Normally people pontificate on the upcoming year towards the end of the prior year. With everyone and their little dog, too, having already done that; I opted to wait a handful of week into the current year to set some goals for myself.
I feel like I spun my wheels for the most part in 2015. For better or worse I settled into a groove, or rut, depending on how you look at it. Things need to change this year.
After some unfortunate developments in 2015, I was thrust into a number of new roles within the company where I work. For 2016 I need to get better at those roles because those roles drive revenue and with a radically new ownership structure on the horizon, ever dollar will be scrutinized and that is something we are entirely unfamiliar with. What was previously a free-wheeling company with virtually no revenue expectations is now expected to be a money-making machine. Being responsible for approximately 15% of that revenue (if not more), I need to step things up.
Secondly, I need to be better about distancing myself from work. There will always be that need for taking care of problems minutes after they arise – that's the nature of a small 24/7 business. The key is knowing when to prioritize things. I have been careful in how I approached things, letting other know that I put work second but still being able to fix problems when they need to be fixed. I stay in my corner of the work world and let others fight their battles because I control my own destiny and people repeatedly state that they notice how much work I do and are impressed with how I exceed their expectations.
The third area is self-improvement. I am used to working my ass off. It comes from growing up on a farm where manual labor and long hours were the norm. I need to get back to that. I intend to step up to bat in the area of helping my parents who are no longer young. I also intend to pitch in whenever I can to help my in-laws whose health is beginning to fade. One would think that with eight children that there would always be help around when it is needed but that simply isn't the case. I enjoy helping them out and I look at it as returning the favor for them letting me have garden space at their farm.
The fourth area is my health in general. Item three will go a long way in improving my health but I also need to make smarter choices about what I eat and drink. Now don't go crazy thinking that I'm cutting out beer, wine or alcohol in general because I'm not. I actually consume those rather infrequently. I do need to completely eliminate soda from my diet and find ways to improve my overall fitness. Maybe that means more bike rides with my kids or running with them as they ride their bikes. Whatever the case, I intend to lose ten pounds this year and gain back the muscle tone which has become a bit soft in recent years.
Wait and see if I meet these goals in eleven months.
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
I turned 34 today
Turning 34 years old isn't much of a landmark in the grand scheme of things. It's not as momentous as turning 40 or 30 and it's definitely not 16 or 21. 34 years old, though, is about half way to reitrement age or at least some crazy dream I have about when it would be logical for me to retire.
Turning 34 years old, though, is a bit of a landmark for me. This year we'll be adding a second child to our family -- that happens in August. December will mark one year since I left the job which have held the longest in my professional career and it will also mark one year for me in a position which I have strived to attain for many years -- a managerial role.
I will also spend the year getting serious about a few things. I dabbled with farmer's markets last year and loved both providing people who are basically my neighbors with fresh, home-grown fruits and vegetables. I also agreed, over a bottle of 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, to run in a 5K with a friend in October which means I will be spending much of the year building on the training I did with my wife last year as she trained for her first 5K.
Of course I will continue remodeling and repairing my house, my garage and my property in general. I will as always continue to further my photography skills and become more involved in my community because it's a pretty cool town that always comes together and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Turning 34 years old, though, is a bit of a landmark for me. This year we'll be adding a second child to our family -- that happens in August. December will mark one year since I left the job which have held the longest in my professional career and it will also mark one year for me in a position which I have strived to attain for many years -- a managerial role.
I will also spend the year getting serious about a few things. I dabbled with farmer's markets last year and loved both providing people who are basically my neighbors with fresh, home-grown fruits and vegetables. I also agreed, over a bottle of 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, to run in a 5K with a friend in October which means I will be spending much of the year building on the training I did with my wife last year as she trained for her first 5K.
Of course I will continue remodeling and repairing my house, my garage and my property in general. I will as always continue to further my photography skills and become more involved in my community because it's a pretty cool town that always comes together and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Gone is November, one project is good enough to debut
This year has simply flown by and I'm not quite sure where the time has gone. Maybe it's because I've been off doing all sorts of time-consuming projects (three of which I'm almost finished with, only 33 to go!). Or maybe the time has flown because I'm getting older.
