2009 New Year's Resolutions

After a fast start on my 2008 New Year's Resolutions, I fell off quickly I'm sorry to say. I did achieve some of my goals, but it was not a winning season. :-) Oh well, hope springs eternal and all that, so I'm reloading my list. Here goes.

1. Curb impulse book buying and buy fewer books in 2009.


2. Concentrate on reading books we already own.


3. Read more fiction. (About 98% of my 2008 reading was nonfiction.)


4. Reserve Tuesday and Thursday evenings for reading. (We did pretty well on this in 2008.)


5. Go for a walk or ride exercise bike every day.


6. Write in my journal every day.


7. Make at least one blog post per week.


8. Make progress on sketching and water color painting in 2009. (I really fell down on this one in 2008.)


9. Make major progress on home improvement projects. (I'm taking 3 months off from work to accomplish this goal.)


10. Get workshop organized.


11. Plant vegetable garden.


12. Make a stained-glass project.


13. Do more dark sky site astronomy. (Only 1 DS trip in 2008!!)


14. Take at last one trip to visit some place like the Smithsonian, or the Library of Congress, or the Huntington Library.


15. Find a new job with a commute time less than 20 minutes.


16. Avoid eating factory-farm produce or meat.

The last item is something I have been thinking about more and more. Elly is an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and I eat vegetarian 75% of the time or more. Typically, when I eat meat it is at lunch restaurant visits (once a week on average) or something I have gotten from Costco (usually salmon or shrimp). We often eat out-of-season produce, though, and I am not careful to find out where the produce comes from. In 2009 I plan to limit meat dishes to what I prepare myself, ensuring that the food comes from farms where animals are treated humanely. Also, I want to increase the amount of produce we eat that is locally grown. In practical terms, this means buying more food from farmers markets and Whole Foods, and talking more with the grocers about where their produce comes from.