Personal Goals for 2010

I don't like to make resolutions, as I blogged about previously, but I have been thinking about a few goals that I would like to achieve in 2010.

1. Read 1 Book a Month. I have really tried to read more books to improve myself and I have a really long wishlist of books at Amazon.com. Here is a link to My Reading List. I am currently reading "SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance" which Tina bought me for Christmas.

I am not a very fast reader and I don't remember what I read very well, so reading has always been a challenge for me. It is hard to stay motivated to read a book if you cannot remember what you read yesterday. I have been better about this and still need more improvement.

2. Run in 2 5K Races. Last year I ran in my second 5K race. The Visalia Emergency Aid Race Against Hunger on the morning of Thanksgiving day. Meg ran with me, but she says that she will not run in another race. I am fine with running on my own. Meg and I finished that race in 27:48 and I think we could have easily cut another minute off of that time. I think the cold weather and standing around so long before the race affected her.

I would like to run at least one race out of the area and maybe the Race Against Hunger again. I would also like to run a 5K in a time of about 25 minutes. It would be pretty cool to run a race on Catalina Island or somewhere else that we could also take a little vacation after the race. If I accomplish my goal this year, I would like to run in a 10K race next year.

3. Volunteer. As I stated in a previous post, volunteering on Christmas Eve at the Visalia Rescue Mission was a great experience. I came away thinking that I need to volunteer more. I really need to accomplish this goal in 2010.

4. Change a Child's Life Tina, the girls and I went to watch The Blind Side last night. I was not really that excited to see the movie, but I came away from it feeling great about going throught the process to become a foster/adoptive parent. The movie shows the power that someone can have in a child's life and it really touched all of us. Meg has wanted to see the movie since she first heard about it. It wasn't the best movie that I have seen, but it really fit in with what we are going through in our own lives at the moment.

As far as the foster parent process, we just have one item left to be completed. We are waiting for a social worker to schedule our home study and interview. After that is completed, we are ready to accept a foster child into our family.