I’ve never been much of one for New Year’s resolutions. I don’t tend to make them and so I don’t need to worry about keeping them. Lately I’ve been wondering if that’s really a good thing. If you don’t keep reaching for something then how do you grow?

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” I don’t remember who said that (and hopefully I’m not taking it out of context) but it seems like a good thing to keep in mind (balanced of course with “The un-aimed arrow never misses”…).

I feel like I’m having more and more trouble remembering little things lately. I’ll think about them and focus on them – and then my mind moves on to something else and I totally forget. With that in mind, I’ve ordered a planner/journal for the year. It’s organized by weeks with the week on the left page and journal lines on the right. I plan to use the journal side for notes and lists of things I need to do while tracking obligations on the left side. I’ll also jot down ideas for first lines or other story bits in the journal areas.

I’m also focusing on growing in the web development/programming sphere. It feels like there’s a lot going on right now – but then I guess there’s always a lot going on, it’s like the cusp that we’re riding never actually peaks. In the last couple years I’ve been interested in Ruby (initially for Rails, but lately for its own sake). I’ve never really taken the time to learn and understand the language and I’m going to focus on that this year. With that in mind, I’ve already purchased the PDF version of Everyday Scripting with Ruby.

In addition to Ruby, I’m interested in learning Python (both for Django and for its own sake) and possibly Smalltalk (for Seaside). I don’t know if that’s too much to bite off or not. I guess that I’ll start with Ruby and keep Python on the backburner for when I need a change.

There’s also the house to work on so I feel like I’ll have my plate pretty well full. I’m already planning on reducing the amount of time I spend reading fiction (because not sleeping really isn’t much of an option). I still think about Latin and want to get back to it but I think I’ll hold off until the house is done. Once we’re moved into the house I’ll start back up on Latin and begin reading the Great Books.