I think after last year, and getting some of them right, and realising that some weren’t going to happen I’ve decided to make a mix of hard and fast goals and some other “these are ongoing” ones. I guess I’m using the resolutions thing as an easy trigger for some nice objectives statements… we’ll see what the outcomes are eh?

I broke them down a bit, and I’ve added some thoughts to the basic list I committed to (Christine, Lucas and I write them down and then tell each other them, it’s silly, but whatever):

Health:
Another pant size(36)/no more middle flab/below 90kg + fitter. The first three can be read as “either/or” or as “I’d like two of these three, thanks”. The last (“fitter”) is sort of subjective, but it’s one of those “I’ll know it when I see it” things.
Better living through better food: I’m not talking vegan (I already flirt with vegetarian now), nor am I talking paleo, but I’m thinking a lot less processed foods and a lot more home cooked/healthy stuff.
Run a 5km race by end of year: for a lot of reasons, this is a beast. When I was young I ran competitively. I was good. Not great, but very good. I was also full of piss and vinegar. So I hurt myself (stress fracture in my leg, belief it was muscular, hiding from people how bad it was, racing on it, blowing out my other leg’s ankle, not getting proper physio – if you’re a jock, go to a jock doctor) and couldn’t run anymore. Running is hard now for me, my brain and body kind of remember what it was like to be fast. My ego certainly does. My legs would like me to knock it off. Dear legs, you are not the boss of me.
Yoga: I am a tense person. Both physically and emotionally. This means I’ve got knots in my shoulders, hamstrings that you could play music on and all the other stressy bits that people go on about. Hopefully yoga will help.
A walk on a trail once a month: This can be tricky at times since we don’t drive, but like yoga, this helps me with my stress, plus it’s more exercise, plus it gives me a chance to use all the fitness I’m working on. Plus, you know, flora! fauna! etc.

House:
Clean as you go in kitchen: Love cooking. LOVE IT! Also seem to love making a mess and then not dealing with it immediately and then leaving it till it’s a huge huge huge issue and I’m in the kitchen pissed off at the world and doing dishes for a day.
Make cleaning plan. Stick to cleaning plan: “oh shit, someone’s coming to visit, crap.. umm I guess I’ll finally do that vacuuming that I said I would a week ago”. This has to stop.

Family:
Date nights: Look, I really, really am not going to let this one go. I am, however, going to be realistic and suggest that “date night” can also mean “stay in date night where we eat dinner after the lad is in bed and have a nice bottle of wine/beer and watch a movie or just hang out and chat”.
Breath, he’s just a little boy: Lucas is brilliant. Lucas is talented (at some point a post about the whole “gifted and talented” thing might be in order, but not today). I love him with every fibre of my being and I’d happily die or kill to keep him safe.  Lucas is also brilliant and talented at driving me nuts. I must remember the Teddy Roosevelt scene in “Night At The Museum” and keep in mind that I am more evolved and the (supposed) adult.
Project time after dinner and before Lucas’ bedtime (homework etc allowing): Too often we just slump on the sofa after dinner, watch Campbell Live (which I consider a fine use of 30 minutes) or we all wander off and fiddle with something or other (where something or other is videogames or more food etc). So what we reckon is for the hour and a half to two and a half hours after dinner and before the lad goes to bed we’re going to do something. So far that something has been puzzles. But we have an Arduino starter kit we’re going to play with, Lucas wants to learn HTML/CSS so I figure we can all learn HTML5 together etc. Seriously, if Campbell Live is good that night, I’ll find out via twitter and I’ll watch it later OnDemand (don’t worry @JohnJCampbell, my bromance, and belief that you are a national treasure, remains intact).
If there is crap on tv turn it off or watch something decent: I like TV. Christine likes TV. Lucas likes TV. Metro doesn’t care about TV except for the fact that it makes three laps available for the purposes of sitting upon (she is a cat after all, few programers think of them when putting together their schedules). This sometimes means that we will watch ANYTHING. I think the Fabulous Baker Boys are probably lovely young men. But if the choice is them or going to bed/reading/talking to my wife, I really should be doing the later. It’s not that I’m suddenly going to forsake the various idiotic/diverting reality shows I watch (when did that happen to me by the way?), nor am I going to give up on the idea that shity TV is better than drinking yourself silly after a crappy day, but really? A weekly show about cheese? So, either the box goes off or we watch a documentary or something.

Professional:
Procrastinate no longer: It’s not that I don’t get things done. It’s not that I don’t get them done well. It’s that the tiny bit of my DNA that made me love journalism, graphic and educational design also gave me the trait of “think think, ponder, day dream, realise the due date is like now, slam it out with no sleep for several days”. I have done some amazing work this way. Probably some of my best, but a) I’m not getting any younger b) how much better would my work have been if I had taken just a wee bit more time?
Focus (ie turn off all the things): I have a membership to almost every social media thingy there is. I like people. I like talking to people. I like arguing with people. I like reading new things and I like sharing new, interesting things and what I’m doing with people. But I’m also a bit of a magpie. Around here we call it “shiny baubleitis”, a horrible disease that means you’re interested and, at times, distracted by everything. So, for several long swaths of the work day I’m going to turn off all the sources of distraction. This means that twitter and Facebook must go off. I love them, and you all, to bits, but holy crap you’re all way to interesting/cool/wrong and it’s distracting.

Stuff I wanna learn:
More Moodle: I started learning more about gradebook, but I really need to learn more… and more about the rest of the functionality generally. I’d also like to work out a bit more about the whole theme process. I really haven’t taken a look under that particular bit of the hood.
Arduino: I mentioned we got a starter kit to play with; we’re thinking some sort of little robot – I’d like to make a UAqV – Unmanned Aquatic Vehicle – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
HTML5: Lucas wants to learn how to make websites, I want to upskill/unrusty myself. So yeah, this seems a natural.
French: I’m rusty. Plus my public school education/work experience in the Anglo linguistic ghettos has made it so my written French is non-existent and my spoken sometimes sounds like I’m a mechanic, in a very dirty, disreputable garage. I need to fix this if we ever plan on going home and I ever plan on working again.
Thai cooking: It seems to be our go to takeaway/mall dining food. It also seems to me that I should be able to make it at home.