This isn't going to be me lamenting over tedious parts of my life that I have no business sharing with anyone outside of a doctor's examination room (don't worry, folks, no erectile dysfunction here...) but I'm starting to feel old.
Oh sure, most of the world's population (okay, maybe it's more like 65%) is older than me but the whole age thing comes creeping up. It's getting harder to hide the fact that I eat like shit and drink like a horse like a horse who had just galloped through the entirety of the Mojave Desert. (Busted, I don't even drink that much). Weight has never been an issue for me but now I find myself standing in front of the mirror jiggling my slowly expanding gut. Hell, I just ate 3/4 lb. of smoked pork while I've been writing this so maybe I need to begin with portion control. I totally blew off my burgeoning jogging routine this year because we were busy most night pitching in watching our four young nephews a few nights each week while their mother worked nights and their dad worked 12-15 hour days. A few nights of that left me wanting to do nothing more than relax. Couple that with the sweltering summer we had here in Minnesota and outdoor time wasn't exactly in the cards -- especially for extraneous physical activity.
See, I have an excuse for everything.
Once August rolled around, we began working on some pretty exciting online ventures. Those have sucked up more time than I ever thought possible. I spent early weekend mornings and plenty of nights getting three of the intended four ventures off the ground and, in the process, taught myself the basics of Wordpress, some rudimentary PHP skills and learned still more about CSS. Yep, pretty nerdy stuff and those projects are nowhere near perfect yet but like plenty of things I do they are a work in progress.
I took some vacation time (four days to be exact) to catch up on household work. My yard was totally clean as the first snow fell back before Thanksgiving. I manufactured and installed some new exterior trim which was terribly deteriorated after only 40-some years and built my old lady a walk-in closet. Sure, it doesn't have a door installed yet or any texture on the drywall but that son of a bitch is built!
And because our plan for a new two stall garage is a distant dream, I sprung instead for a garage door opener on Black Friday and, pending a missing part thanks to the monkeys who can't package shit at Chamberlain's Chinese manufacturing headquarters, I am stuck with an inoperable garage door opener for the time being. (See, that one is actually out of my control)
All told, the past few month's work is all leading up to a plan to supplement our income. It's all part of that American spirit. Entrepreneurship at its finest. We both rather enjoy what we do and are, for the most part, happy with our lot in life but we also want to restore our grand old home to its former glory and give it some much-needed curb appeal which all begins with a facelift to the old three-season porch spanning its width. It's the biggest project (even compared to the bathroom we gutted and rebuilt) we plan on tackling and it requires a lot of things to fall into place. But with some luck and a lot of extra effort it's going to happen. So help us to make it happen.
So spread the word about Minnesota Recipes. In short, it's an always growing collection of, for lack of a better word, heirloom recipes. They've been dug out of dusty drawers, book cases and out of print and decades old homemakers and church cookbooks. We've been busy typing recipes from old recipe cards tagged with the names of people I faintly recall from my years growing up on the family farm. We've also been busy trying some of these crazy sounding recipes for the sole purpose of photographing them and giving them our own stamp of approval in the process. It's all a lofty order when both are saddled with full-time day jobs and a now three year-old who is as loud and curious as she is cute.
Sure, Minnesota Recipes is far from perfect but I've learned a ton along the way. I learned the quirks of certain Wordpress plugins. I learned that SEO is a real bitch to crack sometimes. I learned that it's easy as hell to get frustrated when the results of your hard work are slow to turn in to something more substantial. Beware that when you visit Minnesota Recipes that I am scraping up bits of time here and there to fill out the missing bits of information. Descriptions of many of the recipes are missing when viewed in search engines due to my learning on the fly. Photos are slow to come because there's only so much food a family of three can afford to cook and eat.
All told, though, I'm becoming happier with the fruits of my labor. This is my first full Wordpress website. Creating it, though, has secured a future for myself at my job because I have that skillset ready to use at a moment's notice.
