Back At It – My Wish List For 2015

Now that the holidays are over, it's time for that overwhelming sense of "OK, now what?"

Christmas and New Year's have come and gone. The decorations are back in the attic, the last appetizer has been eaten for awhile, and almost all of those nice beefy Christmas beers are gone from the beer fridge.

Everyone has used their last few "use it or lose it" vacation days, and the office is back at full staff. I don't know about you, but I've got a strange mixture of that hopeful feeling of renewal, and the feeling that not a lot has changed, as we head into the new year.

My question is: what am I going to do about it?  What am I going to change to make this year different and better than the last?

I'm not really one for resolutions, but these are the things I'm going to work on in 2015.  I'll check back at the end of the year, and let you know how I did.

1.) Lose those extra few pounds that I've been carrying around.  

I'm not obese, but I'm not in prime shape either and haven't been for a few years.  The last time I got serious about dropping some pounds was about 10 years ago. The weight flew off at that point, and it has crept back on in the last few years to the tune of a couple of pounds a year.

I have continued to go to the gym, not as religiously as I used to, and my metabolism has definitely slowed down in 10 years. Now I work all week to lose 2 pounds, go out and have a good burger on the weekend and it's all back.

This has been frustrating and makes it easier to skip the gym "if it's all going to come back anyway."  I know that's dumb thinking and I know the only way I'm going to speed the metabolism back up is with MORE exercise, not less.  This is the year, dammit!

2.) Spend less time on the Internet  

Part of my job has been to maintain our stations' websites and keep the social media pages up to date. We finally have someone to do that full-time. Her name is Dina and you should read her stuff. She's an awesome writer.

This is great for me because I tend to get lost on social media. I'll go on to update something for the station, and get sucked into a cat video, or "Which Beatles Song Are You?" quiz, or some thread that starts as a meme with the coffee cup guy from "Office Space" and somehow gets highjacked into lunatic tinfoil-hat political stuff, or ... well, you get the drift.

Before you know it 45 minutes have gone by and I've gotten nothing done and have less faith in humanity. So, that's a big one.

3.) Take all my vacation days

I know I'm not alone in this. I saw a survey before Christmas that said most of us end up leaving vacation days on the table. I really like my job (most days anyway) so I tend to not take all the time I should.

That changes this year!

Don't expect to hear me on the air much in August unless I am doing live cell phone drops from the beach.

Goal four through seven involve jamming with the Stones, jamming with "The Boss," headlining the Garden with my acoustic band, or at least seeing Paul McCartney if he tours.

So, that's not really a bad list.  What's on yours?