2023 was a year of consolidation for me and Emma. A solid year of paying off our mortgage and living in our new house across all the seasons.
It was the year of Boots. He has grown into a loving companion and I'm so happy he has a nice calm demeanour 99% of the time.
We went to the United States on a month long trip. We got engaged! I really loved Hawaii.
There were so many great moments.
My goals for 2023 (2022) were as follows:
- Get promoted at work, aim to be on the verge of becoming "senior" at the end of the year
- Train Boots as best I can, take him to obedience school, make him a good dog, be active with him
- Work on this blog, get more email subscribers, try and make $50-100 a week from it via membership or ads
- Get even better at golf, aim for a 10 handicap
- Improve the house even more, work on making the backyard great
- Get involved more in the community, dog related things, sports coaching, music
Some of this has been achieved.
I had a semi-promotion at work. I had a good bump in my salary without my title changing. I worked on a lot of projects and fixed a bunch of tricky bugs. I feel like I earned a lot of respect from my colleagues who can trust me to perform a variety of tasks. 2024 will kick off with me in a whole new team (mobile squad) which will present some new challenges and opportunities.
I think I achieved training Boots the best I could. We went to obedience school for basically 10 months of the year (missed September due to holiday and got lazy in December). He progressed to pink one class (the intermediate level of obedience). I'm mainly happy with his demeanour and the fact that he plays nicely with different dogs. He's had extended stays now with two of his somewhat reactive cousins (Tilly and Daisy) and he's done extremely well with them.
I worked a lot on this blog with the main milestone coming later in the year switching to a Digital Ocean droplet with my own SQLite database. This obviously makes it harder to manage but it also means I get to tinker with more things (mainly Linux backend related) and improve my skills. I failed at getting too many more subscribers (currently have 25 total) and I'm definitely nowhere near earning any money from it but these goals were pretty ambitious.
I'm 100% better at golf but my handicap doesn't really reflect this. Aiming for a 10 handicap was a little too crazy. I won 2 competitions and played well on a couple of occasions but I still have a long way to go. My GA handicap is currently 21.5 which I know I can improve. What I've learnt from this year is that hitting balls at the driving range with no real thought on "how to get better" doesn't improve your game. What will improve it is lessons every ~6 weeks of so and have some drills to work on at the range.
I think I improved the house. The backyard lawn and veggie boxes are thriving and I feel very passionate about this as a hobby now. Early next year I'll be planting two more garden boxes and fixing up some patchy grass. I won't be putting a basketball hoop up until we have a new shed which could be a few years away.
I was sort of involved in the community. I met people at the golf club, at dog class and at footy umpiring. I feel like I could do more in this area but it needs a bit more thought into how I achieve this.
This year I'd like to:
- Work on my mental health
- Keep doing what I'm doing at work, hopefully be up for promotion and more money at some stage in the year
- Continue to love Boots, maybe join up with the Southern Obedience Club, they have their first classes back on the 31st of January
- Be a 15 handicap at some stage in the year, keep doing lessons with Jack, be more aggressive, hit driver on long holes, work on chipping and putting
- Get the garden in awesome shape for our engagement party, pray for good weather on the night, plant seasonal vegetables and flowers throughout the year
- Keep up regular posting on my blog, game reviews are something I enjoy doing so maybe focus on that, get subscribers up to 50, probably need to have some kind of presence in the tech community (maybe via Threads) if I get serious about it
I want to work on my mental health this year and be in great shape mentally come our wedding day. This might mean getting some help from someone on this. It might mean a different exercise routine. There's a few things I have in mind.
Basically work is going well. There's not a whole lot to say apart from what I said above.
Boots is also going good but I could theoretically dedicate more time to dog club and classes.
Lessons and a few 18 hole competitions here and there is what I need for golf.
The garden is something I love looking after right now. I think this will be an easy one to achieve with regular care for my plants and a few visits to Bunnings.
Writing this blog is something I like doing. Advertising what I'm writing about is something I dislike but I guess if I want subscribers it's the only way. Some more posts on Threads might be good.
Bring on 2024! This time next year it will almost be wedding time 💍.