Resolution Check in February Edition

How is everyone doing? Read your post in this thread and give an update.

Eat healthier. As in less boxed/processed crap. More home-made meals. - Check. I blew through the leftover processed crap, but have actively avoided buying more and have been making meals at home. I need to increase variety, but overall this has been successful.

Be more environmentally friendly in everything that I do. Sorta doing this. Being more mindful of packaging and have been more anal about sorting my recycling. Wife's Vue was replaced by an Odyssey, so fuel usage has gone up a bit :(

Keep better track of spending. Fail.

Volunteer more. Fail. I've registered as a volunteer for a local organization, but haven't actually done any events.

Bench 315, do a half marathon. Working through starting strength right now. Working weight for bench is up to 230... will probably need that around 260 to hit my goal. Been running 3 days a week, but only up to around 4 miles each time right now.

Put less than 8000 miles on my car. Fail. 874 miles this month out of an allowed 666.

So far so good!

The kitchen project is ongoing with a super cool "book spine" staircase.

Miata is undergoing upgrades all winter.

Tiger Mom and I are awesome! (and joy of joys, she's in her last quarter of online schooling to get her next degree!!)

Bonus: Started a compost pile for the garden this winter, actively recycling the food waste while attempting to grow more and better food seems like a no brainer but I'd never done it. My 11 year old nudged me into it.

Not dead, car should be together for the first autocross but I've still got to run on tires that are a bit crusty and relatively narrow by modern standards.

Get a big boy job, I have an interview on Tuesday.

Self: Debt free, or close to it, this year and lose 30lbs

Budget is under control now that my son is out. Looks like the tax return is going to get me part of the way there. Diet is getting there and I'm trying to figure out the best time for me to exercise. It looks like it's going to be a 6 am type of thing.

Car: Learn to rebuild a 13b and start gathering turbo components.

I've read Street Rotary cover to cover and I now have an idea of what is going to be involved and modifications to make. The RX3 arrived from California and is sitting in the house garage waiting for house stuff to get done. All I've done is clean the interior to figure out what I'm dealing with.

House: Remove oil burner and tank, replace stairs on deck.

Still cold outside.

Goals:

Renovate the living room.

I've spent several days and afternoons working on SanFord.

The wife and I have discussed paint colors...for the kitchen?

I still have way too much crap.

It's going well so far!

Still not dead so I'm on track.

My goals were never officially set, but I am on track to lose about 20 pounds by the end of the year, am behind in my goal of 1 book per month, ahead in my goal of playing hockey 12 times a year, on track for golf 12 times a year, and on track for my pushups/situp goals.

Blood Pressure remains to be seen.

I said said:

RevRico wrote: Actually finish a project. Figure out how bad the house really is and try to get it fixed. Have a team of lawyers ready on my 30th b-day to go after my inheritance and figure out who the liar is in my family. Teach the little one to go around cones on her power wheel. Not finish last at the challenge. If I finish last,then make sure I get most spectacular failure.

Well... I bought an exercise bike and a bunch of tools. Can almost see my work bench.

Finding a good lawyer is harder than finding a good contractor, it turns out, and I haven't managed to do either yet.

But I do have the little one starting to steer her one car, so there is still hope for going around cones.

I forgot I posted in that thread! My list of goals has grown, so I'll just add them here I guess.

be more social/spend more time with people doing stuff

So far, so good. Been going to friends houses and such for game nights or hanging out, went skating, etc. Unexpected downside: this doesn't really fit into my budget, as many activities, restaurants, and bars are $$. I don't know how to balance this yet, because I really, really don't like spending $125+ /week on food and drinks just in an effort to be around people more. Old budget was $45/week.

scaling back or selling a project or two

I need to fix things before I sell them. Minimal progress on this so far, though I have started sorting through RC car stuff in preparation for selling that off.

travel, as in take a long camping trip on the 950

Still too cold, but in the planning stages and bike is prepped. This will probably happen.

Get a better understanding of finances and savings

Been reading Mr. Money Mustache pretty regularly and have learned a lot, though most of it is at odds with goal #1.

get back into playing guitar and physically get in better shape

Guitar is going okay and is fun. Been running on warmer days, but getting the motivation if it's below about 45 out has been a struggle.

Overall, I think it's going pretty well. Really need to figure out the balance between spending time (and money) hanging out with more people vs what I used to do, which was generally doing my hobby stuff with friends that didn't cost anything.

Like mtn I didn't officially set any goals, but...

Get back into shape

My Achille's injury last year knocked me back a good bit in exercising and the holidays saw me hit the heaviest that I've been in nearly a decade. So far I've at least been going to the gym regularly, been building ways into my routine to have to move more, and have been doing better at cutting back on the sweets (my biggest problem as far as eating goes). The new Apple Watch is a definite help- having a constant reminder of how I'm doing for the day is a considerable motivator for me.

Get garage cleaned and organized

Ongoing... it's been slowly getting better, but the first half of the month was pretty much a complete wash since I had so much to do for SWMBO's show. Have been making progress in getting rid of things that I'm unlikely to ever need again and eliminating unnecessary redundancy in tools.

Cut down on spending

Making decent progress here, though not so much through not actually spending as much but by making it more of a zero-sum game by selling things I don't need. Sure, the car I'm buying kind of runs counter to this, but if I ultimately keep it and sell the Patriot once I'm done with the work on it I'll end up ahead. Plus...

Try and have more fun with my hobby of working on cars

The SSEi has the potential to be a lot of fun and allow me to do a few things I've wanted to for a while but not really had a good reason to- specifically, get into autocross and take a car to the Challenge again. Sure, I'm unlikely to be truly competitive at either, but I'll be having a lot of fun regardless. And once the garage is cleaned out and the maintenance on the Patriot, Mariner, and Bonneville is taken care of I'll be able to put the DMC in the garage and get to work on the massive amount of things to be done on it. This will likely take years to complete- but it will make the car way more fun & reliable.

No resolutions, so I am OK there.

Doctors orders: Less Sugar, Less Weight, More Activity.

No. No. No. Crap, doing horrible there.

I made it about three hours. I'm going to be a grouchy pain in the ass forever.