skater,

Allow me to share my experience for your benefit. Not too long ago, I had been flying my trusty (albeit older) avistar with an instructer and had finally soloed on a Sunday afternoon. I had been doing much as you described, basically soloing with an instructor close by "just in case". Well, I happened to get cleared on a Sunday and I had Monday off work. So I packed up the truck and headed for what I thought was going to be a nice relaxing morning of flight. I had been pretty comfortable doing the basic loops, rolls, immelmand, split-S, cuban-8, stall turns, etc. I had also been trying to work on a slow/axial roll on the simulator. Well, I took off and was flying around for about 5 min and was feeling pretty comfortable and (over)confident so I thought I'd try that slow roll on the real thing. Well, somewhere in the 6th minute of that flight, my rudder thumb zigged when it should have zagged. The result was a completely demolished Avistar. I learned in a hurry that when you start out flying, your 2 biggest enemies are:

1. Overconfidence / impatience
2. LACK OF ALTITUDE!!!!!!

Lesson learned - no matter how comfortable you think you are, go slowly, think about what you want to try, think about how to recover when (not if - WHEN) you screw up, and do it at least twice as high as you think you need to be.

BTW, my new Avistar flies like a dream with a TT.46 I'm sure the engine will be a real powerhouse when it gets broken in.
Good luck!