2016, hopefully, is going to be a year of changes. I want to set personal goals and meet them each month. I want to write it all down in a timeline or something and keep track of them, so we'll see how it goes.
2015, although right now didn't seem eventful, was very eventful, to say the least. Laura and I were talking about it a little bit and she was right that 2015 was actually a pretty big year. We bought a house, moved, took a trip to Colorado for Ellen's wedding, and a slew of other smaller things like Wesley sleeping over with Connor, them sleeping in the same room without much trouble during the holidays...all the while Emmeline was not even 1 and turning 1 on November. To me, each day has been pretty rough, so for some reason it's hard to see the big picture for some reason. I forget about everything these days. It's getting harder and harder to store my experiences into memory, if that makes sense. I know I've been trying to go through month by month in past years, but I really can't remember that far back and that specific anymore, haha. Like, January 2015? I have no clue. I don't even remember off hand what I did for my birthday. Even doing it by quarter-years, I'd have a tough time. So, I trust Laura to remember the things we did and make me realize that we did accomplish a lot even though I don't think we did.
This Christmas was a crazy one because Matt and Ellen came this year AND we had Emmeline. It was very stressful, but we made it. I got some really good gifts, too. I'm actually getting one of the gifts that I ordered myself using a gift card on Saturday - a video card for my computer. I haven't upgraded my computer in 7 years, so I thought, maybe since I have some projects this year that I want to do, an upgraded computer would be nice. The video card was the first step and, coincidentally, would let me play some games that I might get into this year. I have the rest of my PC parts on the "to order" list right now. It's not much more, like $220 worth, which $170 would be covered by the rest of my gift card, so out of pocket would be a low $50 for a computer upgrade that I will probably make last again for at least a few years.
So, 2016 plans. Here's a rough breakdown. I'm not sure when I'll want to put these on the calendar for deadlines and such:
- Spend less time on the computer during the night
- Play a board game or spend time with Laura more during the week
- Projects with Connor (perhaps to upload to YouTube for extra income?)
- Meditate before going to bed with Laura
- Finish house projects
- Kitchen table
- Backyard stuff like Connor's swing, maybe a bigger playhouse/treehouse similar to what I saw in Sam's Club today, gardening stuff, landscaping, etc.
- Finish my fantasy book (perhaps make some money off of it somehow)
- I need to set a deadline for each chapter, set of pages, whatever. I just need to write and no more dicking around on the computer at nights.
- If I wrote an hour, hell, 30 minutes per night, I would get so much done. I have a lot of what I want to write in my head, I just get sucked into surfing EVERY time.
- Work more on my photography that I've strayed away from the last couple of years.
- Take time to get out somewhere and take pictures. A couple of times this past year, I said I would, but never did.
- Stop procrastinating
- Have more patience with Connor and Emmeline
- Save more money in savings
- Pay extra payments on mortgage
- Take a vacation somewhere
- Be nicer to Laura
- Help out more in the mornings
- Blog more consistently - At least once a week, more if needed.
Well, that's a start. I'm not sure how I will organize all this, but this is just what came to my mind right now. I should get to bed because tomorrow is going to be a festive party with food that Laura's making and sushi and stuff. I'm going to be tired. Okay, I was just surfing for a couple of minutes...no more procrastinating...
P.S. I guess this just became the first blog of 2016!