Cory, I bought an Seagull acoustic guitar and decided that I wanted to learn how to play on my 62nd birthday (~2 weeks ago). I'm about where you are now in the core program and my fingers now tolerate 1/2 to 1 hour practice sessions twice a day without much complaint. My initial goal was to learn the chords for a few campfire songs from m younger days, but these five simple chords learned at this point in the core system have caused me to rethink that. My progressions are still a little shaky but I'm liking what I've picked up so far. I spend a few minutes each day trying some of the harder more advanced chords and I think once I learn to stretch these old stubby fingers I'll do alright. Hope you are enjoying this as much as I am