A couple New Year’s resolutions:

1. Lose weight. I know this is one of those clichéd ones, but, for the sake of my future health, I think it’s necessary. This will also help with my back problems, which brings us to:
2. Fix what ails me. I really need to get my back taken care of, or at least under control. While I can live with it as it is right now, it’s causing me problems sleeping which affects everything else I do. I also need to finally get my toe fixed.
3. Save more, spend less. I’ve got a number of potential large purchases coming up this year, including needing a new vehicle since I don’t think Kato will last as a primary car for another 12 months, and I’ll need money for them. This means I really need to try to cut back on any non-essential spending. In addition, I need to get all the bills that I owe paid off, to try to rebuild my credit in preparation for these purchases.

Those are the big three. I’d also like to try to travel this year if my finances will permit me. It’s been nearly six years since I’ve last been on a plane, and almost as long, not counting the three day excursion to Sault St. Marie, since I’ve been out of the Midwest. I’m also going to try to update this blog more often.
Theoretically my work will be rearranging our pay scales in the coming weeks, meaning a raise for me. If this money can all be devoted to paying off bills or put into savings, this will help with goal three. However, I don’t know when this will actually happen as Dave hasn’t announced it to the company yet: I only know of it because of an IM conversation I had with him.

It’s currently less than 30° outside, and really windy, so we might have a chance of actually getting a winter this year. Alternately, all this wind could bring us warmer air. I’d prefer the former, as we’ve not had any snow worth mentioning so far.

I found out at approximately 1:00 AM this morning that Chris, the fourth night guy, decided he couldn’t cut it and quit without any prior notice. This means that I’m back to working six nights a week, with the short night Monday night instead of Thursday night. This isn’t a problem, except that I was counting on having the Monday night of Christmas off to spend with my family. Fortunately, as I only work three hours and it’s Christmas so we shouldn’t be that busy, Dave’s stated that I can basically skip work that night.

Apart from finding coverage for work, our Christmas plans are starting to shape up nicely. Tentatively, we’ll be here until the morning of the 22nd, then up to Chicago to visit my mom on the 22nd and 23rd. From there we’re taking Gary down to my dad’s on the 23rd, then I get to come back here for an additional night of working. Then Christmas Eve and Christmas day are at my dad’s, with the 26th finding us heading to Columbus, IN, to visit Angela’s family. The evening/night of the 26th we’re driving to Peoria for a family get together on the 27th, then back here in time for work that night. While it sounds like a lot of driving, it’s kinda necessary to see everyone that needs to be seen, and better than going to Arkansas like last year.

On the subject of Holidays: Thanksgiving went pretty well. Angela and I drove up to Chicago Thursday morning to have dinner with my mom, her boyfriend Cary, and my younger brother Gary. Most of the cooking was done when we got there, but we were just in time to help Gary with the turkey. The particular recipe my mom was using included buttering the turkey, then inserting butter under the skin between the skin and the meat of the bird, most likely as a substitute to basting. It turned out really well, but the actual application of butter betwixt bird and skin was a rather interesting operation, and prompted many jokes not appropriate for mixed company.