Kaitlin and I decided that we were ten years old and built a bird feeder using a few common household items and a stick. It actually turned out pretty good! The first few days were a little discouraging: no birds wanted in on our humble buffet.
Today they finally found the time to check it out! My wife got a couple of really excellent shots of two birds chowing down together. Go here to see the rest!
I’ve been approaching my weightlifting once more with renewed interest and vigor. I found that dividing the week up into separate days for each muscle group was much more effective. Four days a week, one each for legs, arms, back, and chest. It lets me hit each one with more intensity, put up higher weights, and make excellent gains as a result. My max deadlift hit 307lbs over the weekend, which was a huge accomplishment for me. I’m going to be focusing on my legs for the next month or two, then moving on to my chest.
My arms have made a huge improvement over the last month or two. I was doing a routine that put a little more focus on them because I wasn’t quite satisfied with how they were developing in relation to my legs. My legs have always responded extremely quickly to any sort of training. I guess that’s what I get for playing soccer for over 10 years.
I’m at about 182, maybe 183lbs right now, which puts me exactly 30lbs over my starting weight of 153lbs, which was on 27 Sept 2010. The progress has been fairly steady, but I’m ready to invoke the old cliche and take it to the next level. I’ve already put a heavier focus on a proper diet, now I just need to make sure I have the right lifting routine to match it or else I’ll just get fat.
Life at home has been pretty positive overall. With Kaitlin having hit the 10 week countdown recently, the reality is sinking in a little bit more. We’re going to be parents, I’ll think suddenly. Like I hadn’t known that to begin with or something. The Great Accumulation of Stuff has been coming along nicely. We’ll be getting the remainder of the cloth diapers, washable wipes, the crib, and God only knows what else within the next month or so.
Aside from the finances, the only thing I really need to “worry” about is the birth itself. While Kaitlin will definitely have the Big Job that day, my responsibilities aren’t to be overlooked. We’ve got a definite idea of how we’d like the birth to go in terms of medication, interventions, and the like (namely, as natural as possible). It’s my job to make sure that, when Kaitlin is at her most vulnerable during the birthing process, she doesn’t have to worry about anything else. We’ve educated ourselves to the point where we’re pretty aware of the pros and cons of all the different medical interventions, so we’re going to be more than capable of “informed refusal” as well as “informed consent”.
I’m going to be switching into Protective Husband Mode for the duration of the process. I’m well aware of the fact that the difficulty ahead for me pales in comparison to the difficulty Kaitlin’s going to be facing, but it’s nonetheless something for which I should be extensively prepared. It’s going to be exhausting, I’ll have drained the lion’s share of my own mental and physical resources upon its completion. My physical fitness is just another way of preparing me for that. It’s going to be my crucible, an event which will shape me in ways entirely unknown to me. It is a trial of which I must be entirely capable.
“If anyone tells you that such a person speaks ill of you, don’t make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: ‘He does not know my other faults, else he would not have mentioned only these.’” — The Enchiridion, by Epictetus
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Love this character.
(via nocountryforslaughter-deactivat)
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It’s not like I’m obligated to post here, and my new wireless keyboard seems hellbent on making this process much more difficult than it would ever need to be. And to think I’d bought it for the convenience! I guess that’s what I get for buying Lexma brand products. The key presses require indomitable strength to function properly, the backspace key (which is half the size of conventional backspace keys) doubly so.
Had I mentioned that I’m going to be a father? I’m sure it’s come up at some point, but I suppose it bears repeating. She’s six months along now, six months which seem to have passed by without my noticing. It seems as if mere weeks had passed since she came into the kitchen (I know, I know, ‘what was she doing out of it?’) and told me the great news. I feel the baby kick all the time and it warms my heart. The ultrasound chick told us we were having a girl and we eventually decided to name her Annabelle.
Kaitlin came up with the name first, apparently, and I’d since dismissed it in favor of my first choice, Abigail. She’d vetoed that decision, however, and one day while I was brushing my teeth I decided that Annabelle would be an awesome name. I had, of course, since forgotten that Kaitlin had come up with the name in the first place. As far as I was concerned, the idea was mine.
I guess most of the reason for my utter lack of blog posts is my utter lack of doing anything awesome. I got my wife pregnant, sure, and that’s a fairly big deal, especially since it took something like nine months for me to get there. Outside of my biological drive to father a dozen children, though, things have been pretty quiet.
The workout routine I’d started with had started to lose its appeal. I’d put on a good 20 pounds and gained a fair bit of strength, but it was less and less fun as time went on. I’ve since changed my routine to something that is a great deal more punishing. Check it.
