January in Review

The first month of 2011 draws rapidly to its close, but not before I get a say in the matter.

This January has been one busy son of a motherless goat. I've started my new schedule of 13 credits and 30-35 hours of work a week. It's not easy. Those 13 credits total 18 hours, not including any homework, that's all class time. Fortunately Moby still appears to recognize me, at least for now.

We got a new entertainment center with sound system and PS3 to go with it, special thanks to Brett for helping us set it up, and for my employer for giving me such a generous Christmas bonus to pay for it.

We managed to paint Morgan's room and our living room, just 2 rooms to go. (This is in addition to the squares/splotches of color that have been on the walls for months.)

We've actually managed to stay on top of laundry, and not in a "scale mount clothing" type of stay on top, but actually folding and putting it away. It's amazing. Same with dishes.

My classes are all going well, I actually start my novella on Wednesday, we're finally drawing people/models instead of skulls for my "Rendering the Human Head" class, I made 2 unique and attractive (IMHO) monograms for my "Typography & Layout" class, I attended a workshop given by James Victore (and all I got was a lousy sticker. I kid, I kid), and I'm still building a website. (If you want to see what I've done in class but not fit for having my name attached to it, go here. That's no template. That's a site from scratch.) austinbeckstrom.com is bought and waiting for something useful/interesting on it, but I need to get Host Gator's FTP information but I'm not willing to wait an hour on hold to get it just yet. So yeah, classes are going well, even though I was up until past 2 last night doing homework.

We went to church 1 time this month and plan to go more next month. We had trouble coming back after getting sick and church changing times to 9 am. But we're gonna do it, darn it!

As far as my resolution goals go, I haven't been keeping them exactly, but I am doing them somewhat.
I'm not exercising 3 times a week yet, but I am getting more exercise thanks to both stairs at school and Just Dance on the Wii. My junk food consumption is down, but I am still eating out more than once a week.
Writing goals are good-ish, as I'll be writing something like 20K-40K words next month, I wrote a topic article for Cracked.com and submitted pitches for several others.
Bedtime stories to Morgan are going ok but not every night, I need to re-step up on that one.
I won't know for sure that I've got all A's but I've only missed one class of any of my classes and turned in everything I've been supposed to, guess I just gotta keep that up.
Finally, I've been doing more reading than I did last year, but not much fiction, mostly writing books/textbook and design books/textbook. I'm going to read the rest of "Anthem" tonight, since it's like 50 pages and it's been due at the library for long enough for them to send their collector squad after me.

On the fun side, we've been watching "Veronica Mars" and "30 Rock" on Netflix. I highly recommend both/either if you're a fan of good writing and acting.

I grew a beard for over a fortnight (18 days) but finally got rid of it because it was itchy and had more gray that it should and Tracie didn't kiss me as much/at all. Pictures are on facebook if you must see it. (Of the beard, not the kissing. Regrettably.) Morgan made the cutest face of confusion and then recognition the next day when I got him out of bed and he saw a beardless daddy.

We also still managed to find time for friends and family at least somewhat, not as much as we'd like but not too much that they got (overly) sick of us. No matter what they tell you. ALL HAIL THE CHINESE CHEESE BISCUIT!