Resolution Roundup # 9 - September

1. It is that time of the month and I realize that I have been neglecting my handful of blog followers. Life in Texas has been cooling down while work has been heating up, hence the absence. Anyway here is how September shaped up with the resolutions. Also, we are adjusting to Spencer going to school and the Mini-van croaked out on us so we are down to one car, which makes travel around the eighth largest city difficult sometimes.

• Volunteer - This is not a matter of procrastination on my part but a matter of time. I generally work 9-10 hours then go home, eat, get the kids to bed, fall asleep myself, wake up, wash, and repeat.
  

• Pay down debt - We need to get back on track with this, we are behind on a few things and and I hope to get got caught up here shortly. J has also started marketing wine - so here is a shameless plug for her web site Time Out Wine. She also writes article for the San Antonio Examiner and gets paid per click. So check her out, buy some wine and read about attachment parenting.

• Be a more patient father - We are working on this, I tend to have high expectations for my kids and sometimes I may treat them like they are older than they are actually are. This is especially true of X and C as they are both pretty bright -so sometimes they are really smart. I suppose parenting is a learning process and I should enjoy the ride sometimes.

• Read two books a month - I read three this month all by Steve Berry (see below). I have to admit I'm really enjoying reading guilt free fiction. All three of these books are good reads although my favorite so far is the Alexandria Link. What happened to the scrolls from the library at Alexandria, is the Old Testament accurate or is it a misreading of Old Hebrew and Zion is really in western Saudi Arabia. You can pretty much put Templar in the title of any of your books and I will read it. I'm fascinated by the Templars, Philip the Fair, and Jacques de Molay. Heck I even named my Fantasy Football team the Templars (they have a cool logo). The Venetian Betrayal was excellent as well, about Alexander the Great. I'm currently reading the next book in the series and can't wait until the new one comes out in December.
  

• Publish, Publish, Publish - Here is the status of this right now. One is in major revision, two are out for review one of which I'm first author and another as second author, another is being modified into a short report and submitted as a skeleton of an article. I submitted two more abstracts this month. So we will see how this works out. I submitted a grant but it didn't get funded even though it had a good overall score and the reviews were positive but the budget was a limiting factor for the scope of the grant.
• Be a more substantive blogger - This is still in limbo but I have some good ideas but it Football season - c'mon here I have a Fantasy Football team to look after.
• Take a vacation - I'm off to Hawaii this month, then Kansas in March, then New Mexico in April but these are all work so I need to plan something close to home - maybe a trip to the beach next year.
• Find a hobby - I've been thinking about the garden. I think we are going to do flowers and maybe some herbs - surprisingly J's Aloe plants lasted the summer outside. So we will start small then work are way up.
• Spend one on one time with my kids every week - We are going to attempt to formalize a bedtime routine at this point now that we have taken back the TV from the monster channel that is Cartoon Network. The boys learned how to use the remote and it took us weeks to figure out how to block the channel - way to make that smooth Time Warner. I do enjoy spending time with them a little every week. Today X and I are going to go for a walk around the neighborhood - this may be a good way for me to connect with each of them individually.

Well until next time I decide to blog adios.