Januarying

 January 2023 is in the books, more proof that the calendar plays for keeps.  My wife thinks that this January would never end and was glad to see the back of it (Sorry, she had Downton Abbey on , and I couldn't help myself.). For me, January ended too quickly, I hadn't finished all my Januarying. 

I've always been  a little bit uncertain when it comes to  what I think about New Year's resolutions.  On one hand, I think that they are a colossal waste of time because we should always be trying to improve ourselves and we  don't need December 31st telling us what to do.  On the other hand, there are definitely things I like to try to accomplish every year and January 1st seems like a good time to start accomplishing those things.

Some of these goals (I do like goals better than resolutions) vary from year to year and many of them don't get accomplished.  I do spend quite a bit of time each January planning to accomplish them, which is why I call making a game plan for the goals, Januarying. 

One goal I have every year is to average 10,000 steps a day for the year.  2022 is the only year so far I have met that goal.  I had come close in 2021 averaging around 9,200 steps a day.  It really was a tale of two halves where I averaged just 7,000 steps from January to June and then averaged close to 11,500 to close out the year.  I made my goal for 2022 to be averaging at least 10,000 steps for the entire year (In 2005 White Sox parlance we call that going wire to wire). To that end I walked 26,122 steps on Jauary 1st.  We had a small party at out house on New Years Eve  and after our guests left, I walked our neighborhood for a little while.  Most of the steps came later that day when I got the job of patrolling the movie theatre where I work which means walking up and down 12 theatres every 20 or 30 minutes to make sure  the equipment and audience members are behaving appropriately.  

This year I decided to approach repeating my accomplishment differently. I made a calendar in my mind and decided in advance how many steps I wanted to get on the given month.  At the end of the year, If I make all my goals I will have again averaged  over 10,000 steps for the year.  In January, I set my goal for far lower than 10,000 but still beat the average I set for myself by more than 1,000 steps a day.  

Some of my other Januarying goals have to do with or are chronicled on my blog.  I will be posting more soon about my goals of watching 12 new movies (to me) and reviewing them here, and my reading goal for the year.  So. Ill just table such discussion for now, except to say that I have spent quite a bit of Januarying plotting out some of the books and films I want to consume this year and going about consuming them.  Each December and January I spend time redesigning my blog. I have especially enjoyed  linking some new blogs to mine in a space called Blog Try Outs. One such blog is called Laws of Gravity The caretaker of Laws of Gravity is a substitute teacher like myself.

At my advanced age of 58 years, 4 months, 1 week, 4 days and 12 hours (It's actually 11 hours, but I still have to edit this post.) , I am beginning to hear more and more about finishing well.  I feel like I might be a tad young for that, but Januarying has been instrumental in helping me start well.  

12 new to me movies for 2022

 This post has been adaoted from a January 2015 post.

At the end of each year I like to reflect on the year past and prepare for the coming year. I have been thinking quite a bit  about some of my goals and whether I have achieved them this year. One goal I  set each year and have so far failed to achieve is to watch 12 movies I have not seen before.  

I like movies and have worked at a movie theatre since 2019. Besides watching new movies at the theatre, I tend to watch my favorites over and over.   I also like  to watch movies that are new to me and discover new favorites.    On many occasions I have attempted  to watch 12 new to me movies in the course of the year.  I may have accomplished this goal in the past, but I have always failed to chronicle it.  Next year,I will try again to  write a post each month about the "new" movie I have seen.

Let me explain the parameters I have placed upon myself.  When I say new movies, I do not mean 12 2022 movies at the theater.  I mean 12 movies released prior to 2022. Also, I don't only want to              watch movies made in my lifetime, I want to explore through all the eras of cinema.  

Here is how I am doing it:  I was born in 1964 and have divided that time in 4 periods and then divided the time prior to my birth into 2 periods.  These periods are: 

2007 through 2021
1993 through 2006
1979 through 1993
1964 through 1978
1949 through 1963

Pre 1934 through 1948

I will attempt to watch 2 movies from each era, and report back here each month with a review.  I was recently subbing for some  high school English  classes saw an assignment for a movie review.  I am going to use that assignment as the template for my monthly reviews.

• I will rate each movie on a 1 (worst movie ever) to 5 (best movie I have seen) scale.
• I will provide a 2-3 sentence summary of the movie.
• I will share 1 theme from the movie.
• I will write one thing I liked about the movie and 1 thing I disliked about the movie.
• I will say who I think would make the best audience for this movie.  

