10 For 2025: First Quarter Update

 1. Look, I've been saying it for years now, but this has to be the year of Book 4. It's grinding away, little by little but at minimum, I'm going to get this damn thing into a workable draft format this year. If I'm very lucky and write very well, I might be into revisions by the end of the year and beating into shape for a final draft and a release. I have no idea why this is taking so long. I have no excuses to offer. I just really, really want to get this- at a minimum- closer to the finish line this year. 

Quarter One revealed to me that Book 4 had a structural problem. I'm working on re-tooling it a bit now and I want to get back into it sometime this month and have palpable progress to report on by the end of this quarter. (For more details, you can see my Substack update.) Do I think I'm still on track to get this thing closer to the finish line by the end of the year? I do. But when I started writing books and putting them out into the world, I made this commitment to try and get better as I went and what I've got now is a pile of words and it is not 'getting better as I go', it's kind of a hot-ass mess and if I'm going to beat this up and shape it up into something I can put out into the world it needs some work. So: work continues, but I am slowing down a bit on this project to try and get it as right as possible. 

2. Let's Get Some Vinyl: I finally got another tattoo and will probably get another at some point this year, but I really want this year to be the year I expand and actually use/listen to our vinyl collection more. We need more storage for it and I'd like to make purchases from our local store and find some place other than Amazon to snag more records for our collection.

Storage? Check.

Listening more often? Check.

Places other than Amazon to buy Records? Check. (I found Vinyl.com and will continue to search for more sources for records.)

More Vinyl Acquired? Check.

Local Record Store Visited? Not yet-- this is the only thing I need to do on this list.

3. Social Connection: I want to work on being more present when I'm not at work (which has been a lot lately) and start reconnecting with old friends and making new ones with the Missus. I'm going to pull the more noxious social media off my phone so it's not constantly in my pocket. We've also got a 13 year old now, so it'd be nice if the Missus and I can sneak out to eat at some of the places around town we've often wanted to check out. 

This is one of those things that is difficult to measure, but I feel like we're doing okay here. We've hung out with people. We haven't been shut-ins or hermits. I really want to work on being less connected to my phone when it's not needed and I want to be outside more and just do more things in general, but we will see how this goes moving forward into Q2.

4. Semi-Professional Development: Some of this will just happen through the course of things at work, but I want to be more intentional and active about it. (2-3 classes/trainings) but what I really want to do this year is get into AI and more importantly, understand how to use it properly- so far, I've only nibbled around the edges of it and I have a feeling it's going to be increasingly important going forward on a variety of fronts.

I've got a 2-day class in July, maybe on the books, and a one-day class in October scheduled, so I'm moving forward on the work front. I need to do more playing around with AI and expand my knowledge base there, but I've got ChatGPT on my phone these days, so I'm slowly trying to integrate it more into my daily operations. 

5. Financial Health: A month or two ago, we sketched out a rough financial road map for 2025. I want to stick to it as much as possible, work on finding the best budgetary practices for ourselves, and keep our communication active and frequent with it comes to the budget. (TL;DR: previously how we handled our finances could be charitably described as 'a bit slapdash'. I'm hoping planning and structure will help change that somewhat.)

This is going well! We had a bit of a wobble coming out of Spring Break but I think if we get back to basics in April we'll start off the 2nd quarter well. Structure and communication are for sure helping the cause here!

6. Health: Get back on the Intermittent Fasting and stick with it, treadmill for at least 30 minutes three times a week, kettlebell/Bowflex at least two times a week, find a Yoga routine to unlock my hips and do that daily, if possible, once a week at minimum. 

Life got chaotic as it always does, so I need to retrench a bit on this front. The Missus and I might acquire a Ruck Pack and start that this month, but I have not been as active as I want to be-- but since the start of the year, if I'm doing the math right (always debatable) Fitbit tells me I've walked 614,656 steps. Which I'm going to celebrate, because it's not like I've been doing nothing!

7. House Improvement Projects: Shelf for the Kid's Room, Workout Area Downstairs, and Built-In Bookshelves, Luxury Vinyl in the Bedroom and a Bedroom Overhaul. (There will probably be other stuff too, but those are the big four I'm starting with for now.)

Shelf: Acquired but not yet hung (another shelf is apparently needed in the 7 year old's room for his increasing number of Legos.)

Workout Area Downstairs: Underway-- flooring needs to go down and more painting needs done but we're getting there.

Built-Ins: Still a dream at this point, but once workout area is done, we should be able to acquire the table saw from my parents and then we should be in business.

Bedroom: On the radar, nothing concrete planned yet.

Deck stain: I am acquiring deck stain THIS MONTH.

8. Duolingo: At some point last year, I decided to go all in on French and that's what I did. Medium Spawn has also started on Duolingo and since he's doing Spanish, I'm going to make 2025 My Year of Spanish and I'm hoping to get to a 1300-day streak. 

As of this writing, I am on a 1149-day streak in Spanish and going strong heading for 1300 days!

9. Reading: I didn't hit 40 on my Goodreads for 2024, so I think I'm going to take another run at 40 this year. Here's the Official TBR List for 2025, if you want to follow along.

Right now I am sitting at 8 books on the year so far, which puts me at about the 20% mark and per Goodreads I am 1 book behind schedule. I'm close on one book (Book 9) and picking up steam in a particularly interminable book to try and finish the damn thing (Book 10) so I think this one is going pretty well. 

10. The Annual Control Resolution: Have A List of New Year's Resolutions! (Thus, ensuring that I'm not a complete failure at this!)

Check! As usually, I am guaranteed at least a 10% success rate on the year!