New Year's Revolution Review

Well, it's that time again. 10:39am. December. [I finished this on January 18, still without 2010 Revolutions.] Time to start thinking about New Year's Resolutions. New Year's Resolutions used to be easy for me. They were like a Self-Improvement Ronco Rotisserie. Make 'em and forsake 'em.

2009 ruined everything. I made a horrible mistake. I published my New Year's Resolutions, which were more goals than resolutions, and asked my friends to hold me accountable for them. I am happy to say that my friends didn't help me at all. I'll take that back later. The down side was that my resolutions were out there on the Internet for everyone to see. I tried to forget them, but they haunted me like a garlic-stuffed green olive that you have at lunch and enjoy the rest of the day. They wouldn't go away. They compelled me to keep them. They compelled like a super-massive compelly thing.

Counting my Fifth Resolution, there were five in all. Let's run up the list from bottom to top and see how I did.

5. Determine a 5th Resolution - I immediately jumped right on that one after a few months of forgetting about it. I figured out that before I could ever fully fulfill Resolutions 2, 3 and 4, I would have to do something about my financial situation. So my wife and I decided to get out of debt. We are well on our way. We started in May. We haven't used a credit card since. We payed off about $15,000 of debt along with hail storm repair (both cars and a new roof), three surgeries, heater repairs, refrigerator repairs, new tires, car repairs, birthday parties and Resolution number 4. In March, we barely had enough room on AMEX to charge two nights in San Antonio. Now were getting ready to lay down sweet, clean, cold, hard cashola for air fare to SPAIN, where we will spend a month this summer. How good are we? Very.

Unrelated, but here is a word of warning from our experience. If you want to remain comfortably broke and maintain simple problems like food and rent, then please avoid budgeting like the plague. And don't even think about working any over time. I think this may have been a horrible mistake. Seriously, life was so much more simple then. Three days in San Antonio was easy to fill. Dine in a couple nice restaurants, rush through the zoo and run up and down the river walk a couple times. Then come home and anxiously await the credit card bill. Now how the hell am I supposed fill an entire month in Spain? Really. What am I supposed to do? Hang out in a pub all night and lay on a Valencian beach all day, day after day with no computer beeping or iPhone ringing? And what purpose will my life have when I return home and don't have a mountain of debt to pay off?

Whatever will I do.

4. Give More - We just thought we had given well in 2008. We increased our giving 5 fold. It feels wonderful. Nothing is more fulfilling than Giving. I recommend it. When we Gave in previous years, we usually charged it. We increased our Giving by 500% while working on Resolution number 5. It's a start, but nowhere near what I'm after. Gotta boost the income some more. Gotta get more free time. Got some ideas, just need to breath some life into those ideas. Who is with me ?

3. Music - I must admit I barely squeaked by on this one. I started late, since Resolutions number 5 and 1 were getting all my attention. I did write a few new songs, recorded several old and new songs and jammed a few times. Didn't perform any or Deejay any, but the writing part was my biggest concern. And check this out. I'm writing right now, even as I type!

2. Fresh Air - I don't know if I can rightfully say I fulfilled this one, but I am. I took the family camping twice and camped with the guys once. Went fishing with my Dad and Step-brother once. I put in just over 1,000 miles on my bike. Even though working so hard on Resolution number 5 made this one pretty difficult, we got out a few times.

1. Outlaw Rest Stop - Ok, I take back what I said about my friends not helping me at all. I really appreciate the encouragement from Blanca, Ken and Barbarosa, and I appreciate Ken for sticking with my during all those miles of training. I really only almost killed him only once. Low and behold, Goal number one was accomplished on Saturday, August 29th when I came coasting into the Outlaw beer stop of the Hotter'N Hell 100. Even rode a few more miles after the stop to complete about 106 miles for the day.

I consider this year a huge success. All the "surprises" presented to my family should have made this year the worst year ever, but we turned it into our best. We didn't sit in front of the TV sucking our thumbs while a bad year happened to us. Life dealt us a weak hand this year, but we played some hard cards. Life thought we were bluffing and rode a weak straight. We just kept smiling our silly smiles and kept throwing in chips when Life Raised the stakes.

Coming up next: New Year's Revolution v 10.0

Maybe.