Welcome to 2024!

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Last year my cousin Leah and her husband Casey travelled to Togo for a missions trip and she posted a few updates about it on a WordPress blog. We don’t make as many trips to Colorado as we would like so I’m not sure we’ve seen them more than a couple times since they got married in 2016 but it was wonderful to read about what was going on in their life. I’ve often felt the best part of Facebook is the updates you get on your friends and family’s lives but it’s hard to sort those things out from the deluge of posts Facebook on everything else, not that I’m ignoring the deluge – I’m gladly drinking from that firehose too often.

So as I was considering what goals to set for 2024 I decided one of them would be to setup a blog where I could provide some updates on what is going on in my life for friends and family who would enjoy reading those. And thus we are here.

Sidenote – I’ve had domains and some web hosting for almost 20 years now. This isn’t totally new to me but it’s also not something I am an expert on or spend much time with. My recommendation for anyone else following this path would probably just be to create a blog on WordPress or a similar blogging site and not bother with creating your own website to start. I’ve spent entirely too much time just trying to get to the start of my first post. I personally covet the idea of having a personal domain I can use going forward for more than just blogging so that was some added reason to pursue my own site but for the average person just start a blog on a site and get to writing!

Life Update

So what am I up to as we begin 2024? Well I’ll throw a curveball and instead of talking about work or family I’ll start with saying I’m someone who has now been runningregularly for about 7 months. I’ve run off-and-on since maybe 2017 but have started making that more of a priority in the last couple years. Chantelle and I ran in the Market to Market relay (a race from Omaha to Lincoln) in October 2022 with some friends and I was running regularly in training for that as well as running at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 but got sidetracked after that and didn’t log a mile from February to the last week of June 2023. Spurred on by a goal to exercise 300 hours in 2023 I covered between 32 and 38 miles a month for the rest of 2023. Talking with some friends the night before Thanksgiving I realized I hadn’t really been pushing my limits much in the fall and decided to run a hard mile the next morning. I recorded a time of 8:25, probably my fastest mile since… high school if not before that. I started pushing myself to run longer distances and after running 3.5 miles in 33:18 in early January I’ve been going for 3.75 mile treks when I go out now. That does involve some warm-up and cool-down walking but a good 3 miles of running each time. The hills near where we live can be rough but I can tell they aren’t hitting quite as hard as they did in the past. I’ll talk more about this another time but I’m planning to do some trail running events in 2024 with escalating distances. They escalate from a 10k in April to possibly a 21-mile event in October. I don’t know if that’s realistic but I want to push myself this year to get some experience with these longer events and see if I enjoy them.

One obstacle to getting enough running in would be that I’m in my second year of the MBA (Master of Business Administration) at UNO. I decided in 2022 that this was something I wanted to pursue and started classes in January 2023. I think most people take at least 8 semesters to finish the program but I feel like I’m making up for lost time and would rather get it behind me as soon as possible so I’m trying to push through in 6 semesters. I’ve got 8 classes done out of 17 and am taking 3 classes this spring. One is a full semester elective (Organizational Theory and Design) while the other two are core 8-week classes (Organizational Behavior – which I’m taking now, and Business Analytics – which will be in the 2nd half of the semester). So far the program has definitely been a lot of work but most classes have not been overly rigorous and I feel like professors want to pass you with a good grade if you give the effort.

Work wise I’ve been involved in helping manage circulation at the Omaha World-Herald in various roles since 2019. That started off as a part-time Assistant District Manager role and I’m currently the Metro Operations Manager helping oversee our two metro offices and 6 district managers. It’s not been a smooth 5 years with challenges left and right and a little of what I wanted to see accomplished come to fruition. At one point from August 2021-May 2022 I was running the Northeast office and we cycled through 5 new-hire district mangers alongside me who all lasted no more than a few months (the shortest being 1.5 days!). I spent a couple months in there being the only manager at that location working 7-days a week keeping everything from falling apart and had an 10-week stretch where I averaged 101.3 hours of work a week. I learned a lot about what I’m capable of if I push myself and have a lot more management experience. Things are much better now, still not good but much better, and I don’t work nearly those hours anymore.

Chantelle and Ibought a 100-year old house in North Omaha in 2019 and have been happily up here since then. It has the kind of issues that are common with older homes that haven’t had a lot of money invested in them but it’s been a great fit for us. We’ve got 3 cats and 2 snakes. Two of the cats are brother/sister that we got as kittens right after we got married while the other one showed up on the back porch in November 2021 and demanded to be allowed to move in with us. When we got him cleaned up at the vet we found out he was chipped and had a previous owner but they never were able to reach the previous owner so he stayed with us. We’re still at Omaha Bible Church where I’ve been going since summer 1998(!) and our main ministries at this point are running the activities side of the church picnic each fall and a group called 10:31 where we try to have fellowship opportunities like potlucks.

I think that’s a good enough update for now. I’m hoping to post regular updates on here and am going to try to keep this mostly about what’s going on in my life and not my predictions for the Super Bowl or anything.