Hey, if anyone reading this knows more about CSS than I do, maybe you can lend a hand as you'll probably notice a couple elements still somewhat out of place on the main page of Minnesota Recipes. Feel free to drop me a line, I would greatly appreciate a few minutes of your amazing skills!
Thanks, though, for following my projects and to a certain extent my life. Hopefully Minnesota Recipes grows as quickly as MinnPics did -- or even faster! And don't think for a moment that I'll forget about MinnPics. That website is my little baby. I love photography and I love seeing and sharing what other photographers across Minnesota are up to. Curating MinnPics has taught me more than I could ever dream of and has spurred both me and my wife to become better photographers and find the hidden photographic gems in our own little corner of Minnesota.
This isn't going to be me lamenting over tedious parts of my life that I have no business sharing with anyone outside of a doctor's examination room (don't worry, folks, no erectile dysfunction here...) but I'm starting to feel old.
Oh sure, most of the world's population (okay, maybe it's more like 65%) is older than me but the whole age thing comes creeping up. It's getting harder to hide the fact that I eat like shit and drink like a horse like a horse who had just galloped through the entirety of the Mojave Desert. (Busted, I don't even drink that much). Weight has never been an issue for me but now I find myself standing in front of the mirror jiggling my slowly expanding gut. Hell, I just ate 3/4 lb. of smoked pork while I've been writing this so maybe I need to begin with portion control. I totally blew off my burgeoning jogging routine this year because we were busy most night pitching in watching our four young nephews a few nights each week while their mother worked nights and their dad worked 12-15 hour days. A few nights of that left me wanting to do nothing more than relax. Couple that with the sweltering summer we had here in Minnesota and outdoor time wasn't exactly in the cards -- especially for extraneous physical activity.
See, I have an excuse for everything.
Once August rolled around, we began working on some pretty exciting online ventures. Those have sucked up more time than I ever thought possible. I spent early weekend mornings and plenty of nights getting three of the intended four ventures off the ground and, in the process, taught myself the basics of Wordpress, some rudimentary PHP skills and learned still more about CSS. Yep, pretty nerdy stuff and those projects are nowhere near perfect yet but like plenty of things I do they are a work in progress.
I took some vacation time (four days to be exact) to catch up on household work. My yard was totally clean as the first snow fell back before Thanksgiving. I manufactured and installed some new exterior trim which was terribly deteriorated after only 40-some years and built my old lady a walk-in closet. Sure, it doesn't have a door installed yet or any texture on the drywall but that son of a bitch is built!
And because our plan for a new two stall garage is a distant dream, I sprung instead for a garage door opener on Black Friday and, pending a missing part thanks to the monkeys who can't package shit at Chamberlain's Chinese manufacturing headquarters, I am stuck with an inoperable garage door opener for the time being. (See, that one is actually out of my control)
All told, the past few month's work is all leading up to a plan to supplement our income. It's all part of that American spirit. Entrepreneurship at its finest. We both rather enjoy what we do and are, for the most part, happy with our lot in life but we also want to restore our grand old home to its former glory and give it some much-needed curb appeal which all begins with a facelift to the old three-season porch spanning its width. It's the biggest project (even compared to the bathroom we gutted and rebuilt) we plan on tackling and it requires a lot of things to fall into place. But with some luck and a lot of extra effort it's going to happen. So help us to make it happen.
So spread the word about Minnesota Recipes. In short, it's an always growing collection of, for lack of a better word, heirloom recipes. They've been dug out of dusty drawers, book cases and out of print and decades old homemakers and church cookbooks. We've been busy typing recipes from old recipe cards tagged with the names of people I faintly recall from my years growing up on the family farm. We've also been busy trying some of these crazy sounding recipes for the sole purpose of photographing them and giving them our own stamp of approval in the process. It's all a lofty order when both are saddled with full-time day jobs and a now three year-old who is as loud and curious as she is cute.
