So much for auld lange syne

Nothing says "cliche" like a list of New Year's resolutions. To avoid such a stigma, I've compiled a list of to-do items for 2009.

RUN A REAL 5K
About a month ago, I took Planet Fitness up on their $10/month gym membership offer - and so far, so good. I didn't realize how much I missed running until I started running again. An annoying pain in my knee stopped my previous running effort just as I had completed my first full 5k in 2007. Over the summer I tried again, and the pain returned. It even plagued me on my New England trip: there were some hills I just couldn't manage, and I was lucky to make it up Mt. Cadillac.

But now the pain seems to be gone. I stepped back in to the couch-to-5k plan I started with last year, and I've found this year it seems to be easier. It's like my body remembers what all this nonsense is about, and decided to take it easy on me. "Okay, you fool," it seems to say to me, "have it your way."

I drive across town to the Planet Fitness facility two to three time a week, after dinner, and work out for an hour or more. The first half-hour is dedicated to the treadmill, and the second half-hour is centered around weight training. I haven't used a full-on gym since high school; I used a small free weight and a lot of push-ups and sit-ups to get me through the years since. But now, with a complete gym, it feels pretty darn good to really work myself.

Winter is tough for everyone, and I always seem to gain a few pounds. Not this year. The ultimate goal will be to finally(!) run in a true, organized 5k run somewhere in the area. As long as the knee holds up, and I keep myself motivated, I can finally strike "run a 5k" off life's to-do list.

And you know what? It's like my body remembers what running is like. I've actually skipped ahead of the couch-to-5k workouts because I needed the challenge. Check the weather in hell!

LAUNCH NEWTON POETRY AS A SELF-HOSTED BLOG
Most people have sensible, easy-to-explain hobbies: horses, scrapbooking, photography. It's a little harder to center your hobby around technology that was discontinued 10 years ago. But that's what I've done, and my little Newton blog has grown and grown in the year since I launched it.

I set a modest goal - 500 visits a day - and once that goal was achieved, I told myself (and my readers) that I would launch Newton Poetry as a self-contained blog. I already switched the domain name from a .wordpress-hosted blog to newtonpoetry.com, and since then there's been a measurable uptick in readership. The magic of the Internet can never be fully understand, I think - only negotiated with.

So sometime in 2009 I will take the blog off of Wordpress and buy hosting space and experiment with PHP and JavaScript and all these crazy languages that no sane person dabbles in without preparation. My prep is in the doing itself, and God Help Me it should be interesting.


PAY OFF MY LAST CREDIT CARD
It seems like forever ago that Suzanne and I took Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover class, but I only have to look at my savings account, my self-accountability, and my spending habits to realize the lessons we learned have stuck - hard as glue.

I don't have Suzanne around to keep me accountable anymore, but I gotta say - I've done okay on my own. I have $1,000 stored away for my emergency fund, I've paid off three credit cards, and this year - if all goes according to plan - I'll pay off my final and largest credit card. Last year I transferred the balance to a 0% APR Chase card so that every time I make a payment, I'm hammering the principal. It feels damn good when I plunk down $150 on the barrelhead every month. As the year has gone on, I've chipped away at the balance so that, in 2009, I'll make one big payment and have the goddamn thing out of my life forever.

After that, I'll have my two student loans (about $18k) and my car payment (about $4k) to go. Ramsey recommends that I take the credit card payment ($150/month) and add it onto my next debt (one of the student loans) so that I'm making giant payments each month. That giant money hammer will pound that debt, and then I'll add THAT giant payment to the next debt, and so on. A debt snowball. It works like a charm.

I've cut my spending down so that every week I give myself enough to buy groceries, fill up my tank (easier these days), and have a bit of fun - so that I'm by no means "sacrificing." But I think back to my bygone college days and LBD ("Life before Dave"), and I wonder how I put away any money at all.

My point in all this is not to brag (though I do congratulate myself a bit for maintaining this level of discipline), but to point out that even before the economic crisis I was concentrating on getting my financial affairs in order - and 2009 will feature the biggest payoff since I started. To celebrate, I'll overpay by $1.25 on that Chase card so that they're forced to send me a credit check when I close the account. Why? Simple. So that, for once, they owe me money. Cool, huh?


That's not all for 2009. If you really know me, you know three measely goals are never enough for Dave Lawrence. I have one in mind that I meant to tackle at the end of last summer. More will spring up in the meantime, I'm sure. They always do. But 2009 is lucky: I won't put a lot of pressure on the the new year, which means life can go at my speed: methodical, prepared, a slow grind.

No stigma there.