Chest/arms:
Bench press, 3x12, 10, 8, increasing weight each set.
Seated overhead press, 3x8
Lateral raises, 3x8
Barbell curls, 3x10
Skullcrushers, 3x8
I’m thinking of adding incline bench press to work more of my upper chest, since the bench can only hit it so much.
Back/legs:
Squats, 3x10, 8, 6, increasing weight each set.
Deadlifts, 3x10 (probably my favorite exercise)
Bent over rows, 3x8
Wide-grip pullups, pronated, 3x10
Weighted calf raises, 3xfailure
I added the calf raises in to even out the legs and I can really feel the burn. It’s fun to push myself past the threshold of pain on those exercises. It really feels like I’m getting something out of it.
Gaining weight is difficult. I don’t know how some people manage to do it, but I can’t just eat all day. I mean, I could if the food was garbage like most people eat, and if I drank soda all the goddamn time, but I can’t roll like that. I’ve stocked up on clean foods, I drink a ton of milk, and I’m getting a lot of protein every day. It’s just hard to remind myself to eat what is basically a full meal every three hours in order to gain weight.
Pretty much everybody will tell you that any given workout routine is 80% diet. If I’m not gaining weight, I’m not gaining muscle and I’m basically just working out for no reason. I weigh about 173 pounds right now, up from 155 in September. I’m hoping to hit 190 in a few months, then I’ll start eating at a caloric deficit and doing cardio to cut out the body fat while I keep eating a ton of protein to maintain my muscle mass. With less body fat, the muscle I’ve gained will show a lot easier. Then I’ll bulk again, and within a year or so I should be reaching my long term goals.
14:06 <Riddy> Grandma is afraid of invisible bears.
14:06 <Alexx> Invisible bears are no laughing matter, dude.
14:06 <Alexx> They’re scary as shit.
14:06 <Pravus_> Yeah, I’d be scared of invisible bears.
14:06 <Alexx> I mean, have you ever seen one?
14:06 <Alexx> NEITHER HAVE I.
14:06 <Pravus_> Glad we don’t have many around here.
14:06 <Alexx> How do you know, thougH?
14:07 <Pravus_> Well.. I’ve never seen any around here
14:07 <Alexx> WELL NO SHIT.
14:07 <Alexx> THEY’RE INVISIBLE BEARS.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’ve only been married three years (this coming August), but I’ve learned a few things. Things both interesting and strange, about myself and about the strange, wonderful, life-long partnership in which I’ve found myself. I’m not sure when I became fully aware of it, just that I suddenly found it necessary to tell everyone.
I found myself getting annoyed in increasingly smaller periods of time. Not just annoyed, but annoyed for stupid reasons. Whenever my wife sneezes, for instance. I don’t know what it is. The volume, the timbre, or the particular KIND of sound. But for just a brief moment, I feel as if she has done this thing with the sole intention of angering me. Also, she has the hiccups right now and I want to slap her.
Marriage teaches you a lot about yourself, too. On That 70s Show I once heard a character say “being a man means doing stuff you don’t want to do”. Sure, it was for comedic effect, but it’s actually pretty true. Don’t want to wake up in the morning to go to work? Don’t want to hold your wife’s bag while she tries on clothes? Too fucking bad, son. You’re a man now and that’s what men do. Put on your big boy pants, pony up, and get that shit DONE.
Getting married provides excellent motivation, I find. Before I got hitched I was working a shit job in a small village and going nowhere. Who would have known that just four years later I’d be owning my own house! This sort of thing doesn’t just fall into one’s lap, however; this sort of thing must be ACCOMPLISHED. Do I sound like I’m bragging? Maybe I am.
I also learned how to shut my goddamn mouth. There are plenty of times when I feel as if I have the Perfect Thing to Say. Were this any other universe, were I in any other position, I would say It, but no! I am a learned man now, wise in the ways of the world. I have learned the wisdom in shutting the fuck up. Sometimes it’s simply best to nod your agreement and proceed. This particular philosophy is applicable to life in general, I find.
To enter a marriage is to enter into an existence inexorably bound to another. You function as a single individual in many respects. Some might argue that one might give up a degree of autonomy for this rare privilege. Not so, I say! The desires of the one quickly become the desires of the pair, even if the other one was previously unaware of it. Strange how that works, I know, but you get used to it pretty quick. It’s actually kind of nice.
In conclusion, there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’, but there is ‘meat’, and meat is delicious.