Sure, Minnesota Recipes is far from perfect but I've learned a ton along the way. I learned the quirks of certain Wordpress plugins. I learned that SEO is a real bitch to crack sometimes. I learned that it's easy as hell to get frustrated when the results of your hard work are slow to turn in to something more substantial. Beware that when you visit Minnesota Recipes that I am scraping up bits of time here and there to fill out the missing bits of information. Descriptions of many of the recipes are missing when viewed in search engines due to my learning on the fly. Photos are slow to come because there's only so much food a family of three can afford to cook and eat.
All told, though, I'm becoming happier with the fruits of my labor. This is my first full Wordpress website. Creating it, though, has secured a future for myself at my job because I have that skillset ready to use at a moment's notice.
Hey, if anyone reading this knows more about CSS than I do, maybe you can lend a hand as you'll probably notice a couple elements still somewhat out of place on the main page of Minnesota Recipes. Feel free to drop me a line, I would greatly appreciate a few minutes of your amazing skills!
Thanks, though, for following my projects and to a certain extent my life. Hopefully Minnesota Recipes grows as quickly as MinnPics did -- or even faster! And don't think for a moment that I'll forget about MinnPics. That website is my little baby. I love photography and I love seeing and sharing what other photographers across Minnesota are up to. Curating MinnPics has taught me more than I could ever dream of and has spurred both me and my wife to become better photographers and find the hidden photographic gems in our own little corner of Minnesota.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
2010 goals - part 2
Each year, just as the year begins all full of promise and hope, people feel the need to make New Year's resolutions that will only be dashed in mere days instantly bringing the stench of disappointment and failure just days after that relatively clean slate. I admit that I've done the whole New Year's resolution bit before. Just last year I resolved to exercise daily - even if it involves as few as fifty sit-ups. While it wasn't a complete failure - and it got me back in to jogging during the summer months a few times each week - I didn't exactly end the year with washboard abs but it did make me much more aware of the fact that even brief vigorous exercise can shake off the day's worries and make you feel new again.
So this year I have become more realistic in my goals and resolutions for the new year.
Again, I'm vowing to exercise more regularly. It's far cheaper to exercise than to buy new jeans after packing on a couple additional inches. It makes sense due to the fact that I have the running shoes (barely used) sitting in the closet and that our bikes barely made it out of the storage shed last year. Sure, the whole lack of biking was due to a very young youngster but she's getting bigger and is practically begging to get her sticky little hands on one of those fancy bike trailers so she can get pulled around town. Of course the fancy bike trailer will be more bike trailer than fancy. Let's keep things in perspective - dad doesn't crap gold bricks.
My second goal is to work more on improving the exterior appearance of our now-111 year-old house. The porch is a thorn in my side as I hate the shitty old windows and its somewhat settled foundation giving it an unsightly slope. It's not the most noticeable to passers-by but I know it's there and it's very obvious given that the windows on its ends barely open due to the slope it's taken on over the years. Something tells me that the foundation simply sits on the ground lacking footings. All told, it's probably better (but more labor intensive & somewhat more costly) to tear the sumbich completely off and start from scratch. My parents have graciously donated the bulk of the lumber I'll need which leaves me with concrete, shingles, rubber roof membrane, a door, insulation and 15 windows. The windows are what will financially rape us. That's approaching $2,000 with that alone. Ouch. But if all works out today for my old lady (keep your fingers crossed) we'll continue to be a two income household and that will go a long way.
The third goal is to replace my shitty plastic gutters. Those snap-together jokes need to go away. They are uneven, not fully connected and half full of rook gravel and maple seeds. I will giggle like a little girl if this goal reaches completion.
My fourth and final goal is to build the popularity of MinnPics. The photos I choose to post there receive a fair amount of attention but some have basically heaped praise on the blog. It's intensely Minnesota and if you love the state you live in it's a logical fit to check in your daily routine.
So this year I have become more realistic in my goals and resolutions for the new year.
