Not All Who Wander Are Lost

With work finally over for the season, it's time to begin looking to the year ahead. As a way to explore realistic yet productive goal-setting, vacation (finally) plus a nifty new laptop from the fine folks at work* gives us a moment to revisit last year's year-end resolutions. A point by point systems check:

Resolved: I will smoke slightly less, make several halfhearted attempts to quit, and feel guilty about it.

Surprisingly, I seem to have done better than expected here. I now take a single smoke-break at work, and not even that when things get hectic; gum helps me get through the day instead. Net smoking is down, and guilt is hardly present. Goal met, if not exceeded.

Resolved: I will try to put Willow to bed one night a week, as requested. However, I will put her in charge of reminding me.

Though Willow still seems to need Mommy for that last ten minutes, multiple hour-long dark-room story sessions and half-bedtimes a week counts, doesn't it? Goal met/exceeded here, too.

I will return library books on time, or at least take that crucial first step of putting them in the car when they are due.

Increased use of public libraries has made this harder, but we've only had two late fees to pay since September. Goal met/exceeded.

I will eat at least one marginally healthy food item per day.

Hmm. Milk in coffee does not make it health food, but eating school lunches 3-4 days a week has led to an increase of fruit. At home, I eat what Darcie puts on my plate, and there's veggies with almost every supper. That said, pizza night mitigates what would otherwise have been a perfect score, so far: Daily goal not met, but intention easily surpassed.

I will not get addicted to more than 5 new technologies. On second thought, better call it ten, just in case.

Easy. Lack of access to technology during the summer of homelessness followed by ultimate settlement in a job three to five years behind the times tech-wise left me bereft of new addictions save a few web-based services (gmail, flickr). No worries, mate!

I will blog a minimum of seven times a week, though it may mean overblogging on Fridays to catch up.

Our first major snag, resolution-wise: summer on the road was mostly unbloggable; change in lifestyle leaves me averaging 4-5 blogentries a week. Failed, but perhaps for the best reasons of all: time gets spent instead on sleep and family.

Similarly, I will not update my blog so many times a day that the better entries remain predominantly unread, unless I am really, really bored.

New concern instead: not blogging enough to keep readership. Are you out there, folks? Goal exceeded, unfortunately.

When the new baby is born in April, I will remain in hospital with my wife for at least half of every day.

Goal met! Thanks to in-laws ad parents, who wached the elderkid and made this easy.

I will arrive on time for work for at least the first month of my new job, when I get one.

Close call, here -- I tend to make it in with the kids, but I should be getting there beforehand. Not technically late, but we'll call this one a draw.

I will make shorter lists wherever possible.

Oops. Sigh...ten is such a nice neat number for lists, isn't it?

Final analysis? A few subtle calls, but overall, I seem to be batting well over 500. Seems realistic resolution-making makes for some easy-to-meet benchmarks, eh? Watch this space for a new set of resolutions for the coming year.

*New company laptop is shiny, but it comes with administrative functionality locked, which means no new X-mas music on the iPod until next year's season. Coming resolutions will likely include convincing the district to give me admin-level access in-building, since my work may ideally involve software- and settings-tweaking needs and, really, you don't want to spend a tech's salary trailing me at all times, do you?