Are we counting if he gets picked up for a probation violation? The odds of that seem quite high to me. In fact, I'd wager he's already violated it at least once and just hasn't been caught. If we wanted to make it fair, it'd have to be a separate offense.
Goals: Keep my sick cat alive. Thankfully I think her treatment is working. Quit fucking around, sack up, and get a new goddamn car already. Get a professional cert for my new job, assuming I get enough work to do this year in order to keep me busy. Get laid?
I hear you can find nurses on Craigslist who'll help you out with that. My goal for this year is to go back to work and remember how to do my job.
Quit teaching at the end of May and bust ass to go back to school in June for electrical engineering.
My goals are mostly continuing what I was doing at the end of 2015: 1. Stay off cigarettes (cold turkey from 40 per day - since October 26), 2. Get healthier (bought a rowing machine with the savings from #1, 8km a day 6 days a week) 3. Buy a house to put my brother in so I can fuck him off out of my life (living with me at the moment; no hoping drug addict with several mental health issues, lightbulbs keep going missing), 4. Finish current work project on / under cost due to finish in October. 5. More sex... shameful, I can count how many times last year on one hand. I found these two very closely related. Each gives me motivation to do the other when I'm feeling flat. You can do it mate.
2015 was decent but not exceptional. Couple focus areas: 1) Take control of my own happiness. It sounds cheesy or cliche, but 2015 was a roller coaster of emotions largely tied to me placing too much emphasis on my friends' situations, failed romantic interludes, and misguided expectations which often lead to disappointment. I need to become a lot more comfortable with me and my center. 2) Chop down my student debt more aggressively. I currently probably have another 7ish years before I pay off grad school loans, but if I get smarter and more aggressive with my saving/pay offs, I can get it more in the 5 year range. 3) Take profits sooner, become more disciplined in my stock market activity. This was my first year seriously swing trading the market since I was actually a trader back in 2009. I had some very good calls, made some very good decisions, but got crushed many times for being overly confident and trusting the market too much. Granted it was one of the hardest markets to trade in decades, but this could be a very good side source of income if I take some lessons out of my failures and apply it going forward. 4) Have a threesome. Why the fuck not, right?
Goal #1: Give notice at job accomplished. On to Goal #2: Have a workable outline by the end of February.
With all the budding authors on the board, maybe we should do a thread about what book you are writing, or would write (since most of us won't actually)?
1) give notice and quit my job to stay home with the kids and focus on fixing this place up. Once that happens... 2) clean out and finish the basement. If I'm not working, this will be doable. I barely know shit, though, so I'll be relying on people who do know. Basically, my dad will be teaching me as he has redone his entire house twice over in the past 20 years, so he knows his shit. He is also retiring in May and is looking for stuff to keep him busy, and my mom will love having him out of the house more. Which brings me to... 3) learn to be more handy. I've never been handy, always been more "book smart," but the stuff I've tried I figured out pretty quick. I'm a fast learner, it's always just kinda scared me to try fixing shit, and I've always had handy brothers who could help. In return I usually helped them with their computers and tech stuff. Now I want to do Learn to do stuff myself.
1: Put at least $30k into savings (high goal: $40k) with no increase in credit utilization 2: Knock my wife up (been trying for 4 months now) 3: Stop drinking during the week 4: Get in better shape #3 should ideally help all of the above come to fruition
1-Find a new day job. If it comes with benefits, even more the better. I currently work for a man who is driving me fucking insane, and the company is so tiny that I spend way too much time around him. 2-Take better care of myself. Eat a fuckin' salad a couple nights a week. I am at the point where I work so much that I am too tired to cook, or if I eat something it is easy grab crap. I am losing weight and not eating very well. This needs to stop. 3-FUN GOAL TIME: We are planning to install a fence in the back and redo the back yard. Buddy used to be good off the leash, but now that there are two doggies, he has changed personalities when outside. He is territorial over the yard and won't come when he is running and I am yelling. We're gonna have a fire pit and some lawn chairs....ahhh. It will be wonderful back there.
My one bit of advice here is just to be patient. We're 2 years and one groin surgery (mine!) into still working on this. All of those years of birth control and condoms for nothing.