Happy New Year

2014 is off to a very cold start here in New Hampshire. The temperature never climbed about 20 today, and tomorrow is supposed to bring even lower numbers (and lots of numbing cold) and a fair bit of snow. But Spring is only about eleven weeks away. Eleven long, cold weeks. Sigh.

Tonight over dinner we all talked about goals for the coming year. We're trying to encourage the boys to focus on what they want to do, not what they want to have. And they did pretty well, although Danny decided he wanted to get a really expensive radio-controlled car. On the plus side, he said he wanted to earn the money by making jewelry and selling it on Fiverr, and more active and actually attainable goal.

This year William wants to learn how to write computer code. Fortunately, in addition to having a Dad that codes, William has access to tools I never dreamed of when I was first learning. There are several sites devoted to teaching basic programming skills to beginners, one of them by MIT.

Karen wants to get her trailer done in time for Spring camping, a challenge if the weather continues as it's been, but possible now that we have the trailer in a shed where we can work in spite of the weather. And we have a small camping heater we can use in the shed to keep from freezing our hands off.

Thomas wants to create an animated portfolio piece, with some help from his actor Dad and his animator Mom (and her friends) to guide him in the right direction. Not that he needs that much guidance; his animation in the past was always remarkably well-acted with a marvelous sense of timing.

My main goal is to complete my 52-Week Creative Challenge, and in doing so build a group of followers. And at the end of it all, on September 30th, I plan to start of crowd-funding project to produce the screenplay that I'm writing, and another to professionally record the songs I'll have written by then (at least, the ones that are any good).

There are other goals, of course: house construction goals, financial goals, organizing and clutter-reduction goals, and goals related to our health.

Which means, of course, that we have no excuse for being bored in 2014.