Again, I'm vowing to exercise more regularly. It's far cheaper to exercise than to buy new jeans after packing on a couple additional inches. It makes sense due to the fact that I have the running shoes (barely used) sitting in the closet and that our bikes barely made it out of the storage shed last year. Sure, the whole lack of biking was due to a very young youngster but she's getting bigger and is practically begging to get her sticky little hands on one of those fancy bike trailers so she can get pulled around town. Of course the fancy bike trailer will be more bike trailer than fancy. Let's keep things in perspective - dad doesn't crap gold bricks.
My second goal is to work more on improving the exterior appearance of our now-111 year-old house. The porch is a thorn in my side as I hate the shitty old windows and its somewhat settled foundation giving it an unsightly slope. It's not the most noticeable to passers-by but I know it's there and it's very obvious given that the windows on its ends barely open due to the slope it's taken on over the years. Something tells me that the foundation simply sits on the ground lacking footings. All told, it's probably better (but more labor intensive & somewhat more costly) to tear the sumbich completely off and start from scratch. My parents have graciously donated the bulk of the lumber I'll need which leaves me with concrete, shingles, rubber roof membrane, a door, insulation and 15 windows. The windows are what will financially rape us. That's approaching $2,000 with that alone. Ouch. But if all works out today for my old lady (keep your fingers crossed) we'll continue to be a two income household and that will go a long way.
The third goal is to replace my shitty plastic gutters. Those snap-together jokes need to go away. They are uneven, not fully connected and half full of rook gravel and maple seeds. I will giggle like a little girl if this goal reaches completion.
My fourth and final goal is to build the popularity of MinnPics. The photos I choose to post there receive a fair amount of attention but some have basically heaped praise on the blog. It's intensely Minnesota and if you love the state you live in it's a logical fit to check in your daily routine.
Monday, January 04, 2010
2010 goals - part one
Rather than combine my goals - which I plan on achieving - in to one massive post with two vastly different themes, I'm doing two parts. This one is about my professional goals for the upcoming year.
2010 is already a year of change. I don't have to wildly speculate in saying that my job will look different at the end of the year - likely vastly different than it is today. Change is in the air there but I expect to be doing less in the way of print design than I currently am and far more in the area of online advertising. Yes, I'll be whoring up some of your favorite local websites even more than they already are with ads you'll come to actually pay attention to. At least that's what I want. Of course plenty of paying customers fail to get it. They think they can take what has worked in print or in their - gasp - yellow pages ad and cram it in to a leaderboard and customers will click away to their shitty, stale, broken ass websites. That's my most challenging goal this year.
My second professional goal is to make at least one of my plans reality. I didn't accomplish anything in this area last year but I did make some headway with MinnPics, my photo blog all about Minnesota. While I still want to see more traffic to that I have plenty of other half-baked plans which I've been tossing around for far too long. I actually began one earlier tonight but after a couple hours realized that I need to start with the basics in many areas including PHP, SQL databases and Drupal which I've wanted to teach myself for at least as long as some of my plans have existed. Many of my employer's websites run on Drupal and from conversations I've had I need to learn at least the basics of it.
Now that you're thoroughly bored, my third goal is to conquer the universe and cross breed frogs and humans. Kidding. Just seeing if you're paying attention. My third and final goal is to build my rather meager photography business. That means getting out and capturing more photos and working on my weak areas including portraits and lighting. While I can easily do candids, my portraits look too forced. Maybe it's because I look like hell when photographed that I don't know how to photograph others. Or maybe I'd be better off sticking with landscapes and scenery. But I'm going to force myself to conquer this area and build some sort of business from it.
That's about it for now. Tomorrow you'll get to see my personal goals.
Monday, January 07, 2008
What will 2008 hold?
As 2008 has begun in all of its shit-tastic glory, I have to wonder if the rest of the year can possibly outshine the polished turd that has been the first partial week of the new year.
There are plenty of things I have learned from the first few days of the new year that I plan on stockpiling in my "lessons learned" file.
The first lesson is that the wife's friend whose sick child had a chest-rattling broncheal cough will, regardless of distance kept, make each and every adult within 1,000 feet sick with one ailment or another. The second part of this lesson is that said mother will still refuse to take her child to a physician (a.k.a. doctor).
