Wow, 2011. When did that happen? Probably sometime around the end of December, it\u2019s usually that time of year.<\/p>\n
With Christmas all wrapped up (ahaha), I can turn to the new year, and think about my resolutions. I was pleased with the progress last year<\/a> even though I did slow down a bit in the summer. The clear lesson was to have a plan – a definite method of attack, and some measure of progress.<\/p>\n I\u2019m picking some of the \u201ctraditional\u201d resolutions that I hear about every year – get fit, save money, etc. But I intend to keep at it for longer than a month, and with some hard work, longer than six months too! I\u2019ve had a few weeks trying out what I think I can do, and I\u2019m ready to announce these plans in full.<\/p>\n This year, I aim to improve myself a bit. I\u2019ve kept myself healthy this year, but I could do better. My first resolution then: to go swimming every week. I\u2019ve identified a local swimming pool, and we can take Freddy at the weekend. He likes swimming, and splashing, and will enjoy it. It will require some assistance (it\u2019s the wife\u2019s turn to drive at the weekends), but if I aim to go every week, even if I fail one week there should be enough to have raised my general fitness by the end of the year. I might keep a record of how many lengths I do, and see if it rises appreciably over the year.<\/p>\n I failed my resolution to paint all my Dark Elves last year. That was because there was no plan. The new plan is to do at least forty-five minutes of painting a week. I can probably get that in pieces on weekday evenings, or catch up at the weekend while Freddy has a nap. Why forty-five minutes? Because I can stick something on the DVD player (a Babylon 5 commentary, an iPlayer episode of something) and have the background noise I need when painting. Since this is a target like the \u201cfiling\u201d one last year, I can do the same as I did then and catch up if I fail one week. This should (hopefully) get the Dark Elves finished, and maybe even some of the scenery. <\/p>\n Last year, a number of big expenses got in the way of saving – we needed to replace the cooker, buy a car and get it insured. This all added up to quite a nasty sum, and on examination, I ended with no more in savings than I started the year with. I\u2019ve not got a specific plan in place on how<\/em> to save money, other than not to spend it, but my goals are to put away an as-yet-undetermined amount each month. My ultimate aim is to have at least increased my savings slightly, and overpaid an extra month on the mortgage. I calculated the other day that at the start of this year, there\u2019s only around 343 months left to pay on it. If I manage to knock that down slightly, then terrific!<\/p>\n An easy one now \u2013 I\u2019ve realised that I very, very rarely put pictures on here. Some of them were even only Flickr\/Google Image searches, and I didn\u2019t even do that one as often as I could\/should have. I can put pictures of Fred on when I talk about him, or of models when I talk about them (the only one I have actually done!).<\/p>\n Finally, a triple-whammy resolution – do more of the Frugal Gaming thing. Play more, spend less, and blog about games. I will try to play a major game once a month, unless I hold a games night – of which I will attempt to organise more. I only managed a couple last year, which just wasn\u2019t as many as I wanted. I\u2019ll also be imposing a \u00a35 monthly limit on games – computer games, wargames, etc. It should be reasonably easy to keep this one in control, there\u2019s only a few things I\u2019m interested in and I recently joined an RPG group which aims to meet weekly – and RPGs are notoriously cheap! As the final part of this one, I\u2019ll be aiming to blog on A Year of Frugal Gaming<\/a> at least once a month too. I feel I let them down a bit last year, so I\u2019ll be trying harder to waste people\u2019s blog-reading time with games reviews, games night tips, and any frugal gaming tips I can find.<\/p>\n In summary then:<\/p>\n This seems to me to be a good range of things, easy goals and milestones along the way to hit, and I should be able to get a feel for whether or not I\u2019m getting anywhere with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow, 2011. When did that happen? Probably sometime around the end of December, it\u2019s usually that time of year. With Christmas all wrapped up (ahaha), I can turn to the new year, and think about my resolutions. I was pleased with the progress last year even though I did slow down a bit in the … <\/p>\n\n