The New Year Wail.

Well the new year is upon us. This time of year always seems to encourage reflection on our past as well as a look forward into our future. This past year has really been something! I met and married the most wonderful woman ever. She brought two kids from her previous marriage with her and we have a wonderful and happy family. I have been promoted to full-time at KNXV-TV ABC15 and I even worked about a six month stint at 100.7 FM KSLX. But all these things are my past.

This next year I think I will try harder to be a little better. I know I don't usually make "New Years Resolutions", but I'm willing to make an exception this year. You see here in Phoenix the county has been declaring "no burn days" every day it seems like for the past couple of weeks. Ordinarily I think this is dumb, how dare they tell us what we can and can't do with our own property! But now here I am sitting in the middle of Phoenix and I have a pretty clear view of Four-Peaks. Not only that, the air has been getting clearer and clearer. I can only hope that residents have gotten used to the idea of not burning fire because the air has been smelling pretty crisp and clean lately. Don't misunderstand, we are all still driving, and the rain we've had recently certainly helped to clean the air! But it snowed here the other day. It snowed on ME the other day! I was driving and the rain hitting my windshield got to be sort of slushy. The weather has been really nice and the air has been really clean and I kind of feel inspired.

So, to get back on track, I will be making some resolutions this year. And I need to post them for all the world to see otherwise I won't do them.

1) Pay off the credit card. This seems like a steep negotiation, but I have been planning to use my tax return this year to do just this. I should get a pretty penny, being married and having two kids is a pretty heavy deal when it comes to tax returns. Factor in that my job is a pretty low paying one (we barely make it) and Obama got to have another stimulus passed and I should be looking at a large enough return to make my credit card debt go away. Then the plan is to take the amount I have been paying toward the credit card every month and start putting it toward the smallest of my student loans. I don't like having debt and I know that paying more than the minimum payment will help me save tons of money on interest in the long run.

2) Purchase a house. We have been saving money for a down payment, and frankly the cost of houses is pretty cheap at this point in time. I know I said above that we barely get by, that's because I have been being stingy so that we can save a sizeable down payment. We can afford a house payment, and the utility bills with it. For what houses are going for, the total expenses on one would probably be cheaper than paying rent in an apartment! Also, my mother has discovered a food bank that also gives down payment assistance to first time home buyers! They only ask that you save $1000 of your own money to be able to qualify for their help. I intend to jump all over this. I could get us into a house and 6 months later I should be able to refinance and consolidate all of my student loans into the house payment. This would lower my total monthly costs (minimum payments) which for me would help us to get out of debt faster!

3) Take the GRE. I have pretty much decided that I need to go to Grad School if I'm going to be able to provide any kind of comfort for my family AND be able to retire at a decent age (fixing the lottery just isn't working out for me). I have been looking at grad programs, I believe a Masters in Communications would be the best degree for me to pursue at this point. Of course I have my pride and sensibility, I will only go to an accredited, pretty well-known school. Right now I'm kind of leaning toward BYU, but that could change. I really don't want to go back to ASU at this point. I would really like a change of scenery. I realize that I probably won't be able to go to grad school without stepping into a classroom, I'm OK with that. I just hope I can at least do a years worth of courses online so that I can stay at my job and build up time for my resume.

4) Do some writing for the web. I mean professionally. I have time every Saturday at work that I can go in to the web department and see if they have anything for me to write. I do have journalistic training, and against my best wishes, I like to write and I seem to do it pretty well. I don't want to get to carried away though, the people in the web-department are paid a LOT more money than me to write stories for the station website. My goal is only to get noticed and have the higher-ups see that I do know what I'm doing, and maybe I can get that writing promotion I keep applying for. One story a week should be plenty I think.

There. I believe that should be good. What's more, these are actually attainable resolutions. This is a list that I believe I am capable of accomplishing. I believe this list will be the best for me and my family and will help us to better ourselves as we go along.