A Year of Actual Goals

Over the past two years, I have set goals of reading.  Not the biggest goals for a year, but I felt great about it.  I am a slow reader (as my wife so lovingly reminds me each time she finishes a book) so setting goals for getting through the stacks on my shelf were great.  I am nearing the end of my unread books.  I have a stack of ten books and just got one for Christmas.  So eleven total books left to read.  Not bad, but I am in no rush to get them done by the beginning of 2015.  I have come up with a few goals for this year.  Actual goals.

Drink less.  While I do not have a full on drinking problem, I do know I want to drink less (it will be tied into another goal I have this year).  I came to the following realization near the end of December regarding my work and drinking:

Four days before Christmas and I haven't been drinking heavily after work. Each. Day. Yeah, I made a smart move.
— Michael Litzner (@Litzner) December 21, 2013

I always looked at November and December as 'the heavy drinking months' because of my job at Target.  Now that I have a far less stressful job, I have not been coming home really wanting to drink heavily.  I have come home and had one or two beers, but that is about it.  I no longer have a need for four or five just to unwind from work.  So, with a less stressful job I won't be drinking as much and therefore won't be spending as much money.  Which leads to my next goal. 

Save more.  Tomorrow, my wife starts a new job!  For the first time in about three and a half years, we will have two incomes.  And it's not like she hasn't been looking for a job, it's just that her industry has taken even longer to recover from the recession.  Thanks for that recession Obama Bush.  So with this new income development, we will be looking to move from our apartment hopefully.  We have been watching our spending ever since she was laid off, but it is hard to keep your savings balance up with one income.  And a retail income at that.  Who knows if we will have enough of a savings to start looking for an actual house or if we just stay another year and continue to save save save.  With this new job, my wife will be driving forty five to fifty minutes each way each day.  So a move south of where we are now will be prudent. 

Write more.  Tons more.  While I have felt great about what I have written over the past two years, I feel like I have missed out on plenty of writing opportunities.  Maybe it is because of writer's burnout or just shear laziness, but I know there were times over the last two years where I thought about writing and then just didn't.  I am going to set a goal of one hundred and twenty entries this year.  Ten a month if you do the math.  Do I have the most interesting or original ideas?  Not really.  Do I have the most interesting life that people want to follow?  Not really.  In the middle of August I did accidentally deleted a couple of published posts and some drafts that I was working on.  It was really disheartening after I realized I could not recover the deleted posts.  And the drafts I was working on were really in depth posts.  It was right around that time that I kind of gave up on writing hardcore last year.  At the bottom of each post, I will be keeping a counter to see if I can reach my writing goal for the year.  

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