On the Second Quarter of 2025
A few days late here, but I’ve had a busy weekend! I was in NYC for the actual solstice, but I’ve had time to collect my thoughts on the past three months and am somewhat pleased with this quarterly update. I’ve made some progress on some goals, less progress on others, but this is still a good way for me to check in on myself, prove that I am actually doing things, and hold myself accountable. 3 out of 9 are done, 3 out of 9 have significant progress, and the last 3 need some work.
Read 25 books - Still super in progress! My TBR keeps growing (I should probably make a blog post on that and the books I’ve read this year…). I made the choice to re-read the Eragon series in hopes of starting the latest book, “Murtagh”. It took me about a month to get through Eragon, and though I’ve started the second book in the series, I’m only about 100 pages in despite being over a month into reading it. I’ve had other priorities. I’m currently on book 18 out of 25 for the year though - not bad!
Visit one new NHP (bonus points if it’s in a new state) - Not yet, but maybe in August? We did add a picture from New Jersey to our photo map! It just wasn’t from a new NHP.
Re-start learning a language, preferably Spanish (DONE)- Well. It still isn’t Spanish. I’m on level 18 of French on Duolingo and I’m pretty thankful that I remember so much from middle school and high school. Conjugations are tough. Everything in the language having a gender is tougher.
Finish a Legacy game (DONE) - We finished Ticket to Ride and My City, and we’ve moved on to a legacy version of Betrayal at Huse on the Hill. We haven’t been able to play in a while due to our crazy summer schedules, but Chris and Matt and Brian and I have a game night on the books for the next month or so. We won’t finish the third any time soon, but it’ll be done before the end of the year.
Get the website to 1000 views (DONE) - I’m dumb and can’t read analytics right. For a little “behind the scenes” action, Squarespace (who we use to run this website) has analytics for lots of data points, broken down by day over the past month by default. I was looking at that and not the year to date. We’ve had over 1,500 unique page views so far this year! Thank you!! We’ve also had over 700 site visits and 424 unique visitors. That means this is reaching a lot of people. To those who find our nook on the net: welcome.
Do something for Dad - still haven’t made a whole lot of progress on this. I need to seriously buckle down on this one and get it going before Dad’s birthday. The don’t do benches in OCMD anymore. I guess they got too popular. My current thoughts are a leaf on their “beautification committee” tree or tree planting donations with the Arbor Day Foundation. Maybe both.
Travel to a new state - not really in the works as of right now. I’d love to travel more, but with work ramping up and Brian’s job getting ever-busier, we’ll see if this happens this year.
Write more - Three months ago I thought I’d write a book. I never got started but instead I’m the Dungeon Master of our latest D&D campaign, so I’m writing tons. Story threads, character backstories, puzzles, battles, you name it. I’m writing all right, just not exactly something I’d get published.
Take the ATP exam.- Yeah… I still have to do this. The plan was to study as much as I could before and during the extended school year, then take it before the fall semester starts. I’m having a hard time motivating myself and need a real strong incentive. If anyone has ideas on how to get my brain to like to study, I’d be open to them.
-G