Happy New Year!

 

Overall, 2022 was a pretty good year here at Chez Hopper. First full one down in Texas. Positive growth in all members of the immediate family. Little One firmly ensconced in college 45 minutes away. Patch successfully navigating High School and fiercely feeding her entrepreneurial spirit. The Mrs. mastering her Dallas Fort Worth territory. Me, I finally figured out how to do my corporate cubical job with a minimum of stress. Physically, I worked out something like 40 or 45 times (always in clusters, never consistently throughout the year), lost some weight, gained some weight, lost it again, and had a positive full body checkup. I read some quality stuff. Played my acoustic and electric guitars a lot. And have something like a hundred pages of notes for my magnum opus science fiction novel.

More on that latter piece next year.

My resolutions are twofold: to get healthy and to write. Over the past week or two I’ve started a spreadsheet with these two goals and listed the subgoals and tasks etc etc etc to get that done. It’s something I enjoy doing when faced with the panorama of a new year. The trick is to keep the fires burning past January, or, in some cases, past the first week or even weekend in January. As always, we’ll see.

The Hoppers are staying home tonight and will watch a movie yet-to-be-decided. Per tradition the Mrs. and I will watch some standup comedy. The girls are old enough where they can partake in champagne with us at midnight. Little One might sip a glass or two or three of red wine in the evening. It’ll be fun and low key, just the way INFP me likes it.

The wife made plans for us to connect with her sister and her family, and we’ll all do something together on Monday. I think we’re visiting the Dallas Zoo as VIPs and having dinner, though don’t quote me on that. I’ll have moved the iron twice and walked three miles by this point, as well as chipped away at those hundred pages, Rodin-sculpting-the-Thinker-like, in search of the outline buried beneath. Wish me luck.

May everyone enjoy a healthy and prosperous New Year!