New Year's Resolutions 2018

2016 was pretty terrible. I'm not prepared to say 2017 was worse. I mean, a lot less famous people I admired died, I lost another friend but I'm getting older so I'm getting used to the idea that's going to happen more often. And I at least had the benefit of knowing that Trump was President instead of being blindsided in November.

But... this was a rough, rough year. I had one of the worst weeks of my life this year. The political situation was horrifying and exhausting. Expect the worst became the norm.

Silver linings? Yeah. A couple are mine, private things. But I made several really close new friendships and a lot more extended friendships. We expanded my store into a new location in June, which was exhausting and scary and resulted in some debt I'm still a little worried about but overall has been really rewarding. And this was my second year cancer-free.

Time for 2018 resolutions, and time to check in on last year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Cook More - I tried out several new recipes, although I didn't have many that stuck.

2. Exercise - Nope. Failed again.

3. No Cancer - This one I got.

By The Numbers:

1. I read almost 600 single-issue comics this year, as compared to about 700 the year before, and 52 graphic novels, which is less than the year before.

2. I ate at 93 different restaurants this year. On average, I ate out about 27 times a month, which is more than last year.

3. I played 35 new boardgames.

This Year's Food Plans:

Places I Need to Try:
Freedmen's BBQ
Leroy & Lewis BBQ
Rolling Rooster Chicken & Waffles

Opening in January:
H-Mart at Lakeline

Early 2018:
Tumble 22 Brick and Mortar
Anthem on Rainey Street

Sometime in 2018:
Loro (Asian Smokehouse from Uchi/Aaron Franklin)
24 Diner (Rock Rose)
Easy Tiger (The Linc)

This Year's Resolutions & Goals:

1. Cook More - I need to add some new recipes in. Specifically, I need to learn to use the Instant Pot. I'm going to try to make at least one new Instant Pot recipe a week until that inevitably falls off and I scale back to once a month.

2. Read More - I utterly failed at reading books and graphic novels this year. So my goal is an achievable 48 graphic novels and novels combined. One a week.

3. First Game Con. This one's easy, I already have tickets to BGG Con in May.

4. Boardgames. My plan this year is to play 25 new boardgames. I've exceeded that the past two years.

5. Write More. I have a notebook with 300 Writing Prompts. It's meant as a kind of journal, but I'm going to write it from the POV of fictional characters. If I skip 65 days in there, I'll still fill the notebook. The plan is to aim for every day. The looser plan is to slowly build up a universe in which to tell stories, and if that works, I might do Nanowrimo in that universe. Probably next year. Maybe this year. Depends how ambitious I'm feeling.