The second lesson is that no matter what you remember from years past, things will change in the present. Sure, I remember paying sub-$1.00 per gallon prices for gasoline but I've officially had a driver's license for, well, quite some time (since I was 15 to be honest) and even then when prices crept to about $1.30/gallon I noticed. When we bought our house and moved (just about three years ago) we were accustomed to gas prices at $1.75/gallon. Sure, today prices hover at about $3.05/gallon and, frankly, it totally sucks but I have to say that things can always be worse. We could, for instance, have to wait in line for our gas.
The third lesson is as follows... "Just be happy you have a job". It's not so much a lesson as a phrase. An overused, full of crap phrase if there ever was one. Sure, it's great to have a job but you have the right to demand better. With CEOs making exorbitant salaries (Target's CEO raked in just over $30 million in 2007), the bread and butter of their companies are getting screwed. Benefits get slashed, raises (if there are any) don't even come close to keeping up with inflation. Remember this -- to get ahead in wages, you need a huge promotion or quit and get a new job.
The fourth and final lesson is that a shiny new car is nothing but road bling. I know this because my car is 14 years old this year. Sure, it has some skin cancer and is somewhat loud but I commute and could give a shit about the looks of "Rhett". I chose the name just now because it's close to the word "wreck". It is filthy with road sult and winter sludge and I just don't care. It's far less important in terms of appearance than how one dresses or presents themselves because you can leave your car parked around the corner but you can't do that with your clothes.
There are plenty of things I have learned from the first few days of the new year that I plan on stockpiling in my "lessons learned" file.
The first lesson is that the wife's friend whose sick child had a chest-rattling broncheal cough will, regardless of distance kept, make each and every adult within 1,000 feet sick with one ailment or another. The second part of this lesson is that said mother will still refuse to take her child to a physician (a.k.a. doctor).
The second lesson is that no matter what you remember from years past, things will change in the present. Sure, I remember paying sub-$1.00 per gallon prices for gasoline but I've officially had a driver's license for, well, quite some time (since I was 15 to be honest) and even then when prices crept to about $1.30/gallon I noticed. When we bought our house and moved (just about three years ago) we were accustomed to gas prices at $1.75/gallon. Sure, today prices hover at about $3.05/gallon and, frankly, it totally sucks but I have to say that things can always be worse. We could, for instance, have to wait in line for our gas.
The third lesson is as follows... "Just be happy you have a job". It's not so much a lesson as a phrase. An overused, full of crap phrase if there ever was one. Sure, it's great to have a job but you have the right to demand better. With CEOs making exorbitant salaries (Target's CEO raked in just over $30 million in 2007), the bread and butter of their companies are getting screwed. Benefits get slashed, raises (if there are any) don't even come close to keeping up with inflation. Remember this -- to get ahead in wages, you need a huge promotion or quit and get a new job.
The fourth and final lesson is that a shiny new car is nothing but road bling. I know this because my car is 14 years old this year. Sure, it has some skin cancer and is somewhat loud but I commute and could give a shit about the looks of "Rhett". I chose the name just now because it's close to the word "wreck". It is filthy with road sult and winter sludge and I just don't care. It's far less important in terms of appearance than how one dresses or presents themselves because you can leave your car parked around the corner but you can't do that with your clothes.
Friday, January 04, 2008
My '08 laundry list
Each year people make boring as hell resolutions which they are unable to stick to for even a week. Mine aren't so much short-term goals but likely to take the entire year to work towards. Keep in mind that I thrive on chaos and this 'list' isn't exactly in any order but just how things have popped in to my head...
1. Be Inspired
Holy crap that's a vague one but as a creative pro my mind strains to come up with that next idea that's going to be huge or that next design that will bring home some sort of award to add to my wall. I add another in a few weeks but just one is never enough, my inspiration will definitely bring me more.
2. Debt
We've been working on the homestead for a few weeks on the bathroom remodel. It's rare that anyone can do a remodeling job without taking on some debt. We are no different. We also took a hit planning a vacation and buying a mid-level camera for business/personal use. Along with all of those items came debt. It's debt that can be overcome but I hate debt of any sort and I wholly plan on eliminating the debt from these three items by year's end. Boring, but necessary.