2024 Goals – January

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So one of the lessons I took from my 2023 goals project was that setting 23 year-long goals was tough stuff. I just couldn’t focus on all of these things at once and so somethings never became a priority. For goals that were about establishing habits sometimes I really didn’t need to track them for a full year, just trying to change my ways with intense focus for a month would have been a better course of action. So for 2024 I decided to vary my goals between ones that would last a month, 3 months, 6 months, and the full year. I tried to come up with goals that matched the timeframe they would fall in. So without further adieu here are my goals for January 2024.

One month goal – Begin blogging

Hey that one seems to have worked! I took steps beginning early in January to get this site up and running and while it took a couple weeks longer to actually get some posts published I did get that done by the end of the month. We’ll see if I can make it a regular habit going forward to get on here and share some updates and by the end of the year I’ll have a better feel for how important this is to me going forward.

Three month goal– Prepare house for having regular visitors

Made some progress in this one so far. The main floor is generally cleaner than it was when 2024 arrived. The important thing to work on in the next few weeks is getting together with Chantelle and discussing what we feel needs to be different before we’d feel ready to have people over regularly with less advanced notice. And then figuring out how to build those things into our lives as regular habits.

Six month goals– Weight loss, disciplines, connecting with family

I knew in December that when I reached 219.9 it was going to be followed by indulging in some holiday treats and putting on some weight. That definitely happened and I’ve weighed in over 230 a few times this year already. Managed to get back down to 223.4 this morning though. My goal is to reach 200 pounds by May and then decided from there how I would like to proceed. I haven’t been under 200 pounds since early in college so I really don’t know how I would feel at that point. I’m not going to hit my end-January goal of 215 but getting to 210 by the end of February is theoretically possible or at least being much closer to my target weight than I am today.

I wanted to focus on the same disciplines I found beneficial in 2023 but wasn’t able to keep up with as much as I’d like. That’s cleaning the cat litter, doing the NYT crossword, reading a few pages of Pearls Before Swine comics, reading my Bible, and stretching. So far…. much like last year. I do the cat litter pretty much everyday and wasn’t struggling with the others until things got really rocky at work almost two weeks ago. Since then I’ve really been out of rhythm in life and haven’t been prioritizing things so well. Cat litter is still getting done thankfully but I’ve been getting distracted by the Facebook deluge instead of investing my time in these disciplines.

Haven’t connected with family much so far this year. We spent New Year’s Eve into NYD at Chantelle’s parents which was nice but that’s been about it. We’re having lunch with them tomorrow so that is a good way to get back into this habit. Hoping that having this as a goal for the first half of the year and thinking about it fairly regularly will spur some habit building.

Full year goals– Running events, MBA program

Having established running as a regular habit I want to stretch myself in 2024 to attempting some running events of increasing distance and see how I hold up and enjoy the experience. My tentative schedule…
10k (6.2 mile) trail run – April 27th
9-mile trail run (3 hour limit) – June 22nd
Half marathon trail run (13.1 miles) – August TBD
Market to Market relay (likely 10-12 miles over 3 legs) – September 28th
21-mile trail run (9 hour limit) – October 20th
Half marathon trail run (13.1 miles) – November 28th (Thanksgiving)

I have no concerns about the 10k and the 9-mile event seems pretty doable. The half marathons are a little daunting to imagine but for Market-to-Market relay in 2022 I did almost 10 miles over 3 legs and I was a much less prepared runner than I am today. The 21-mile event is the one that gives me pause but to do it in 9 hours is averaging 25 minute miles so I feel like if I want to will myself to the finish line I will.

Much like with my weight, where I don’t really know how I’ll feel about where to go next once I hit 200 pounds, I need to learn more about what I think of these kind of events before seeing where I want to go next with running. There are two 100-mile races locally each year (that’s not a typo) along with 39-mile and 50-mile events. There are more options like that if you are willing to drive a few hours regionally and then there’s the insane Cowboy 200 – Yes 200 miles along the Cowboy Trail from Norfolk to Valentine. Even with 84 hours to accomplish it that’s just beyond my comprehension. Anyways not saying my future includes any of those longer distances but I am definitely interested in the idea of pushing myself past what most people would dare attempt and I’ll learn a lot from how I enjoy the events I want to do this year.

And then obviously completing the MBA program this year so I can move forward with my career is a major goal. It’s going to be a busy 10.5 months until my hopeful graduation with only small breaks around the summer semester. My real goal here is to stay on top of my classes better than I have previously. For a couple of my fall classes where I could get away with it I never even read much of the assigned material, stuff I’m actually interested in and would like to read at some point still. So I’m hoping this semester not to fall behind so much and to keep pace with the class schedule. If I’m going to read it eventually why put it off and be scrambling to catch up?

