Year in review

This year has been an interesting one to say the least.  The biggest and best thing that happened was that we had a child.  It’s been awesome and fun to have that whole experience.  There aren’t really any new years goals I have with her and raising her, but maybe I think about that a little more.  Currently she is just smiling and not much else.  Maybe that is current goal.  Make her smile once per day.

Financially things have gotten better for us.  Some of our wealth is tied up in hard assets and is harder to denominate in dollar terms especially since a lot of it was bought retail and those items lose some of their value once bought, but if my recent bullet purchase is any indication, we’re doing pretty good. 

The bullet purchase goes like this.  I wanted more of a certain type of bullet and when I went to go buy it the price was literally 25% more for the EXACT same box I’d purchased just in the last year or two.  So while it sucked to pay 25% more I was also happy that my current box is worth 25% more in dollar terms.  I’m pretty sure it has been less than 2 years since I bought the first box and so if we just call it a good 2 years, then our investment is up 12.5% per year.  Not too bad.

One goal I had this year was to get 5,000 days of hard human labor saved up, or 500 ounces of silver.  With the fortuitous market conditions in real estate we were able to sell and extract our equity and buy an additional year of food storage (since we’d found out we were pregnant with London by that time) and the rest we plowed into silver and we’re about 150 ounces over the 500 ounce goal, which is awesome and I’m very pleased with.  I’m afraid to make the goal, but I’d really like to have 10,000 days of hard human labor saved up by the end of the coming year.  Given that I’d have to make substantially more money at a job or via a business it’d be a very good stretch goal, but I think I can do it.  With silver prices coming down it may be a doable goal.  Current prices would have us saving an additional $8,239 in silver.  That doesn’t sound too bad.  On a weekly basis that’d be $158.44, which I think w/o making any additional income we could do on my current income so we’ll see.  I’ll let you know in a year on that!  Below is what 10,000 ounces looks like in bar form.  I'm pretty sure some kings of England didn't have 1,000 ounces to their name.

This year I systematized scriptures and exercising.  Scriptures is listening to the Book of Mormon on my way to work.  I think I went all the way through the Doctrine and Covenants once this year.  I read/listened to the Book of Mormon twice this year and am in Mosiah 17 today.  I’m going to continue doing that. 

Then at night the wife and I read 10ish verses in the Bible.  That means this year we’ve read 7,300 verses of scripture.  We’re about a quarter/halfway through the old testament.  When we first got married we discussed what we ought to read together as a couple and since the wifey hadn’t got through the Bible just yet we figured we’d just read that from cover to cover.  At our current pace we should be done in like 8 years lol.

This year I decided I was too weak and wanted to get stronger and so I set my goals to workout twice a week doing bench and squat and I wanted to squat 250lbs once and bench 225 lbs once.  I also said I wanted to be able to curl 50 lbs per arm, but that got sidelined for most of the year.  I hit squat and bench.  Here is what 250lbs to squat looks/looked like for me too.

What I’m doing now is this workout a friend of my wife built for me.  She is/was a bodybuilder.  It’s been interesting to learn new workouts and feel the soreness.  I honestly can’t say I feel tons different and I know I don’t look a lot different so we’ll see how things go in the New Year.

One goal was to make 50k, by myself. 

  Tallying up the deposits in our account for the year we’re clocking in well over that.  A portion of that though was from Ashlee’s wages for most of the year and then selling the house too.  I didn’t quite reach that goal, but hope to in the coming year.

This year I learned how to type in a new format to help my joints not get worn out so often. 

I had a goal to go to the temple once a month and do home teaching once a month. 

  I’m pretty sure I went 11 times to the temple and went/called all my home teachees every month this year so that is pretty good.  I’ll have to do better next year.

One goal was to weigh 155lbs.  At one point I hit 159.5 lbs.  Frankly that kinda scared me once I hit it and so I’ve ballooned all the way up to 183.5 lbs this morning.  Part of the gain is muscle I’m sure, but a good amount is fat for sure.  I’d be pleased to be back down in the 160’s by the end of the coming year.  A poundish per month to lose isn’t too hard to do.

One goal was to research and buy a bow and arrow.  I did the research, but didn’t buy.  Maybe I will and maybe I won’t in the coming year.  Perhaps if I reach the silver goal I’ll move onto the bow.

Interestingly enough I actually wrote down that I wanted to creatively get a bigger tv.  Little did I know I’d willingly and happily practically give away our tv and surround sound system.  I have to say that I absolutely love that twist/change.  People complain all the time about how they’re so busy or they don’t have enough time to do this or that they don’t care enough to do this or that even though it is mildly important and yet I know some who have their pet tv shows they “have” to watch and they’ve got to go see the latest blockbuster movie.  Excuses excuses. 

Speaking of excuses I tell myself I don’t have enough time to work on business.  Here is how my excuses play out typically or how I con myself into thinking I don’t have time.  I’ll say I’m too busy to do that with a kid, working out, scouts, going to the temple.  Or I’ve got such and such business book to finish and two ensign magazines on my nightstand or this one "last" fiction book I need to finish reading and THEN I’ll be free to start on the business.  

The way I'm going to combat this in the New Year is that I can't play on our new phablet until I've at least done the prorated amount of work each day needed to stay on track for getting in 3 hours per week, based on working 6 days.  I think this will work since I'd like some down time by playing games and this should motivate me to do that.

I had a goal to go on a date once a week.  I didn't do the best at that.  I'm going to have to figure out how to do that in the coming year.

I had a goal to save up for an Alaskan cruise too.  That got pushed back since we worked at saving up for a kid and all the things that go with that too.

That pretty much sums up my year.  Let me know how your summed up and what goals or processes you have for the coming new year.