Resolution Update

[rowyn]

1. Exercise at least five times a week for at least 30 minutes per session (20 of which must be aerobic).
Been sticking to this one without much trouble for May and April. A typical week is still six times a week for 40-50 minutes per session. (20-30 aerobic, the rest cool down/warmup or stretching). Even last week, with the con over the weekend, I managed fives times, and I'll manage five times this week, too.

2. Read twenty-six books this year.
I've finally gotten moving on this one. I feel like I've finally gotten over the hump of "not reading" that I was straddling for so long. I still don't read with the voracity that I did before college, and I doubt I ever will -- too many things I want to spend my time on. But I've been reading regularly on the walk to and from work, and forty minutes of reading per day is nothing to sneer at. :) Moreover, when I finish a book, I've been starting right in on the next one. I'm not being so finicky about what books I read, and I'm not just picking one likeable author and reading her entire oeuvre -- which works well for the short term, but as I still read faster than any author I know writes, eventually I do run out of new books by any given author to read. So I'm glad to be branching out and just reading whatever.

Anyway, lemme see if I can list off the books I've read so far this year.

January: Zorro, Isabel Allende; Witch's Business, Diana Wynne Jones
February: Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
March: Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
April and May: In Our Hands, Charles Murray; The One-Armed Queen, Jane Yolen; Dhampir, Barb and J.C. Hendee; Resenting the Hero, Moira Moore; Emerald Sea, John Ringo; Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein

I think I've forgotten one, too. Anyway, at ten books in five months, I'm still a tad behind for my goal. On the other hand, I'm definitely gaining speed, and I've got a stack of books still waiting for me to read them. Including three Bujold novels, two Tom Holt novels, and a book of short stories by Charles de Lint (finally got around to picking one up, shaterri.) Not to mention the rest of that book of short stories by Connie Willis -- it must be kicking around here somewhere. And I just started Ringo's Against the Tide.

3. Collect six rejection slips for fiction this year.
Um. I entered the writing contest at ConQuesT. Does that count? No? Didn't think so.

No progress.

4. Pet the cat.
Even as I type.

5. Put more money into savings in 2006 than I did in 2005.
Done, and still squirrelling away more.

6. Keep track of any other productive things I do.
A Game of October is still going, semi-regularly for a couple of players and irregularly for the other three.

No drawing to speak of since February; just haven't felt like it.

Wrote sixteen Silver Scales entries for unfinishedtales in April and May, put down one story idea, and wrote a one-hour short story for the contest at ConQuest last Saturday.

I did some yardwork in April, too, although my yard has been sadly neglected for the last several weeks.

7. Clear out my email inbox at home.
3737 emails. Which is down another 800 from the last update. I only make progress on this one when I'm doing these updates, though.

9. Do at least one post per month tracking my progress on each of these.

Umm. Missed April. Oops. Well, four out of five's not bad, right?