"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like." (Lao Tzu)Goodness gracious, where in the world did April go? It was a blur, to be sure. Part of the reason for the apparent acceleration is that I was on the road for 10 days, first with attendance of the RSA Conference in San Francisco, CA, from April 6-12, and then turning around and going through New Hire Orientation for work in Dallas April 14-16. It didn't help that I got extremely sick along the way, too, due it seems to far too little sleep while in San Fran. Oops.
Overall, April was not a very good example of how to achieve one's goals. It does show how one's life can get unbalanced, resulting in undesired consequences. Only now, at the beginning of May, do I feel like I'm slowly returning to a more "normal" rhythm. One good thing from last month is that I got promoted to Senior Consultant. I've also passed the 6 month mark in my new job, simultaneously realizing that volunteering and waiting for people to come to you for help does not work. Instead, it appears to be better to simply initiate projects to help the overall situation, getting buy-in at key points, and then worry about correcting course as necessary (call this a bridled version of "it's easier to seek forgiveness than permission").
There is still much to be done this year. We're moving to a new place in the area at the end of May, which means all the requisite change-of-address work. Our little miss is due the end of August. We'll have a bunch of company throughout the year as a result of our darling. Much needs to be purchased, we have birthing classes to attend in June, and so on. Hanna graduates from her Masters program later this month. And so on and so forth. I also need to read more, post a much-delayed RSA retrospective, and get back on track with writing. Oy...
Self-Improvement
1a. Watch less television. This is probably the one area where I continued to make reasonable progress in April, if only because I was on the road so much. I did finish the John Adams HBO miniseries (thoughts here). House, CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds, and Everybody Hates Chris have all had new episodes, which I've watched as time allows (being sick in April provided an opportunity to catch up). I've also been fully dragged into American Idol. The good news on all of these is that we don't watch anything live, so a 1-hour show takes at most 45 minutes. Still, that's a good 6 hours of planned TV watching per week, not to mention the NHL playoffs. Well, ok, so maybe I'm not doing so well in this area.
1b. Read more books. I read a lot in April, but not much of it was in book form. I finished another Richard K. Morgan fictional work (see review here), and I'm about half-way through Dan Geer's Economics and Strategies of Data Security. Most of my reading was spent catching up on weekly news publications and monthly journals, such as from ISSA, the ABA, and IEEE. Now that I'm feeling on the mend, I need to get things organized for the move and baby, and then I can refocus on reading.
1c. Improve my vocabulary. Uh... yeah... no progress here last month! :)
1d. Keep a cleaner house. I'm keeping up with the dishes and the laundry. I'm overdue for vacuuming, but I'll probably wait on that until this week as Hanna should be shipping a bunch of books back to the FCPS educator's library (her grad class ends Tuesday). In general, I'm doing a very poor job here again.
"Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy." (Lao Tzu)
Health & Wellness
2a. Exercise more. Except for hoofing it around San Francisco for a week, which had a very positive effect on my leg strength and toning, I've been very bad in the exercise department this month. Now that I'm recovering from being sick and the peak of allergies, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Unfortunately, this really means that I need to start getting up earlier again. *sigh* The good news is that, having kettlebells around the house, it's very easy to grab them and do a mini-workout in 5-10 minutes. The only area where this does not help much is with swings and cardio. I need to do more in this area.
2b. Lose the fat. My fat levels are generally consistent. I might have added some the last week or two out of a combination of stress, exhaustion, poor eating, and inadequate exercise. Regardless, consistency is better than total degradation.
2c. Eat better. The first half of the month was again ok, but the last half was terrible. We ate out a lot, and though I made ok choices while eating out, the fact still remains that the general quality of food decision-making has not been the best. There seems to be a theme here. The first half of the month is good, but the last half stinks. Hmmm... is this because of a lack of focus, natural life rhythm, or something else?
2d. Address form issues that are affecting my knees, hips, ankles, and shins. Mitigated/closed.
"Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment. (Lao Tzu)
Professional Development
3a. Write more meaty blogs. I feel that I again made progress in this area, partly thanks to my RSA contributions. Nonetheless, the last half of the month has seen me devolve into frivolity. I need to get back on-target in this area.
3b. Begin writing articles. Uh... well... d'oh! I've made no progress here in the last month.
3c. Begin writing white papers. Still pending...
3d. Attend webinars and other free or cheap training programs. I attended the RSA Conference. That's enough for one month. I'm increasingly of the belief that this won't ever be a high priority for me after work. It's one thing to sit in on these sessions during the day, but it's hard to want to "work" after working all day. I might consider altering this goal at the mid-year mark. I'm also increasingly interested in returning to grad school to pursue either a PhD or a JD, which would make this area much lower priority.
"To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect. (Lao Tzu)
Fiscal Responsibility
4a. Finally pay off high-interest debt. Using a bit of a shell game, I've made what I consider to be reasonable progress in this area. The short-term cost was in transfer fees, but I've gotten almost all of my high-interest debt structured into 5.99% or less accounts. Barring a major incident, I should have made very significant progress in paying down this remaining debt by August. The only bump in the road was having to put down one month's rent as a deposit on our new rental home, which meant coming up with a couple grand, but I had planned accordingly, and so we're ok. By this time next year I'd very much like to be nearly debt free (except for a couple major purchases, like a new vehicle).
4b. Start putting aside money for emergencies (goal: 3 months' expenses). Thanks to the shell game mentioned in 4a, I was able to continue putting money into savings. The bad news is that most of this savings is going to be wiped out in October 2008 when Hanna takes a month off unpaid. But, it still shows that we're able to put money into savings when we previously were not. Good for us!
4c. Begin investing in aggressive funds. Pending available capital, deferred until 4a and 4b are good.
4d. Continue reducing expenses. Being on travel last month allowed me to get reimbursed for a lot of my food expenses. As a result, our expenses were lower, but probably not as a result of anything real. We've been eating out a lot, which is not good. Although, with food and fuel prices on the rise, it's really hard to tell whether or not we're making consistent progress. Gas along has gone up almost a dollar in the past 6 months. Hard to gauge expenses in the face of recession and inflation.
