Resolution review

Well, we are now officially halfway through the year. Time for me to dust off my New Year’s Resolutions and see how I am doing. This is the exact list that I posted on January 1st for those who are thinking that I am making this up as I go along.

Resolution # 1: Learn how to juggle: I can juggle one bean bag very well. Two bean bags are more of a struggle but I can make a passable effort. Three is a pain and a half. I swear one rainy weekend I am going to sit down (ok, more like stand up) and just force myself to practice and practice until I can juggle. Once I perfect this skill then I can move on to learning the unicycle.

Resolution # 2: Get my weight under 190 pounds: Sigh. At the start of the year I weighed 200 pounds. Two weeks ago I found that I was up to 213. When Kim went through my closets we decided to toss out much of my wardrobe: partly because it is hideously out of style but mainly because none of it fits anymore. While I am more than happy to look at my closets and see clothes that I actually want to wear I am making losing weight the number one priority for the rest of the year. Just over the past few weeks I have restarted the workout program and am eating healthier and as a result I’ve already lost a few pounds. I really need to get fit and get to a healthy weight and stay there.

Resolution # 3: Learn how to actually cook: Haven’t made as much progress on this as I would like but I am happy to say that the majority of my meals do not require a microwave. That is an improvement over past years. This is another one of those items that I should really dedicate an hour or two every weekend to addressing. Just try once or twice a week to make an actual meal from a recipe. If it comes out well, awesome. If not, I’ll put in a pizza. I can say that while I haven’t accomplished this goal my fear of the kitchen has been reduced to a more acceptable level.

Resolution # 4: Increase blog readership: Initially I didn’t think I would do this one but I’ve already hit my goal for the year. My hope was to have a 50 reader day and I had a 90 reader day and a few others in the sixties. My average for the year so far is 21 a day with the past few months being in the 19 a day range. I still need to work on it and would like to increase the focus a bit (and I would kill to break 100 on a day) but it is nice to know that I have cultivated a rather significant worldwide readership base. I’m huge in Europe.

Resolution # 5: Focus on the positive in my life: Hmmm…tough to say where I stand on this one. On one hand I am happier than I have ever been and am satisfied with pretty much every aspect of my life at the moment. On the other hand I am still a cynical bastard at times. I’m one of the few people who can love their job but come in grumbling every morning that they have to spend another eight hours looking at computer screens. I’ll just say that I am improving in this area (especially when compared to some of my darker days in Kansas City) but there is still a lot of runway ahead of me.

Resolution # 6: Get back into the concert going scene: Haven’t gone to a single concert this year. I’m not sure I am entirely happy about that but my social life has been filled in other ways. My biggest problem is that a) a lot of my favorite acts (meaning the incredibly unknown alt country acts) don’t play around here and b) when they do they are either an hour drive away or at one of the beach resorts and I just don’t feel like making the trip. Maybe it is a good thing to give my ears a bit of a break.

Resolution # 7: Complete the Best of the Blog: Wow, this one just hasn’t gotten off the ground this year. I still want to do a major writing project. Hell, I really want to write a novel and have for years and have a plot and characters waiting to go. The problem is simply a matter of time. I only have so many hours to work on everything I feel like working on and some things get tossed to the side for a moment and this is sadly one of them. While I might be far behind on being a novelist after 1,200+ blog posts at least I can call myself a writer.

Resolution # 8: Reader’s Choice: Thanks to my good friend DJ this became “take a yoga class.” I still haven’t taken a class but I have located a yoga studio near my home that offers beginners classes. Maybe I can tie this into my weight loss goal. If anything, my experience in a yoga studio would have enough embedded humor in it to make the entire experience worthwhile

Resolution # 9: Take a real vacation: I’ve already gone to New Orleans this year. I’m planning on heading to San Antonio for the Notre Dame game. But I have one real vacation that is still in the planning stages that when I go on it will put all other trips to shame. It is just so out of the ordinary, so unexpected, that I don’t want to ruin the surprise by discussing it before I go. But it will be legen…wait for it…dary.

Resolution # 10: Meet the woman of my dreams, fall in love, and get married: When I wrote this list I threw this item in at the end to make for a nice even ten resolutions. I didn’t think that it would actually happen. To my surprise and amazement and joy it has. The past few months with Kim have been better than I could have ever dreamed. My life has become a movie script and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Wednesday Night Music Club: If you want me to sum up the first half of this year in a song I am going to go with Josh Ritter’s “Me and Jiggs.” A bar with a jukebox and you on my arm. Heaven and earth seem pretty much the same.