Update to New Beginnings
Well, we’ve passed the two-months mark of 2005, so how about a look at my progress on my goals for the year from early January?
Health
- Be in bed by midnight every night. Results are mixed so far. I’ve been getting to bed earlier on many nights, but not consistently so.
- Take my vitamins every day. Haven’t managed to do this at all.
- Work out at least three times a week. I was quite good with gym attendance over the summer, losing a little over 20 pounds leading up to the wedding. After we got back from the honeymoon, though, I never managed to get back into a regular routine—if I can’t do that now, it’s time to cancel the membership. But since work lets us take long lunch breaks to work out, I should be able to get back into the groove without too much trouble. Work has made this difficult during some weeks, but I’ve made it to the gym at least once every week.
- See a doctor for a general physical (I’ve not done so since 2001).
- See an optician to have my eyes checked (my vision still seems to be fine, but better safe than sorry).
- See a dentist to get these last couple of cavities filled, and start a regular schedule of cleanings twice a year.
Hrm. Not great.
Photography
No progress at all here:
- Organize my digital photos, and burn backups to CD.
- Organize old negatives, and get hi-res scans done of those frames I’d like to work on.
- Have prints made to decorate the house and my office.
- Work through the color correction and retouching books I bought last year.
- Post galleries of my work on the web.
Web
- The Coffee Faucet, a reader-submission e-zine. I’ve managed to get some work done on this one, but not as much as I’d like.
- Not Quite Lost, a localized travel guide.
Entertainment
- Watch all of the movies on the AFI 100 list this year, including the ones I’ve already seen—it’s only two a week. I’ll post brief mini-reviews here, which will probably be more interesting to me as a log of what I’ve seen than to people interested in movie recommendations. So far, I’ve only watched two. I’ve taped or otherwise collected many of them, though, and my schedule looks to be a lot more forgiving for movie watching in the near future.
- Keep up with my magazine subscriptions. If I find that the next issue has arrived before I’ve finished with the previous issue, cancel the subscription. I’ve pared down my subscriptions and I’m preparing to throw away the back issues I haven’t read yet by the end of March.
Go through my music collection, and delete any mp3s which I downloaded illegally. If I’m not willing to pay for the songs, I don’t need them clogging up my playlists. (This doesn’t count, obviously, songs offered for free by the artist or label.)Not only is this done, but I’ve ripped all of my CDs into iTunes. 24.91 GB of music, if you’re curious.- Start a monthly board or card game night with our college friends in the area. We’ve played poker once. Nothing regular yet, although winter has made this tough.
Odds and Ends
Put myself on a stricter budget, including cutting down on eating lunch out at work.I haven’t written out a specific budget, but I am spending a lot less money.Respond to email promptly rather than waiting “until I have time”—it just goes unanswered that way.I’ve been much better with email- Take a couple of continuing education courses, including Spanish, a business course of some sort (preferably relating to freelancing/running one’s own business) and photo or design courses which I could apply towards an eventual MFA. Nothing yet.
Sell my car.My father is going to take it off my hands at the end of the summer.Buy a house.Settlement date: March 9Set up my 401k at work (I want to get this done by my next paycheck, in fact)Done.
— christine 1283 days ago #
Just drop one into the tray, check the metadata quickly, and hit the import button. When you notice it’s finished, do the next one.
The advantage now is that when I come home with a new disc I can just rip it and I don’t really fall behind.
— John Y. 1283 days ago #