Tag: New Year

  • One More Before the Year is Over

    I have a good feeling that I won’t get back to blogging until the New Year. Even then, the first week back, I’ll post all the “Best of…” for 2025. So, it’s more like I won’t really be back to writing for about two weeks.

    It’s time to wrap up 2025, and I did just get back from Christmas in Texas. It was a good trip. Got to see all the family, and even had a chance to hang out with the old college gang. The only thing that wasn’t so great was the fact that it was in the 80’s the whole time we were there. It was Summer in December. And all we had to wear was winter clothes. Oh well… I just can’t escape the heat sometimes…

    As for 2025 –

    Personally, my life is pretty good this year, and I really can’t complain. We’re all healthy, doing well, getting by, and having fun.

    Professionally, things aren’t too bad either. Blog is still growing – this was the best year in views and visitors, “likes” were up compared to last year, and the number of comments were exactly the same as the previous year. I got a review published at Split Lip, and though I wrote fewer stories, I felt that my quality is improving.

    Doing all of this probably will never not feel like screaming into a void, but I do appreciate those of you that took the time to read what I wrote. You shared with me the most precious thing of all; your time. And for that, I am deeply honored.

    Moving on to 2026 – sure would be nice to get another thing published. Oh, getting out of debt would be cool, too! Completing the writing of a book, maybe losing ten pounds, getting to see a World Cup match live would be neat. But I think I would like to improve as a husband, and as a father. Also, be a better son, brother, and uncle. Oh, and growing and being a better friend as well. I guess I would like to be the type of person I would like to hang out with. Oh, and read more. Always could read more.

    So, I hope 2025 wasn’t too hard on ya, and I sure do hope your 2026 is a hell of a lot better.

    Thanks again for reading this little squeak is a world of squawks.

    • Matt Groff

  • New Year, New Me

    I have a moustache now. I won’t keep it, though. It will succumb to the razor after the Super Bowl. But, for now, it is a new me.

    The kid is back at school, the wife is back at work, and I am back at the desk. Life has begun again after the Winter/Christmas/New Year Break. In fact, it’s is snowing in the City today, which does make me feel better about everything.

    Normally with my first post of the New Year, I will lay out some plan of what I want to accomplish for the year. Not resolutions, but more like goals. Yet, I don’t much feel like doing that this year. There are things I need to do, like finish the bedroom sound tile project, moving to a new storage space, and so on and so forth. I will make a list, and I will mark things off that list when I complete them, but I am not in a hurry to make that list. But really, that’s just a task list.

    See, I think I will make my “Goals List” in February. I’m going to let January happen, and see what the 2025 has to offer me first; I want to see how it plays the game. This way I will get a lay of the land, and then I will have a better idea of what my goals need to be.

    Oh! I do want to update the site. That’s really not a goal, more of a task, but if you are here reading this – I’m not happy with how the site looks. It doesn’t reflect the person I am now. Which is a guy with a short term moustache.

  • Starting Things Off Right

    You know, the first thing I have to do when I start writing at the beginning of the year is create a new folder to save my documents in. Hello file, 2024.

    This is also my last day of Winter Vacation. The kid goes back to school tomorrow, and though the wife started back at work today, we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, so it felt like we got to sleep in a little. Wednesday, we will all hit the road running; Making breakfast for the family, making the kid’s lunch, getting everyone dressed and out the door. Back to the grind.

    Speaking of grind; I gotta figure out what I want to do for this year. I have the standard stuff like cutting down on alcohol, working out more, more sleep, more reading, getting published in two journals this year. I do have some around the home projects that I need to take care of, and I would like to get better at the family budget and get our collective ass out of the final bit of our debt. (HA! We’ll never be out of debt…)

    I can say that I need to work on taking more time for the things I want to accomplish. I got a bit frustrated in the last three months of the year as I stopped working on my stuff. My writing production fell off sharply, and I know that I was to blame for it. But, I’m starting a new year, and it’s a new chance to correct old problems.

    Optimism can be a nice thing to have around.