My 2019 Blog Resolutions!

Each year, I like to post my blog resolutions in an effort to hold myself accountable over the next twelve months.  Last year was a huge year for me personally with the birth of my son - so don't expect nearly as lofty of resolutions for 2019!  That said, here's this year's list of goals:

1.  Barry Larkin Collection
Barry Larkin is my all-time favorite player and a lifelong Cincinnati Red.  I admit to being rather discouraged by the sheer number of new Larkin cards still being produced, but that hasn't totally stopped me from chasing his stuff yet.  As of this post, I have a total of 637 Barry Larkin cards scanned, typed, and posted about on the blog.  While I understand that my Barry Larkin posts are only of interest to a small fraction of my audience, I'd still like to get to 700 unique Barry Larkin card posts before the end of 2019!

2.  Blog Trading
For the longest time, trading has been the lifeblood of my blog.  Without trading, I wouldn't be able to buy nearly as many cards because I'd know that I'd be "stuck" with tons of stuff I don't collect and that I'd be missing tons of stuff that I'd like to collect.  That all being said, last year was a down year in trading - and unfortunately, it's been a trend over the past few years:

Trades sent out by year:
2018: 045
2017: 056
2016: 070
2015: 056
2014: 069
2013: 083
2012: 107
2011: 166
2010: 122

In an effort to be positive, let's try to reverse the trend in 2019, even if only slightly.  My goal is to complete 50 trades this year!

3.  The Want List
By my count, my baseball card want list has a total of 132 different sets (insert, base, etc) on it right now.  That total does not include the various Barry Larkin cards that also exist within the want list.  Frankly, 132 sets is an obscene number to be working on and there's no way I'll ever complete all of those without some serious capital investment (which I'm not willing, or able, to provide at this time).  Therefore, my goal by the end of 2019 is to have my want list whittled down to less than 100 different sets.  This can be done in a number of ways.  Obviously the most ideal way would be to actually complete the various sets but other options include simply deciding to no longer collect specific sets.  This goal will also drastically limit the number of new 2019 stuff that I can add to my want list - something that I wasn't overly concerned with in 2018.

4.  The Great Reorganization
This is the year where I finally finish organizing my collection.  Seriously.  It's been a five (or more) year process - but I can see the finish line at last.  In fact, I've had a small card table in my man cave for about a year that has been covered with cards.  Only this past week did I finally get things organized enough that I was able to take that table down and store it away.  I still have a big mess of random stuff to organize (including a bunch of new Barry Larkin cards to scan and sort) but I think it's possible to finish it all in 2019.

5.  My LEGO Blog
I didn't pay as much attention to my LEGO blog in 2018 as I would have liked, but hopefully I can change that in 2019.  I actually spent a good chunk of time over Christmas break completely overhauling my LEGO room which should make for a much better building experience for me moving forward.  Ideally, that will also mean I'll have more to blog about moving forward!  Let's set the same goal that I did last year, except this year let's hope I actually meet it.  My goal is to complete 50 posts on my LEGO blog, or about one per week for the entire year.

6.  Reading
I used to love to read books.  Now, in my relatively minimal spare time I've been finding myself playing easy games to drop-in and drop-out of in (such as Fortnite).  I ought to get back to reading some actually novels again, so let's start in 2019 with a reading goal of 12 books.  If I could count baby books in this total, I'd be fine but that seems like cheating!

I think that's good enough for 2019.  I have a few other things that I'd like to do but they aren't necessarily "resolution" material.  Hopefully by the time we are starting to flip the calendar over to 2020 (weird to even write that), I'l have completed all six of my resolutions for the year!

Now it's your turn:  What are your 2019 resolutions?  Let me know in the comments - and let's all have a happy, wonderful new year!