What Do I Want to Accomplish in 2009?

So ... having missed the entire month of December -- there was just too much else going on for me to take the time to blog -- I now find myself at the leading edge of a new year. It's been a quiet celebration: a big lunch; an amusing Michael Palin documentary tracing the steps of Ernest Hemingway; time to un-Christmas the house and move everything into the clean New Year's phase; movies and some rough-housing for MB and E (who couldn't go outside because of the cold). What am I forgetting?

Ah, yes -- the resolutions.

I used to tell people that I gave up making resolutions because I never kept to them anyway. But is not making a resolution the same as resolving to do nothing? If so, that will never do. So what do I resolve to do this year? Here's what I'm thinking:

• More focus on my spiritual life. Over the past year, I've gotten a good distance away from prayer and focus on my faith journey and development. We've gotten very involved at our new church, but I've allowed myself to get to a point where I've forgotten how to effectively pray and to do some serious study each week. I can't be a truly good father and role model for the girls if I'm not focusing on what should be the most important part of my life, and learning as much as I can so that I can be prepared to help them with their questions about God and faith as they get older.
  
  
• More time with A and the girls. The work hours for my job this year will be in the neighborhood of 8-6:30 every day, and so I will have to do more to make the most out of the time I have with them during the course of a week.
  
  
• Become more financially responsible. With a new car and a house purchase floating somewhere on the family's horizon, and with A currently out of work, money will become even more important. With my current job, this particular time isn't as much of a cause for stress as it would be if I were working at one of my previous jobs. However, I would like to focus more on saving and on what we need, rather than the bright, glittery books that catch my eye in the bookstore window!

• Take more time to read for fun. I read so much during the course of a day at work that I really only read for pleasure a few minutes a day. That has to change, since it's one of my biggest sources of relaxation -- and since I have so much Hemingway, Mishima, Fitzgerald, and American Revolutionary-era books and countless others on the shelves and stacked by the bed that need to be showed some love.
  
  
• Write more. I really want to get back to blogging more regularly, journaling more regularly, and continuing with my short-story writing that I started last year and continued in fits and starts. And with whatever time I have left, I have some great ideas for some full-length projects to take on at some point down the road.

Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for continuing to visit and comment here. I look forward to hearing and seeing more of you over the next year!

200 Posts, But Not That Many Resolutions

This marks my centennial post on the blog, and somehow it seems fitting that it would come on the first day of the new year. Today, I'd like to share some of my resolutions for the coming year (at the end of the year -- or next week -- I'll give an update on how well I'm doing with them).

Keep on watching, enjoying, teaching, and learning from my two little ones. The youngest is almost to the point where she can start walking and talking, and the oldest is far enough along that she's starting to ask questions about everything -- chiefly "Why?" During the past month, a lot of the why questions have dealt with the infant Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the angels, and she's also been curious about a lot of things going on in the world around her. It's a fun phase in which to see them both, but it's going to get more and more challenging; case in point, I had to try and explain to MB for the first time today about when people die and go to Heaven. I think I botched it to a large extent, mostly because I'm used to taking complex issues and boiling them down for folks involved in business and government -- I don't even feel remotely ready to take complex issues and boil them down for a child. Maybe there's a book on answering your kids questions out there somewhere...

Blog more. This blog is very therapeutic for me -- it gives me further practice and honing my writing skills, and also allows me to throw out ideas and thoughts that I have and try to flesh them out. 200 posts in two years isn't nearly enough, though, and so I want to get into the habit of much more writing and reflection (a hope that also applies to my off-line journal that I've been keeping for 26 years!).

Read more diversely. I tend to read in the same genres, and the same authors, all the time. This past year, I started to branch out into a few new areas for me, and I want to expand it this year. My big goal is to get through much of the writing of Yukio Mishima, Abe Kobo, and several other giants in the world of Japanese literature (in the English translations, of course). I also want to spend more time reading theological works, and learn more about other religions and denominations. I'm recognizing that my little insular Episcopal world doesn't answer all of my questions anymore -- but I'm not going anywhere; I think I can be a better Episcopalian -- and Christian -- by bringing more of a global understanding into my pew each Sunday.

Do more volunteer work. This in some ways ties into the global understanding aspect of the previous resolution. Our church, and many of our friends, are involved in a lot of different areas of volunteerism -- working at an overnight shelter for the homeless, teach English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, running a clothing bank for those looking for jobs, etc. And while A. and I provide financial support in a few areas, there hasn't been much at all in the way of direct, hands-on work. If I'm going to get more of a worldview, I need to spend more time out in the world. There are incredible numbers of organizations here in the D.C. and Northern Virginia area that are very deserving, and in great need of financial and practical assistance. I just need to find a way to get involved in them.

Be a more patient husband. I've been quick in the last year to point out to A. that she is sometimes too quick to lose her patience with our oldest -- but isn't my pointing that out to her a sign that I'm too quick to lose my patience with her? She said on her blog that she needs to work on patience; I don't think it's such a bad thing for me to work on as well.

And now, a few more crazy resolutions:

• Going with my sister on an overnight tour of the Waverly Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the most haunted spots in the county.
• Breaking a score of 100 in golf -- and that would be breaking it below 100; I've got the above 100 mastered.
• Get so far ahead in our housework that it only takes 20 minutes a day to tidy everything up (or is that even possible???).

Happy New Year!