2009 Thoughts and Plans

I don't really do the New Year's Resolution thing... they always seem kind of artificial and set up for failure. I'm sure I've kept a few in my time, but not many.

Instead, I was putting some thought to things I'd like to do in 2009.

Reduce the amount of industrially processed foods in my diet. I'm not specifically putting "lose" weight on my list this year, though that's always in the back of my head. This is more about trying to eat healthier. Processed foods are almost always less healthy. (I throw in "industrially" since there's a lot of difference between any processing you do at home, and whatever ConAgra does for you.) And really, I'm not looking to cut out all processing... we're not looking to start drinking raw milk, and frozen veggies are fine in a pinch. This is going to be tough to do, and it'll be gradual. Our schedules don't allow a lot of time for cooking so something else has to give. (Fewer processed foods also means more cooking time... Processing provides extra convenience.) One tough part here for me will be cutting down on cereals... As I've mentioned before, I love breakfast cereal. But there aren't too many foods more industrially processed than cereals short of Twinkies, or maybe Cheetos. A big part of this will be trying to cut down on corn syrup. Another component will be more buying locally, including but not limited to the farmer's market. And expanding our own garden.

Keep up the pescetarian / flextarian thing. We've been going about a year and a half with it, and while it's occasionally a pain in the ass, I've been pretty pleased with it. Oddly, we haven't been eating all that many more vegetables, but I'd like to see that change . In concert with the item above, a lot of the meat products we've cut out were replaced in one way or another with more processed foods. I also add flextarian since we do work in meat products on some "special occasions".

Do more recording. A lot of my musical 2008 focused on playing out with the band, which has been awesome. 2009 will see more of the same. But I haven't had a chance to do more than a wee bit of recording... a cover track here and there, helping mixtapes and meltdowns with a few tracks earlier in the year. I'd like to get a little more sophisticated with my Digital Audio Workstation and do more songwriting. This also gives me a little more of an excuse to work in my man room and set it up as the recording studio I hope it'll one day become.

Spend more time at home. When we moved here more than two and a half years ago, both K and I got involved in a lot of extra-curricular activities to get to know people. We knew one family when we moved here, and not all that well. Now, we've got a nicely embedded network, but we're so busy with our committed activities we never have time to see any of them, let alone each other. Time for a bit of a reboot. Several of my extra-curriculars trail off in the next few months, and I'm not fishing for anything to take their place. K is also pulling back a bit. Even if it's just having more nights to sit around and watch a Netflix or something, that's what I'm aiming for. Plus, this will give us more time for cooking and such.

Travel a little more. Ah, duality. Despite spending very little time at home in 2008, we did surprisingly little travel. I'm not sure we really went anyplace new. A trip or two to Chicago and Duluth, mostly for family. I flew back to DC once, but for a funeral. We've got some stuff on the plate for 2009 already, but mostly stuff like a road trip to see family back east. I'd love to do a little more planning to visit some other local-ish destinations, even if it's just a road trip to Dubuque or Door County. Last year, we'd talked about a drive down to St. Louis with a stop in Branson, but we never got around to it. Hell, we haven't actually been to Milwaukee proper yet. Budget prevents much plane travel now, so I'd like to knock out some local destinations before we start flying the kids to DisneyWorld or island vacations and such.

So, maybe those are just New Year's Resolutions under a different name. I'm viewing them as more large scale trends for the next year and beyond. In any event, those are some of the Das Binky philosophies for the coming year. Hope you and yours have a good one!