about 6 weeks out at the time of writing this so my target should be ~ 236). 

I have been less concerned about my rate of gain than ensuring that I am actually gaining the weight. 

As I reflect on my goals and where I want to be, the most important thing is taking daily action. I have been very bad about doing this, even with the idea of taking a periodized approach. 

Of course, I post these reflections and I take the time to go to the gym but I don’t see just these activities getting me where I want to be. 

I see no point in berating myself over not doing what I need to do. I just need to take the actions that demonstrate that these are priorities to me and I am not there yet. Rather, I am not taking enough action to achieve any of my goals in a reasonable timeline. 

I want to make them an inevitability and inaction makes them an impossibility. 

Not a coherent train of thought but I just remembered that Syd’s mom shipped our Christmas gifts to us last week and I was genuinely shocked that she got me more of the gifts on my list than I expected. I would have been pleased with anything but was overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation for Syd’s parents. 

They do a great job of loving us in ways that mean a lot to us and it makes us want to be around them more often. That’s easier said than done with a whole state between us but it’s really interesting experiencing a taste of her life. 

We also went with my mom and half-sister to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire with the Colorado Symphony. 

This was a unique experience that I would encourage anyone to do if you have the opportunity. For some reason, the first few songs hit me emotionally, almost causing me to tear up. Just know that theater seats suck. Maybe the tears were my discomfort… 

Unlike my experience at the Chris Williamson live podcast, there was no fondling in front of us. I found myself falling asleep from the lack of sleep that coincided with the move until an amber alert for an active shooter went off that was meant for the area around DU and instead was broadcasted to the greater Denver area. 

It was humorous hearing amber alerts go off for the following two hours. 

Lastly, for documentation purposes, I didn’t tell my mom that we bought a house until Saturday  (when we went to Harry Potter) and I still haven’t told my dad. 

Nothing against them, I just find myself not really enjoying when people ask me a bunch of questions and I think it bothers me even more when people chime in on whether or not I am making good decisions and I prefer to make my own decisions and live with the consequences. 

Could be a desire to be in control after having a lack of control growing up stuck between divorced parents that seemed to love to fight with each other. 

Could be that I just don’t like answering questions about myself. 

But then again, I am posting my life and inner monologue online - clearly, I don’t mind talking about myself… 

Maybe I’ll revisit this conversation with myself at some point. 

Probably not. 

Most importantly, Ellie’s 3rd birthday was this week!