Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009!

I can't say the year is off to a perfect start, what with Penn State losing in the Rose Bowl, but they fought back hard after a bad first half, so I'll count it as a success.

2008 wasn't a bad year, as far as years go. We maintained the status quo, basically, but it the status quo isn't too bad, so that's good news.

My first post last year included some goals. Here now, a look back:

Drop a size in clothing, both shirts and pants

Sadly, didn't happen. However, I do begin this year almost 20 pounds less than I began last year, so I'm going to count this as a success. I know I still have a long way to go. My goal this year is to drop about 30 pounds, which should help the clothing size thing happen.

Write a significant portion of a draft of a novel and send to at least 3 people for feedback

Another incomplete. The good news? I did write about 85-90 pages of a draft before hitting some writers block. I recently figured out what I needed to do, though, to make the book's central conceit work, so I'm feeling optimistic. I've got some modifications on this goal for 09, which I'll discuss below.

Finish painting all rooms in the house

Yep, another one that's technically incomplete but that I'm going to count as a success. We finally did the guest bathroom before Christmas, which means the only rooms we haven't painted are the laundry room (which we never planned to paint anyway) and the converted garage. We're still figuring out what we want to do with that room, however, and until we do it's sort of an all-purpose storage room, so I'm not too worried about not having painted it.

Pave a section of the back yard for BBQ-ing

Not even close on this one. We did buy a barbeque, if that's anything, but our back yard is still a terrible, ugly mess.

Stick to the budget

Hmm, this is the problem with setting goals that aren't quite measurable. We did good overall, but there are still some places we don't do well--namely, groceries and eating out. We spend entirely too much in these areas.

Blog regularly

88 posts in 2008. I'd call that regular.

Many of my goals for 2009 are related to or variations on 2008's. Is that step by step progress or is that a sign of stagnation? I'm going to go with the former.

2009 Goals:

Lose 34 pounds
Finish the draft of my book (and show it to a few people)
Give the garage a purpose
Call each of my siblings about once a month
Double the savings account
Read 52 books that I haven't read before
Start some teaching blogs--both for my classes and for educational thoughts

I'm sure there'll be some more goals as the year progresses, but that's it for now. As part of my "write more and start some working blogs" goals, I'll probably be blogging here a little less, which is ok since I haven't had much to write lately anyway. I'm still planning on updating at least every two weeks, or when I have something incredibly clever to say (which is ALL THE TIME). So we'll see how that goes.

At any rate, that's what's on my plate for 2009. Wish me luck!