Twelve for 2012

Hello 2012. I can see you. Walking up to the door with the insulated pizza box. Or is that a candygram?

2011 is on its way out. But I don't care to look back on a year that had me hobbled with a messed up ankle for almost half of it. I want to look forward.

What do I want from 2012? What do I hope to accomplish? This is all subject to change. But here are some thoughts. I put these out there with/as intent...

- Complete/compete in an event I've never done before. Maybe this is a new trail race, or distance I haven't run before. Or maybe it is a stand-up paddleboard or kayak race. Throwing something new into the physical challenges.

- Read James Joyce's "Ulysses" before I turn 40 (on April 8). This has been one of those reads that feels like it has been missing, as a college English major, where we read "Dubliners" and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." It has been sitting on my bookshelf, beckoning. I've thought about it. It is time to listen.

- Read books that are currently on my bookshelf vs. buying more. I have amassed a prized collection of books I'd like to read (and some I actually have). But too many of them fall to rainy day status as I get pulled in by something new. This is a year I want to cultivate what is here vs. acquire what is not.

- Get out on the water/go fishing more. I don't hunt. I don't play golf. I dig fishing, but don't do it nearly enough. I'm not talking about going offshore fishing. I mean to get out fishing on the Bay, in the rivers. Local.

- Go to more Nationals games, take the girls to their first Major League Baseball game. I've got my Memorial Park/Camden Yards memories with my dad. That's part of what pulled me to the Nationals when I started working next door. Now our household, my Pittsburgh wife included, are Nationals fans. This will be a fun year to indoctrinate the girls beyond evening Comcast TV.

- Finish 2012 in better shape than I start it, both physically and financially. This is a big one. This year was too sedentary for me in terms of physical activity. And it was another year of wanting to accomplish more, sock more away in terms of finances. Though these two things aren't related, I want to go at them both with abandon. Restrained abandon :)

- Spend less money on stuff, shit I don't need, either save it, or spend it on experiences. Forgo stuff for life.

- Take better care of my temper. It generally stays indoors, doesn't venture out. But the girls see it in the mornings, or around homework time. It doesn't seem like me. And I need to be mindful of it. Perhaps starting the majority of the days with meditation or yoga--Sun Salutations first thing most mornings...

- Plan and take more trips. Of the day variety, of the overnight variety, of the weekend variety. Let's go places we haven't been. Let's take the girls sometimes and just grown-ups and/or friends.

- Walk the dogs more. They dig it. I dig it. We don't do it enough. We should.

- Complete a project I haven't done before. Not sure if this is going to be an around the house or yard project, a creative writing/research project. It is a way of expanding horizons and comfort zones.

- Take care of my house (Protect this house!). In this case literally. The house, the yard, the garage. I'm not one that comes home and tinkers. I'm not going to be, not going to try to be. But I do derive some peace of mind from working in the yard, or when I friend and I re-floored the downstairs. There is some stuff that needs doing. Let's gitterdun.

Well, there is 12 to do's for 2012. That seems like a good number. The key is in the follow-through. That's how the doors get open. And this isn't so much a to do list as it is a mode or way of being for 2012. Direct the intent.