Resolutions, Goals, Ideas, and so forth. 2012 at the Onset.

BLOT: (01 Jan 2012 - 05:49:11 PM)

Resolutions, Goals, Ideas, and so forth. 2012 at the Onset.

Me and New Years Resolutions do not necessarily get along, anymore. In fact, the last one I can find on my blog was posted in January 2009 [which is now, unbelievably, three years ago] and was simply a resolution to get rid of pirated music and replace it with legimate music. Something I did actually do. I had to turn to my Livejournal to look up the only other one I found [note: have to be friends with me to see the posts, though if people ask I can make them public]. In 2008, I posted a pair of resolutions I planned to break, because I said they are only for breaking, anyhow. And that's about it, which I find a bit strange—I think of myself as the sort of guy who would have, at one point, been all about the New Year's Resolutions—but, you know, the last time I remember thinking about them was circa 2003 and I jokingly said that my only resolution was, "I don't want to walk around in circles." Let me tell you, if that was my resolution for 2003, well then I broke it sooooo hard that by default I took down a dozen people around me.

Now I am older, lazier, calmer [by default], wiser [presumably], and so forth, and I think it is time to bring them back, because there are things that I do want to change in my life. Not all of these are resolutions. They range from life-style changes to goals to ideas, which I guess are all resolutions, but they are not all in the "I'm a bad person and need to change" camp. You'll see what I mean. Also, one big caveat at the start, in several of these I say "NO X" but I don't mean "NO X, all year along", I more or less mean "the absolute minimum of X". That's not me weaseling, here, that's just me being aware that circumstances can rapidly change and sometimes you have to break a resolution in order to keep it better on down the road.

Goal: Read 150 Books. The most books I have read in the past three years (i.e. the grad school years) has been 96 or so in 2009, the year I started grad school. The years right before grad school, I regularly cracked 100 and often had about 120 or so. 150 is a high goal, and one I doubt I will actually hit, but I am going to try.

Resolution: No credit card purchases. Also, pay off 2-3 credit cards. Sarah and I only have five or so credit cards, and most entered our life at a time where they allowed us to make ends meet and have been a boon. The time for them is gone, overall, and the plan is to remove all of them from online accounts (something effectively already done) and then to pay a couple of them off kind of heavy until they are gone, with the year end goal being to have the Amazon card, the Target card (oldest card so retained for credit history) and maybe one other.

Resolution: No physical items purchased through Amazon. The only exception I can think of from the top of my head will be chicken mushroom ramen, which local shops refuse to carry. Outside of that, Amazon marketplace for used stuff will be ok, and there are some items that pretty much have to come through Amazon just because no retailer in their right mind will ever carry them, but priority one goes to local merchants and priority two will go to indie sellers online and/or direct orders from the manufacturer.

Idea: Mostly digital purchases. This kind of makes the previous one a bit of a hypocritical, but I have too many books and too many DVDs. Most of my books I will never read again [potentially] and those I will read again and again might not be bad to have backed up in a different format. Most of my DVDs are a mixture of impulse buys that I will probably never watch again and dearly loved disks that might be better to have in a format that will survive the DVD player. My plan, attached to this, is to spend a year getting most every book and movie solely through digital means and then, come about December, seeing how I feel about it [exceptions include limited editions, books by certain cherished authors, and physical items where the extras/etc are worth my time, DVDs for my Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes collections, and so forth]. All the while, I'll be weeding out books and DVDs and will attempt to get rid of over 100 books and at least 50 DVDs.

Resolution: No fast food. When I was younger, I thought fast food was awesome. Nowadays, I end up disappointed as b-grade meat with chemical injections is coated in c-grade veggies and some sort of neon cheese. This is a tricky one, in that there are some more local fast-food-esque places that have higher quality ingredients and there are technically-fast-food places like Subway that I don't plan on including in it, but I'll generally play by ear. As a sister to this one...I'm going to do everything I can to eat chickens raised healthier and more humanely. I won't be able to resist hot wings all year, or to avoid sweet and sour chicken here or there, but I can generally favor sources that I agree more with their methods.

Resolution: No big box stores. Like the previous, "big box" means different things to different folks, but in general I mean to prefer local to franchises, to eschew big discount stores over the kind that has more of a local presence, and so forth. I'll have to work on this one, more than most, because where does the line get drawn? Not sure. I do know that Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and [right now] Kroger are all out. For various reasons.

Goal: Lose 10% of body weight. Both doable and, as I get older, necessary.

Resolution: Eat less like a fat person. That sounds weird, but has been one in place for a bit and getting more solidified all the time. Namely, cut out late night snacking [mostly done, though violated recently due to holidy fun]. Smaller plates, better adherance to serving sizes, desert portions, and etc. Avoidance of "size-up" deals at restaurants [not too big a problem without fast food]. Frankly, this one could be something like a post in itself and I'll leave it at that. Just in general: a better respect for food and my body and a specific avoidance of habits [such as my once kind of bad habit of late snacking] that are especially prone to causing weight issues and so forth.

Goal: Have enough put away into [relatively] easily accessible savings for avoiding life's little whoops. Sarah and I are going to aim, by year's end, to have enough put away so that if something happens we are not immediately screwed. This ties into the credit card thing in that it means we will have enough money to cover things like surprise emergency room visits, a month of being laid off, a need to take emergency trips, and so forth. We have some of this already, but I would ultimately like to put aside enough that if our entire life shut down for two or three months, we could easily make ends meet (and could go for even longer if we cut back kind of notably).

I think that's all. And these are big ones. Big because we are not at a point where a few big things need to be done to adjust into what will soon be middle age [I'll be 35 this year, Sarah will be 28]. Our habits have bettered slowly but surely, but this will be kind of a spring board year to get things on a slightly tighter, better track.

Since I'll probably screw them all up, expect this same list next year.

See you in 2013!

Me in 2012