The Mandelbear's Musings

Last year, as you may recall, I titled my New Year's Day post "This had better work...". Last month I went back over it, in "That Was the Year That Was". I shorted myself some, by only reviewing my actual goals and not any other notable accomplishments along the way. Wait -- were there any?

Probably the biggest was simply living through it. It's not clear that anything else was that major.

Anyway, onward! Here are the goals for 2018:

1. Find the money for 2016 taxes and the garage room remodel. This will almost certainly involve a loan, rather than pulling it out of my retirement savings, because of the tax hit.
2. Get the garage sufficiently cleared out to serve as a workshop. Work some wood.
3. Do some real programming. Find an interesting open-source project and get involved, maybe. Write a DW client that works the way I want it to.
4. Learn Wordpress and Joomla. Maybe Drupal. Build the website that N is going to need for her business.
5. Do a lot more music. Continue lessons, play at some open mics and farmers' markets, record a CD or three.
6. Do a lot more writing. I wrote a book once; it's not impossible for me to do it again.
7. Attend Worldcon in San Jose. There are a lot of people in the Bay Area who we haven't seen since we left.
8. Take care of myself Self-care is still my weakest point. Walk. Find a therapist. Eat more green stuff.
9. Do things that get me out among people. I'm still something of a loner, and very much an introvert, but I need this.

There were also a bunch of WIBNIFs, none of which actually got done. Three of them, "Get back into recording", "Do a lot more writing", and "Do a little woodworking", are included above. That pretty much leaves:

• Record an album, either Amethyst Rose, Lookingglass Folk, or preferably both. Last year's version of this, "do some recording", is included in "do a lot more music". See above.
• Do something that will bring in a little money. I'm not sure I'm up for contracting again, but writing could do it. So could an album or two. And maybe I could start a patreon.