Now that 2025 is here, I thought I’d share my goals and aspirations for me and what I hope to accomplish this year. Like previous years, I’m aspiring to continue to do what makes me happy and improve myself.
Aspirations
Aspiration #1: Complete 12 Video Games
One of the things I did more of last year was play video games with stories rather than just a bunch of sports games. I completed several games that just left me feeling in awe of the good stories and game play. My backlog is quite large so I think I want to jump into it and knock some out in search of more great stories. I figure one a month would be a reasonable target.
Aspiration #2: Read 45 Books
I read 41 books in 2023, and 44 in 2024, I’m going to try to up it to 45 this year. One of my favorite routines I have with my wife is sitting together on the couch just about every night and reading for an hour or so before bed. It’s a great way to unwind before trying to get some sleep. I love reading in that when it’s fiction, I get a good story, and when it’s nonfiction, I learn something new or get new insight.
Aspiration #3: Write 100 Blog Posts
Last year I wrote 109 blog posts. Some of them were my weekly notes which while they count, I’m going to exclude in my target for the year. My hope this year is to write more, and while they might not be my novel, they can help me keep my writing habit going. They’ll also be able to help me share my thoughts and express myself during what will likely be the start of a rough 4 years.
Aspiration #4: Actually Finish the Sunroom
I set this as an aspiration last year, and it didn’t end up getting done. My hope is to get to it this year. I would love for us to have another place to sit and relax in the evenings or even during the day when the weather is nice. The natural light will help too I’m sure.
Aspiration #5: Build My USS Enterprise A Model
Several years ago I bought the Polar Lights USS Enterprise A 1:350 model and planned to build it. Needless to say, I never did. Over the last several months, I’ve been following MKM Modelwerx over on Pixelfed and seeing the amazing work he’s doing building Star Trek (and other science fiction models) complete with lighting kits and everything. He’s been nice enough to answer some questions I’ve had and pointed me to places where I can learn how to build the models with lighting and everything.
So I have a drill kit, and a lighting kit and hope to build the kit this year. It will be good to have a project I can work on with my hands. I’ll have to re-teach myself soldering and reacclimatize myself with resistors and everything else that goes into it, but I’m excited.
Everything Else
There are other things I’m hoping to do this year that I’m not really going to measure or anything.
Like with the 100 blog posts, I want to write more. I still want to finish what has turned to be more novel than short story that I had originally intended it to be. I also have other ideas I’d like to explore. So this will more be an open-ended aspiration. Just spend more time focused putting words on a page.
I’ve also finally been spending time picking up my guitar and playing. I’d like to continue to do so and spend some time learning more songs, and hopefully getting better with barre chords.
I’m also hoping to do some gardening. Something I really haven’t done much of. Over the summer, my wife and I went to some farmers markets and found habanada and shishito peppers. Both of them were delicious, but we have only been able to find them at farmers markets, and not all the time. I’m hoping to dig up some grass along the one side of our garage and plant some peppers. I have no idea how successful I’ll end up being, but it’s worth an attempt. My neighbor is a gardener so maybe I can get some helpful tips from her.
Finally, I want to get back to running distances. During the pandemic before I built my gym, running was one of the only activities I could consistently do to keep myself active. Because of how often I was running, I kept my distances on the shorter side, 3-4 miles to take it easy on my legs. I’ve been struggling to get myself back to running (maybe not all the time) 6+ miles at a time. I also still have an aspiration to run a sub-5 hour marathon. I’m not sure that’s in the cards this year, but I’d like to start running longer distances.
As with previous years, you can see where I’m at in these aspirations on my progress page.
Here’s to a good 2025.