Happy new year to all!

I’ve been a bad contributor for a very long time now – perhaps 2 or 3 posts since getting married in March – but I think it is time to turn over a new leaf.  No, it isn’t a new year’s resolution, because I stand with Chris that resolutions generally don’t work out for a reason.  This is me, realizing that I said I’d do something, realizing that I haven’t been doing that something, and realizing that with the guys’ internet being what it is I could somewhat make up for it.  If this sounds somewhat unapologetic or cocky, I’m sorry for that – humorous tone aside, I know I should have been doing better than this.  I really am trying to make up for it.

Onward!

My time lately has been extremely dominated:

• I’ve had a wonderful time since getting married, but I feel like my responsibilities are eating into my “me” time a little bit – I haven’t really done anything with my greenhouse since building it (which means one year of the possible three I might get out of the plastic cover was wasted).
• I joined a bowling league, I bowl every Monday with my wife, two brothers, and a friend.  I’m pleased to average about 190.  The league bowls three games each week, so I’m often very happy when I shoot over 600 pins in one night.  Last week we were in first place for the league!
• Tuesday nights I do team trivia with my family.  We usually score in the top 3, and get rewarded with a gift card, which is nice.  But it often doesn’t cover our bill.
• The rest of my week, for the last month and a half, has been devoted to finishing house projects and cleaning.  Why?  Since Thanksgiving, my wife and I have hosted three parties, two of which had more than 30 people in attendance. And now, we both sigh.  Much relief.

From what I hear from the people in attendance (mostly family, so take it with a grain of salt), everything went well.  I’ll probably do the parties again next year, with many lessons learned from this year to make things go smoother.

So I’m looking forward to the next year already.  As mentioned above, I don’t really do resolutions, but I will most certainly do some new years’ goals, which by my own guidelines must be very specific:

• This year, I will be running a half marathon in March.  Let the training begin.
• This year, I want to eat at least one herb, fruit, or vegetable that I have grown myself from seed to harvest in my garden.
• This year, through job searching or pay negotiation, I want to earn more money and do my best to get my student loans paid off.  I think this might be a tough one, but having recently passed the Professional Engineer exam, I feel like it might not be.