Well, my resolutions for 2019 didn't exactly work out as well as I hoped, but at least looking at them can give me an idea of what worked, didn't work, and what I can do next year to be more successful.
So let's have a look at what I wanted to do last year, and see how it went. I had five total resolutions:
- Get 15 painting points
- Reduce my number of unplayed games by 10
- Play 50 games of Warmachine/Hordes
- Read 18 books
- Lose 25 pounds.
Get 15 painting points
I ended up with zero. That's the bad news. The good news, I actually did put paint on miniatures, and put at least three colors on some miniatures (a unit of Gatormen Posse). This would have put me at five points, which is at least a start, but I admit I can't really count them as they aren't 'finished'. In my head, this was going to be easy to do, as I really thought I could find some time to paint every week. But as it was... almost every weekend got filled up with SOMETHING, and most of my evenings were spent trying to get my basement finally organized and completely situated, figuring that long term that would make me a lot more productive. I have finally managed to put together a system that lets me work on miniature assembly in a structured, consistent way... I just need to figure out how to do so with painting.
Reduce number of unplayed games by 10
I made quite an effort to play through my backlog of unplayed games, playing roughly 15-20 games that I own but had never put on the table. Overall, I did well. Yet, I ended the year with more unplayed games than I started. The problem wasn't actually my rate of acquisition (okay, it wasn't the ONLY problem)- I actually hadn't done a good job of cataloging all of my games on BoardgameGeek, which I use to keep track of what I have played, and haven't played. This caused me an issue as I went through my collection of, say, Against the Odds Magazine games, and realized I had ten games that I hadn't accounted for. Oops. I didn't really have a good way of tracking what was new, what I had owned but hadn't accounted for, and really... much of anything but what I played, but I had a clear goal to reach, and I failed to reach it. I *think* I can tackle this again next year and complete it though, if I really work at it.
Play 50 games of Warmachine/Hordes
I ended up at 21, half of my goal. In truth, this was a pretty ambitious goal, but the end result of trying to shoot for this did actually increase how often I played, forced me to play people I've never met before (a wonderful experience, even if it meant a bunch of losses), and I think brought some of my friends more firmly back into the game. Overall, I'm happy with how it went, even though I totally failed my resolution. I'll pick a smarter number next year (probably 30).
Read 18 Books
Finally, one resolution I succeeded on. I read 21 books this year, totaling 5888 pages, with the longest being Anna Karenina. I'm happy with how I did this year, and I hope to increase that goal for next year.
Lose 25 pounds
I wish I had an excuse for this one, but I don't. I just dropped the ball. I was doing really well for a time, and then I stopped prioritizing it. I didn't GAIN weight over the course of the year, which is a small solace, but it was not a good year for this, sadly.
Anyway, I went 1 for 5 in the resolution department. That's pretty awful, but hopefully next year I improve!