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My New Year Resolutions for 2014!

A couple of days ago I took a look at how I did on my 2013 Resolutions.  Given my high success rate, I decided to go for broke once again and put my 2014 New Year's Resolutions out there for all to see.  As usual, these are in no particular order (and some are awfully similar to last year's goals)!

#1:  Complete at least FIVE of the following 15 sets.

  • 1985 Topps: 181
  • 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game: Decade Greats:  BJ, CR
  • 2007 Topps Heritage: New Age Performers:  NP2
  • 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces: Base: #108, 115
  • 2008 Topps Heritage:  Base: #464, 465, 480, 488, 495, 500
  • 2008 Upper Deck Timeline: Base: #235, 300, 308, 336, 341, 345, 356, 361, 363, 366, 373, 374, 375
  • 2008 Topps Stadium Club: 15, 78, 108b, 117b
  • 2009 Topps Base Series 1 & 2:  Turkey Red inserts: TR24
  • 2009 Topps Base Series 1 & 2:  Legends of the Game (Series 2) insert: LG-??: Mariano Rivera
  • 2009 Topps Base Series 1 & 2:  Topps Town (Gold Version): TTT29
  • 2011 Topps Heritage: Base:  426, 445, 460, 499
  • 2011 Topps Attax: Base:  78, 84, 111, 122, 208, 209, 214, 221, 227, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 246, 247, 251
  • 2011 Allen & Ginter: N43:  Joey Votto, Adam Wainwright, David Wright
  • 2012 Topps Archives: Archive reprints: 164 Roberto Clemente
  • 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter:  Murder in Willow Cove:  Trudy Givens

This is a goal that I like to have each year.  Basically, I go through my want list and pick sets that I'm getting quite close to completing and throw them here.  It also means that if I ever decide to splurge on Check Out My Cards or some similar site I'll probably be focusing on the above sets (though trading is always my preferred method of card acquisition)!  I will say that I think this year's selection of 15 sets is harder than last year's...but wouldn't it be great to finally have the full 2008 Topps Heritage set (or the 2011 Heritage set for that matter)!?

#2:  Grow my online Barry Larkin Collection to 300 cards

Right now, I'm sitting at 234 Larkin cards in my posted collection so that means I need to post slightly more than one new Larkin card per week in 2014.  That seems reasonable to me!  The hard part is the original scanning and formatting of the scan for my collection.  Luckily, I have about 30 or 40 more Larkin cards already scanned that are simply waiting in a folder for me to write about them!

#3:  Don't lose money on my various hobbies in 2014

This is going to be my most challenging goal for 2014.  Can I possibly make my baseball card (and LEGO) buying self-sufficient?  This will probably force me to sell off parts of my collection (anyone interested in a full base set 1-300 of 2013 Topps Allen & Ginter for instance)?!  Luckily for my accounting, I take any advertisement money that I might get for my blog(s) and use that as positive gains for my collections.  If I can manage to sell some cards and maybe some ads, this could be doable.  If I don't, expect to see either a lot less in the way of new cards OR a massive fire sale of some of my cards!

#4:  Complete at least 100 trades

I fell a bit short of the 100 trade threshold in 2013 after exceeding that magical number the previous three years.  In order for me to have a shot at Resolutions #1 and #3, I'll need to be more proactive on the trade front once again!

#5:  Expand the reach of my blogs

As you probably know, I'm a numbers guy and I'd like to see my blog take the next step in 2014.  I'm not exactly sure what that means right now - but I'm hoping by the time December of 2014 rolls around I'll be able to say that I was successful!

In previous years, I've listed ten resolutions but the honest truth is that I'm mostly happy with how my baseball card blog is going.  Sure, I'd like more readers but otherwise things are going well.  If I can maintain what I have while improving in a few select areas, I honestly believe 2014 could be the best year of Nachos Grande yet!  Of course, for that to happen I need to have all of you stop by (and trade with me) often!

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