2009 Goal update

If you recall, I have 3 main goals this year:

• Reduce our debt by 5 figures
• Watch more baseball on TV
• Finish some unfinished projects around here

There hasn't been a lot of baseball on television so far this year. Spring Training is on right now, they have the World Baseball Classic in the middle of it, there are still 34 days until opening day. Last year I didn't purchase a MLB.com gameday audio package, but I think I might this year. One of the problems with last year was the fact that you have to run Windows to get it, and I run Linux on my laptop nearly all the time. Now we have a newer computer running Windows at home, and Tara bought a newer Ipod transmitter at the end of last year that you can also plug into your computer, and transmit things over the air. I could plug the thing in, start transmitting, and pick it up with my mp3 player. Geeky, I know, but I am what I am...

Reduce debt. We have reduced our debt by $19095.02 (approximately) this year so far. Now, I imagine we will backslide a bit, since I have a really big project in mind, if we can do it, but that is where we are at so far. If you don't count the minivan we sold in January, we are at $5095.02 for the year. That is still not anything to shake a stick at 2 paydays into the thing, but I am counting the minivan because that was quite the payment we were making on both vans together. It is nice ot have one of the payments gone...

Unfinished projects. I have 9 projects listed from the old entry. The projects, and their status, are:

1. Little path behind the house. I am very likely to start on this soon, since the yard waste pickup is supposed to start up again this week here. I should get this thing cleaned up before we do an appraisal on the house.
2. Garden wall. I carried something like 45 blocks out to the back yard last week. I very nearly went out there to work on it yesterday, but the girls were out there playing, and being kind of loud, so I worked on my house plans instead. This also needs to get finished pre-appraisal.
3. Our closet. Another pre-appraisal job. I asked my friend, who does construction and needs some work, to come over and help me get some of these indoor things done before we get the appraisal done. I figured it would get done faster, and motivate me to get the work done, so I hired him to help. I figure if I spent another $1000 on the house and surrounding area, (I don't really think it would be that much, I have quite a bit of the needed materials.) we would get more out of the appraisal than if the work was not done. I consider the closet a must complete. So is repainting Emma and Ruth's room. Lots of coloring on the walls.
4. Puzzle suduko book. I got to about 75 puzzles done when I lost my pencil. (Or it was stolen.) I have been working in pen since then, because I am too lazy to get another pencil. I end up stopped on each one about a third of the way through, because I have run out of obvious answers. It is a book of hard sodukos, after all. If they were easy enough to get done all in pen, I would have been done long ago.
5. Storage area by laundry room. This is also something that at this point would be taken care of if we end up doing the addition. Not worrying about it right now otherwise.
6. Thing around the dishwasher. Another pre-appraisal job. Waiting on Chad.
7. The shed. I finally have all the junk from Christmas gone. Now that everything is melted away, I can start cleaning up. I need to just start at one end and work my way the other direction. And get the rabbit out of there and back into the back yard.
8. Mission journal. 'nuff said.
9. 4 Wii games. Tara got me Super Mario Galaxy for Valentines Day. I have been working off and on with that one, mostly.
   

That's all of them. Nothing really completed, since I think we might backslide on the money one, and none of the projects have been completed, but that is how it goes, I guess. There has still be signifigant progress, I would say...