My 2012 Pledge(s)

Well, I've been thinking about what I want to do, if anything, in terms of hobby-related goals for 2012.  Sometimes I think goals are counter-productive, causing me to stress about stuff that's supposed to be fun.  On the other hand, not keeping my own proverbial feet to the fire.  And I know myself well enough that I'm more likely to let my painting slide during moments of ennui than to stress out about whether I'll get all my painting done (especially since I have always met my painting goals).

So, with that in mind, here's what I got in mind:

Paint 150 miniatures  I can clearly get 150 painted, but I didn't want to ramp it up too much.  Leaving it where it always is allows me a little leeway to work on other projects as well.  What's interesting is that there are loads of people I know online for whom 150 miniatures is a pretty lightweight painting schedule, but around here 150 is this unheard-of herculean effort.

Wargame once a month  This might actually be harder than getting 150 miniatures painted, but I have really let this slide in 2011.  I'm not the only one--on my Christmas vacation I stopped by my old arch-rival Vince's house to see how he's been doing and he admitted to not having played Warhammer Fantasy in eight months.  But if I can either get over to my FLGS and subject myself to another humiliating loss at 40K, or get my ATZ solo campaign going at a rate of once a month, that will be a step in the right direction.

Be more positive  For someone who has a wonderful family, a well-paying job, and even a few friends I seem to mope around a lot.  Much of it has to do with the word "few" in my description of my friends, but I also know that I can tend to find the fault in anything.  It is not a great personality trait, and I'm trying to avoid looking for the critical flaw and instead focus on what's going right.  I think I also need to make sure I hang around in the internet in places a little more positive, meaning avoiding negative chatrooms or reading lots of comments to news reports.

Not exactly in the resolution category, but more in the category of New Year Blog Housekeeping:

Editing Pages  I'm removing the "Hordes of the Things" page, since that project has been completed for some time, and if you want to see what I did last year you can just go to the "Hordes of the Things" tag.  I will probably leave up the Brazen Claws page for now.  I'm not sure if I have a new page to put in its place, but we will have to see.

The Ever So Slight Monetizing of the Blog  I dislike the "below the post" advertising in some blogs, but my brother-in-law recommending doing the Amazon Associates option for the blog.  He does the same for his own (a blog about teaching and technology), and said to me "You read and review things that your readers are interested in, they are likely to buy it on Amazon, why not get a little something back?"  So I thought I'd try it out in a small and hopefully inoffensive way, namely the sidebar.  I read a lot of books in a pretty eclectic manner, so I thought I would share it with you, the reader, while at the same time getting the chance to get Amazon gift cards to buy more books.  If it is really awful and you hate it, let me know.

Monthly goals  I didn't want to set this up in the same category as the painting goal for the year, but I thought I would try to set up some short-term goals just to help keep me on track.  In the month of January I would like to paint ten zombies, four gangers, and one survivor for my ATZ game.

Okay, that's it!  I hope you all have a wonderful new year!

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