The thing I like most about this type of review is that it is only supposed to be 1 paragraph.  I have failed many times in the past not to watch the movies but to chronicle them as I have had unrealistic expectations of the quality of such a review and the time it takes me to make a longer review. \

Last Thursday I finally watched The Matrix (1999) for the first time.  It was playing at my theatre in anticipation of Matrix Resurrection which opens soon.  When I told my wife that it was showing she noticed it was also on a streaming service we subscribe to so we watched it together after work.

Here is a  review of The Matrix following the template and giving me some practice for the task at hand next year.

In my opinion The Matrix deserves 4 of 5 stars for being a thrilling innovative and entertaining film that kept me on the edge of my seat. The Matrix appears to take place at the turn of the 20th century but the main character Neo discovers that all is not what it seems. His discovery leads him to another reality and to a choice of which reality he should follow.  Once Neo makes his choices he uses his new powers for the good of humanity.  One important theme of the movie is the concept of fate.  One thing I really liked about the movie was the fast paced frenetic action.  I disliked the intense violence of the movie, I was not aware that this series of movies are all R rated, I think the violence could be ratchetted  down a little for a PG13 rating instead.  This movie is best suited for sci-fi  fans who like post apocalyptic action films that are both dark and hopeful at the same time.  

Things I'd like to post more about.

 Blog Insider: A look behind the curtain at HSD

Tonight's Episode: Some things I'd like to post more about.

When I first started blogging I kept a notebook with all the blogging ideas I had and would cross them out when I wrote about them and add more as the ideas come to me.  This got to be a bit of a problem as I would often not have my notebook when I got an idea and often could not find my notebook when I was working on my blog.  Also, not all of my ideas were blog worthy.  Some were time sensitive and by the time I got to writing them down they were no longer relevant.  Some just worked better as an idea but did not make sense when they saw the light of screen.  

I have decided to make one of those lists as a blog post to give me a reference point I can't leave in my other coat and also to give the readers (if there are still any out there) an idea of what sort of things are interesting me these days.

• I would like to write more about my work as a substitute teacher.
• I would like to write more about my ADHD.
• I would like to write a little about the combination of my ADHD and my work as a substitute teacher,  
• I have began recompiling my list of my 100 favorite movies.  I would like to write more about the particular movies and my process in compiling the list.
• My wife and I have have lost over 100 pounds this year.  I'd like to write about my weight and my goal to stop yoyoing and get down to my weight in high school.
• I would like to share more poetry here.  Which means I'd like to write more poetry.  
• I would like to take more pictures and post more pictures.
• I would like to write more about my faith.

There are certainly other things I'd like to blog more about, but at this present moment these are the forms of content I'd like to delve into more in the future.  

I am also thinking of making some wholesale changes in my my blogging presence  at the beginning of the year.  I currently have 4 blogs active and am finding keeping those active more and more challenging.  I once commented to someone that as long as I am posting at least once a quarter on each blog I would be satisfied.  I have certainly been doing that but I'm noticing some redundancies and have spending a lot of thoughtspace on how to more efficiently scratch my blogging itch in the months and years to come.  

Resolved

Here are some Home School Resolutions I am going to try this year.

Many of these are not new. 

1.  To every day demonstrate  to  my children that teaching them is a privilege and something that I cherish.

I am not the first person I want teaching my kids.  I am the second.  And until God works it out that I can get a job that can provide for our family, I will be the one teaching at home.  Sometimes, I think I give the kids the impression that teaching them is a burden.  Every day I want to convey how happy Amy and I are as a family for the privilege of educating our children.

2) To be prepared to teach.

I am not much of a planner and flying by the seat of my pants doesn't work.  So each day and each week, I need to be planning for the next days and the next weeks.

3) To model the behavior I am teaching.

During the course of the week, I often "teach" by example, the exact opposite that I am trying to teach by words.  Much of the reason why I get frustrated with my children is not because they are not learning, but that they are learning some of my behaviors a little too well.

4) To focus on the basics.

Writing, Reading, Spelling, Times Tables. 

Some of the kids have come pretty far, but there is still a long way to go.  These things need to be drilled and drilled and drilled and often I get tired of fighting them and move onto other things that I can manage more easily.  This year I want to focus on these main things.