3. Income
I am pushing the missus to make employment changes. Her current job has served us well. It literally fell in to her lap when she needed a job and it's provided her with a great wealth of managerial knowledge but starting at the top doesn't exactly give you much in the way of places to climb to. Whether that means adding a refresher course to her BFA to get into her chosen field or heading down a new path is her choice but I am going to be known as "The Motivator" this year and nobody slips through the cracks on my watch.
Of course I am not going to be all drill sargeant this year and just stand on the sidelines. I plan on tackling additional ventures this year to rake in a few extra bucks. Freelancing in my profession is cutthroat and all-too-common but I am competitive as well. A guy can try!
4. Consistency
I'll post here four times each week, write my TV column twice monthly and come back from vacation with hundreds, maybe thousands, of photos which I will trickle into my Flickr account. And Fridays mean music, so get the hell used to it.
5. Fitness
I made it a goal when I set my summertime goals last May and while I didn't completely fail at getting into better shape, I didn't exactly run in the Twin Cities marathon either. I will do better this year. No more staying inside during nice weather because someone else is "bored" with going outside. The lack of new TV due to the writer's strike has shown me that TV is a damn waste of time and I'm not getting any younger.
6. Involvement
It's an election year. Blah, blah, blah. Sure, it might be a tad less exciting that laser tag but it is important. Politics, however mundane to lookers-on, play a huge role in our lives. I am already reading the answers given and stances taken by the 2008 presidential contenders and might, from time to time, point you in the direction of some of the more interesting ones this year. Don't just vote, vote informed.
There y'all have it. My goals for 2008. Will I achieve them? Read every day to find out!
1. Be Inspired
Holy crap that's a vague one but as a creative pro my mind strains to come up with that next idea that's going to be huge or that next design that will bring home some sort of award to add to my wall. I add another in a few weeks but just one is never enough, my inspiration will definitely bring me more.
2. Debt
We've been working on the homestead for a few weeks on the bathroom remodel. It's rare that anyone can do a remodeling job without taking on some debt. We are no different. We also took a hit planning a vacation and buying a mid-level camera for business/personal use. Along with all of those items came debt. It's debt that can be overcome but I hate debt of any sort and I wholly plan on eliminating the debt from these three items by year's end. Boring, but necessary.
3. Income
I am pushing the missus to make employment changes. Her current job has served us well. It literally fell in to her lap when she needed a job and it's provided her with a great wealth of managerial knowledge but starting at the top doesn't exactly give you much in the way of places to climb to. Whether that means adding a refresher course to her BFA to get into her chosen field or heading down a new path is her choice but I am going to be known as "The Motivator" this year and nobody slips through the cracks on my watch.
Of course I am not going to be all drill sargeant this year and just stand on the sidelines. I plan on tackling additional ventures this year to rake in a few extra bucks. Freelancing in my profession is cutthroat and all-too-common but I am competitive as well. A guy can try!
4. Consistency
I'll post here four times each week, write my TV column twice monthly and come back from vacation with hundreds, maybe thousands, of photos which I will trickle into my Flickr account. And Fridays mean music, so get the hell used to it.
5. Fitness
I made it a goal when I set my summertime goals last May and while I didn't completely fail at getting into better shape, I didn't exactly run in the Twin Cities marathon either. I will do better this year. No more staying inside during nice weather because someone else is "bored" with going outside. The lack of new TV due to the writer's strike has shown me that TV is a damn waste of time and I'm not getting any younger.
6. Involvement
It's an election year. Blah, blah, blah. Sure, it might be a tad less exciting that laser tag but it is important. Politics, however mundane to lookers-on, play a huge role in our lives. I am already reading the answers given and stances taken by the 2008 presidential contenders and might, from time to time, point you in the direction of some of the more interesting ones this year. Don't just vote, vote informed.
There y'all have it. My goals for 2008. Will I achieve them? Read every day to find out!
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