With Resolve

Happy New Year! Of course, this is the time of year that people make resolutions; many people allegedly drop said resolutions to the wayside by the end of the month. One promise I kept to myself in 2008 was to kick-start a career change by "firing" my previous employer and exploring different occupations. My 2009 resolutions are essentially continuations from 2008, all of which I've had moderate success overall.

* It's Mostly 'Bout the Benjamins. I don't expect to find my "dream" career this year. It would be nice to get my foot in the door in the library. In a way, it would be almost better to fall back on my accounting skills to temp through at least the spring. It would allow me to fulfill the vacation goals that Cathy and I set out for this summer.

* Voulez-vous parler avec moi ce soir? My return to French has been successful. I hope to restart Spanish this year. Eventually I would like to learn Portuguese and Italian as well.

* Tickling the ivories. I've been hitting and pushing through a lot of plateaus in my piano playing these past few months. Regrettably I haven't been able to focus enough to sit down and compose music as I had planned.

* Pumping Iron. At the ripe old age of <ahem>, I realize that it's more important to be healthy than to train for Mr. Olympia. But despite my regular workouts, I've reached the point where my middle isn't whittling like it used to. Of course, Cathy points out the older males in my family with their paunchy stomachs being my apparent destiny. It would probably help if I weren't so "allergic" to most fruits and vegetables and "addicted" to baked goods and PB&J... but at least I'm eating (chocolate-flavored) yogurt now.

* My Other Half. Regular readers are already all too aware of the challenges that my lady Cathy faces as she continues to recover from her illness. While I attempted to be helpful by assuming the domestic engineer title during my sabbatical, getting involved in other pursuits probably helped to take my eye off the ball regarding spending quality time together. I intend to find more things that we can enjoy and bond over in 2009.