2019 Resolutions: Check-In #3

It's time for my third check-in on my 2019 New Year's Resolutions.  For 2019, I decided to try and do a check-in roughly every other month in an attempt to keep me both motivated and focused on what I set out to do this year.  If you'd like to track my progress, here's my February check-in and my April check-in.

Now, let's see if I've accomplished much of anything since my last report.

#1:  Barry Larkin Collection
My goal is to get 700 Barry Larkin cards scanned and written about on my blog prior to the end of 2019.  At the time of my last check-in, I had posted 667 Larkin cards.  Now?  I'm up to 679 Larkin cards.  With roughly six months to go, I need to write up another 21 cards, or about 4 per month.  Thanks to a decent output between April and now, I actually reduced my "average cards posted per month" moving forward for the remainder of the year.  Check-in status:  On target.

My duplicate Barry Larkin cards available for trade...

#2:  Blog Trading
Night Owl may have recently said that trading isn't dead - and for him it's probably not since he runs one of the most popular baseball card blogs out there.  For me, however, trading is most definitely on life support, though I do hope the imminent release of 2019 Allen & Ginter will shake things up a bit (especially since I just ordered myself four hobby boxes - my first purchases of 2019 baseball cards for the year)!  My goal for trading was to complete 50 trades on the year but by the end of April I had only done eight.  Now that June is over, my trade counter stands at 16 - obviously a pretty big jump in numbers but it still leaves me 34 trades short of my goal.  I now need to average about six trades per month for the rest of the year after averaging about 2.5 trades per month leading up to now.  Check-in status:  Slightly behind target but not bad.

#3:  The Want List
This is the big goal of 2019 for me - reduce my want list down to 100 sets (or less).  I'm counting every single insert set as an individual set for the purposes of my counting by the way.  As of April, I had completed nine sets from my want list.  Since that time, I've regressed...  I didn't complete a single new set in the past two months and, perhaps even worse, I actually added three new sets to my want list (all involving 1992 Upper Deck).  Check-in status:  Whoops, not good!

#4:  The Great Reorganization
Admittedly, I've done nothing related to this goal since my last check-in (other than collating all my 1992 Upper Deck cards and creating the already mentioned want lists).  Check-in status:  Like last time, this is still getting me an "F" grade.

#5:  My LEGO Blog
My goal here was to create 50 new posts on the blog in 2019.  At the time of my last check-in, I had written only six posts for the year.  Now?  My total stands at only nine since I somehow went the entire month of May without writing a single new post.  Check-in status:  Way behind schedule.

#6:  Reading
My final resolution was to read more in 2019.  I determined that 12 books would be a worthwhile goal for the year since in the past few years I don't think I've read more than five books in a calendar year.  Unlike some of my other goals, this is one that I've been working on fairly consistently - as of April I had read two books and was partially through a third.  Now?  I actually just finished my ninth book of the year last night!  All of the sudden, I went from being a bit behind schedule to way in front of my goal.  Truthfully, I probably should try to get another book or two read before the summer ends because once the academic year starts back up I know I won't have the time or ambition to read as much for pleasure.  Check-in status:  Ahead of schedule!

Overall, I have to say that I'm mostly happy with how things are going.  Realistically, I should be able to get my reading goal and my Barry Larkin Collection goal done this year if I keep up the same pace that I'm currently working at.  The Want List goal was always ambitious and, in conjunction with my trading goal, will probably only be accomplished if generally trading picks up again.  I don't have any excuses for my LEGO blog (other than the fact that the majority of the posts take a long time to complete and that blog doesn't generate all that much traffic).  And the reorganization?  Well, the less said about that right now, the better.