5) To shower my kids with love and praise.

This may just be a rewording of resolution 1, but I think it bears repeating.

What about you?

What goals and plans do you have for 2012?

This post is in this week's Carnival of Homeschooling.  To return to the carnival click here.

A Simple Plan

In a previous post I talked about my goals for 2009. If you missed that riveting piece of blog-o-journalism click here

It is all well and good to set goals, but if you want to reach them, you need a plan.

So I reviewed my goals and have made a plan of how to reach those. I share them with you now.

1) Yell less at children.

I notice that I yell at them more when I have been lax in disciplining them. Consitent discipline should keep their behavior in check and certainly my frustration level down. I have been putting this method in practice and see the yelling going down.

2) Communicate better with my wife.

My plan is to spend more time at the front-end making sure we understand each other. Also, we have been bringing back date nights and spending 1 on 1 time outside the friendly but hectic confines of home, is helping the communication as well.

3) Growing in my relationship with God.

My goal is to do 2 things I haven't done in a while:

A) read through the bible in a year
B) keep a prayer journal

4) Minister as a family.

My goal is to make a list of potential service opportunities as a family by the end of this month and pick one by the end of next.

5) Bring back the perm for men.

No hair raising plans in place, as of yet.

6. Write a letter a week in 2009.

There have been 2 full weeks this year and I have written 1 letter. I plan to write a 2nd one tomorrow and a third one sometime this week. I have a list in my mind of people I plan to write and will put that list on paper soon.

7. Be funnier in 2009 than 2008.

I already have received more compliments about my humor on my facebook page in 2009 than I did in 2008. I didn't have a facebook page in 2008, but that's not important.

Funny is as funny does so I am not worried.

So you've seen my goals and now you've read my plans. I'll give a quarterly update. Mail me a quarter and I'll give you an update.

Next Time: Because They're Nouns

Goals for 2009

First of all to anyone referred here from Biblical Womanhood, I have no intention of being a biblical woman. The biblical I can handle, the womanhood, not so much. That being said, you can see many more peoples' goals for 2009 by linking here: Biblical Womanhood

Here are some of my goals for 2009:

1) I would like to yell at my children less. Actually I would not like to yell at them at all. Which would be less. First of all, yelling at them never works. Second of all, it gives them a model for dealing with frustration that is not biblical for any kind of hood.

2) I would like to communicate better with my wife. Since I took over home schooling, my wife and I have been misunderstanding each other. Here are a couple of examples (one of them may be made-up): My wife recently thinks she told me to use some of the money we were given as Christmas gifts to pay down the mortgage. I still distinctly remember her saying White Sox season tickets. Then there was the time at our children's swimming lessons last month, when she told me she was going to pick up dinner on the way home and would be stopping at both McDonald's and Burger King (they are across the street from each other) and asked what I wanted. I thought she said she was going to McDonalds or Burger King. So I gave her an order for each place. She was astounded that I would order so much, and I was equally perplexed when she brought me 5 sandwiches from their respective dollar menus.

3)I would like to grow in my relationship with God. Teaching the kids empties my spiritual tank quicker than anything I've ever done. I want my children to see my dependence on God for direction in mine and their lives.

4) To continue to minister as a family. Last year we began having a special needs child from our church stay with us for a day or two at a time to give the parents the ability to reconnect with themselves and their other children. This is allowing us to minister as a family and is good to teach the kids patience and selflessness. We hope to take other opportunites to minister as a family this year.

5) To bring back the perm for men. I have some pictures from my college days if you want to see them.

6) To write a letter a week in 2009. When I was a missionary in Russia, my roommate called me the post card king. Because as he would send out 4 page letter after 4 page letter, I would send out post card after post card promising a longer letter later (many of which never came.) Now 14 years later, I don't even send postcards. As part of their school work the children are writing a letter a month for the year. I plan to demonstrate the craft by sending out 1 a week.

7) To be funnier in 2009 than I was in 2008. Funny is very important to me. Back in my cubicle days, I cherished my annual reviews that said what a good sense humor I have. I know what you are thinking, that's the workplace equivalent of describing a blind date as having a "good personality." Well what's so bad about having a good personality? Being funny is no laughing matter and I intend to take it very seriously in 2009.

Next Time: Library Week