My Year in Review Plus More or Less List

A belated Happy New Year to all!  Welcome to Twenty-Ten! This is the proper way to say it, right?

Again, I blame the Winter Break for not doing this post earlier.  But here I am, a little late to the party, trying to summarize blog postings and happenings from the last year:

• Kayla started playing volleyball.  This prompted my sister to get into DSLR photography. She is doing great taking photos, and using the plenty of tips on photography from family and friends.
• This past Christmas Eve we did our first Skype call with my sister and her family in Nebraska. I think it surprised my mom, who was happy to see them on screen even though she had just seen them in person less than a month earlier. Ah, technology.
• Two new additions to the extended family this past year: Kaleb and Kaelin.
• We did a few concerts this year: Paolo Nutini, Dane Cook, Rex Navarette, and Tori Amos.  Farrah also saw No Doubt at Shoreline.
• We saw the King Tut exhibit and went to the California Academy of Sciences.  I didn’t blog about King Tut, but will probably do so in March.
• We bought our first LCD TV and took the dive into blu-ray.
• We, and everyone else bought the iPhone 3GS. It’s been a very good phone for us.
• Once again, the state of this blog has fluctuated this year.  The blog has bounced from Wordpress to Wordpress.com to Tumblr to Wordpress again. I also pointed the domain (Janella.com) directly to my Smugmug account to start a new site alex-is.com. And once again, with my manic web life, I’ve decided to shut down alex-is.com and blog back at Janella.com. Confusing, huh?  Even though everyone seems to be on Facebook, I believe I will continue to blog here. I want to avoid getting stuck in a walled garden.
• My uncle passed away last year.  It was tough to take, even though I hadn’t seen him in so long.

Ok, now onto my New Year’s resolution list.  I know, you really don’t need to wait until a new year begins to make a list of goals. You should be able to do this any day of the week. But I suppose New Year’s Day is an apt occasion to think about what you’d like to change. _Wait? Wasn’t New Year’s Day about a week ago?  _Yes, it was, and I’ve listed “less procrastinating” as one of my goals.

I present here, in this blog post, my “More or Less List.” Should be a straightforward read.

In the coming year, I would like to do more:

• Reading: I do plenty of online reading. I’d like to read more books. I started two books last year, American Gods and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I got halfway through both books. I need to finish those first, then find other books of interest.
• Writing: I’ve been trying to write an hour a day, write like a stream of consciousness. I’d like to continue this. I’m hoping this leads to better blog entries or at least more interesting entries.
• Taking photos: As I’ve said in a previous post, I’d like to take more pictures and to be more creative.  My understand lighting and depth-of-field seem to be growing more, but I don’t think about it often on-the-fly. Also, following some of these resolutions would be good.
• Watching movies: There was a time when I would devour movies.  But my ability to sit through a film waned a few years ago.  I’ve been able to watch a few movies the last several months.  I hope to continue the trend.
• Exercising: I took a month or so off for the holidays.  I need to desperately jump back on this horse.
• Cooking:  I need to bust out the pots and pans more this year.

I probably should do less of the following:

• Dining out: Too many restaurants too often. But it does help with my Yelp reviews. I should be cooking more though.
• Playing video games: I’ve already conquered the world (Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution), won 15 Super Bowls (Madden 10), beat Arsenal to a pulp (FIFA 10), and saved the world - for the time being (Call fo Duty: Modern Warfare 2). Time to cut down the hours on the PS3.
• Giving in to treats: I need to eat less chocolate, drink less soda, and cut down on my Starbucks Mocha consumption. Of course, if we receive a care package with chocolate in it, well, I’ll probably breakdown. I’ve been successful in cutting down on the mochas, so far.
• Spend less time on Facebook, Tumblr, etc.: I’m thinking of just logging in once a week instead of the multiple times a day, onto these networks.  Just a thought.
• Procrastinating: Yes, I just need to get things done!

How did I do compared to last year’s list? Considering that I have many repeats on this list, it seems I didn’t do well.   I probably should assess how I’m doing by the middle of the year.