Resolutions....

I'm not usually one for new year's resolution. Much of my life has been about following an academic calendar, not a yearly calendar - so September is the begining of the year, not January. I work for a college, and I'm working on my MBA, so I still tend to measure things by the semester rather than by the month or year. But unlike the school year, work is year-round, as is my MBA program, so I'm finally at the point where the start of the new year means a little more than just having to remember to write a new date.

So this year, I'm actually going to set out some new year's resolutions. Most of them are things I've already been working towards, but I'm hoping this year to actually make them happen. If things work out, this will be a good and big year for me - which makes me worry that I'll somehow manage to screw it up and it will be a disaster. But I'm starting to believe more and more that what I give is what I get, that the actions and choices I make have a large impact on how well I'm doing and how happy I am, and I'm hoping to make my life somewhat better and myself somewhat happier than I have been in the past.

One of the classes I took this semester was Leadership and Management, and one of the things we looked at was goal setting - specifically that goals should include both a time frame and measurable results. I've tried to incorporate that.

That means that some of the things I want to accomplish aren't on my resolution list, like "stop being single" - since I don't have a clear time frame for that, nor do I have any idea what steps to follow to acheive that - or I'd be following them.

So, my resolutions for 2k6:

1) Lose another 30 pounds to bring weight down to 150 lb by May 1 2006 by watching what I eat and going to the gym daily

2) Purchase and move into a new house in a Baltimore suburb by August 31, 2006. Begin mortgage and house hunting around February 1 2006. Save/earn as much money as possible to help with moving expenses, down payment, and closing costs by increasing savings and by eBaying as much as possible.

3) Reduce the amount of "crap" that I will have to move by sorting closets and items stored in basement. Remove trash as soon as possible and donate, eBay or sell at Hamfest whatever items I haven't used in a while or don't need.

I probably should have more resoutions, but I don't really. But buying a house and losing 15% or so of my body weight are probably big enough that if I accomplish them I'll be pretty happy, and anything else will kind of pale in comparision.

Unless I fix that whole being single one.