2023 Goals

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Heading into 2023 I’d become convinced that I was probably being held back a bit by not ever setting goals for myself and pushing to achieve them. So for 2023 I set 23 goals for myself and tracked my results. It was… revealing. I did manage to accomplish some things I might not have done without them but I also had a lot of things I didn’t even come close to.

Positives!

The best results for 2023 were probably that I managed to exercise 300 hours and lose enough weight to reach 220 pounds. I didn’t start prioritizing exercise until late June and barely made it to 300 hours in the final days of the year. That included some golfing (I usually walk) but I didn’t count stretching I was doing for much of the year so I definitely feel good about the work I put in. It’s probably not an accident that while I was prioritizing exercise I lost 40.8 pounds after July 2nd of last year. I also was more focused on my diet, reducing how much I ate overall rather than trying to “eat healthier”. Snacking probably holds me back from losing weight quicker but it’s still been a positive direction. I had originally wanted to reach 220 by August so technically I didn’t make that goal but I did get there by the end of the year at least.

The other goal I definitely hit was spending 500 hours outside in 2023. This goal led to me intentionally spending more time outside in the spring/early summer reading and I bought a hammock that led to some great outdoor naps. As the year got on it was pretty clear I was going to make this goal easily and I hit 520 hours before December and stopped tracking it. It helped that I did a decent amount of newspaper delivery last year. I didn’t count the entire time I was out there but when you’re driving around with the windows down constantly getting out to walk up to porches there is a good chunk of that which should count as being outside!

I wanted to spend more time with our parents in 2023 and had a goal of 12 occasions with each. We definitely hit that with Chantelle’s parents and I think we fell one short with my parents. I’m not sure we really went out of our way to get together much and it would probably be nice to do more intentional getting together outside of the obvious reasons on the calendar but this was a positive year in this area.

Not the worst…

There were some goals I wasn’t able to hit but had some results in. I wanted to run a mile in 8 minutes by the end of the year and in mid-November hadn’t even gotten under 10 minutes. One great run on Thanksgiving gave me an 8:25 mile that didn’t complete the goal but wasn’t bad at all. I also had a goal of going on 36 hikes with Chantelle. Hiking was sporadic and we made it to 24. We didn’t prioritize doing this enough throughout the year so it mostly occurred when we were out of town on vacations.

I wanted to play video games with my neighbor 50 times in 2023. He’s got some mental disabilities but playing video games has been a natural way for us to connect and he really enjoys bringing his PS5 over for us to play. We logged 34 times but that fell off significantly in the fall as I got busy with work and school and I wish I’d found a way to make more time for him. Kind of a similar story with reading – I had set a goal of 24 books and hit 15 before the end of August but only made it to 19.

I have a few things I’ve wanted to get more consistent at doing daily and so I tracked how often I accomplished them – Cleaning the cat’s litter boxes, doing a crossword puzzle, reading a few pages of comics from Pearls Before Swine, reading the Bible, and stretching. There were stretches of the year I was great at this and stretches where I was terrible. I’m more convinced than a year ago that these are all important things for me to be in the habit of. Also I got to the point where I can do the NYT crossword most days without feeling like I’m lost and need to google everything. That was a highlight of the year for sure, I’ve really enjoyed the feelings doing the crossword gives me.

Negatives

There were a lot of things that I didn’t even come close to and that feels kind of depressing. I enjoy playing board games/card games so I set a goal of just 24 times and ended up with… ZERO. I wanted to start having people over to our house regularly and the only occasion we did was when Chantelle’s sister’s family was in town over the summer. I wanted to start having potlucks regularly again with our church ministry group and we did have ones in October and November but that was much later in the year than I wanted to start.

I love naps but naps (30 minutes) often become fail-naps (think like 2 hours) with the way my life is structured. I hoped to limit that to 75 fail-naps and I didn’t even come close to that. I usually sleep 4.5 hours a night so I’m often up early and am home from work by the afternoon so nap time is easy to schedule and easy to just go back to sleep when a cat is being cuddly. I also wanted to limit my social media/useless internet usage and I don’t think that went very well. I watched way too many Facebook videos in 2023. It’s like they have an algorithm serving me up content they know I’ll find irresistible.

Lessons Learned

I definitely learned that focusing on and tracking 23 goals throughout the year is… a lot. There was a decent amount of documenting I needed to do on some of my hours goals so these were constantly top of mind. On the other hand I had a goal of putting up Christmas lights, something that only needed a few hours in November, but I never did it. It was just never something that needed to be done today and so it never became a priority. I came away from this overall thinking that setting a goal and tracking your progress isn’t a bad thing but it’s really about building habits that will last. I did that with my exercise goal and in 2024 I’m not tracking my hours anymore but I don’t anticipate that will cause me to stop exercising.

The other lesson I feel like I learned is that it’s going to be pretty common to look at your goals at the end of the year and have a lot of them you didn’t hit. The point of them is to push you to strive for more and so naturally you’re going to fail to check all the boxes. Technically I only hit 2 of 23 goals but I accomplished so much more in 2023 than I did in say 2018.