I have a hard time believing that its already been 12 years now that I've been putting out summer goals. It started back in 2005 though as I was coming off my first year of grad school and was back doing fun things in Chicago and had all sorts of cool stuff planned. I've never been able to knock off all ten things from the list and had I done so, that year would be held up as the standard to which all summers measure up. In that first summer, I believe I got six of my goals, but even now, that was possibly my favorite summer since I've started. There's been other years that have been close, (2007/2012?) and years where I've hit more goals (top so far is eight), but none has the cache that that first year still holds. The worst I've ever done is three, including the summer of 2008, where the three that I got weren't even that impressive. My roughest summer was probably 2013 simply because it was my first full summer here in Indiana and I hadn't developed much of a social life at all yet. I got a bunch of stuff done but I didn't have anyone to just hang out with and the summer trips with Luke didn't start until 2014. This year though, I'm expecting big things; like, really, really big things and I'm fairly optimistic I can hit all ten goals. Let's even start the list off with two fairly huge goals.
1) Get married.
2) Buy a house.
3) Have friends and/or family over and grill out at my new house while sitting outside and sipping a beer, possibly around a fire, at said house.
4) Camp in a national park.
5) Grade AP Statistics Exams.
6) Kayak Pictured Rocks.
7) Make use of a floating cooler.
8) Color at least one of the pages in my math coloring book. I'm going to have to borrow some crayons or colored pencils or something.
9) Add Lindsey to Lisa and my's summer tradition of visiting a new baseball stadium.
10) Run 100 miles and bike 200 miles.
Bonus! Since I'm going for broke on this, let's add on a few additional goals because why not.
11) Learn voting theory well enough to teach it for Math 1250
12) Set a 10k personal record
13) Read two of the books I had previously started and then quit on
14) Review my Spanish from last fall
15) Not get Lindsey pregnant.
Part of the reason you're getting the bonus goals is because I'm really confident in most of the original ten and that's because many of them are already scheduled. Lindsey and I are getting married in mid-July. We've already got an accepted offer for a house and we take over that in early June. Once we've got that house, I can't imagine we don't show it off to a bunch of family and friends. I've already been accepted as an AP Reader. Lindsey and I will be in northern Michigan for our honeymoon and have already purchased a kayaking excursion. Lisa, Lindsey and I have tickets already to a baseball game in Pittsburgh. It is very likely I will be headed back down to the Smokies in a week or two as well so that's plans already for goals 1-6 and 9. Goal 8 is very easily doable as is goal 7 assuming that we get that floating cooler we registered for and bring it floating with us or out to the cabin. Goal number 10 I'll have to be intentional about, but I'm already signed up for a 10k and will likely be doing another half marathon in the fall so training for those should knock the miles out quickly. This time, my half will be on flat ground so I can make up for the fact that Nashville's hills slowed me and everyone else down.
