End-of-the-Year Clearance

Around this time last year I wrote about my 2004 resolutions and plans for the upcoming year. So, this seems like a good time to look back at how I did, and make some plans for next year.

My resolution was pretty simple:

My goal is to make a significant amount of money from my home business.”Significant” is intentionally vague — I don’t expect to get up to my old salary, but I do want to make a decent contribution to our household income.

I’m happy to report that is exactly what I did. It was a very successful first year. How successful? I’m not rollin’ in dough, but we made a decent profit, and things look good for the coming year.

But, this is what really made it a successful year: A few months ago, my boss from my last job called to ask if I would be willing to come back. Sorry, I replied, I’m too busy. Man, that felt good. Really good. Like, lean back in your chair, put your feet up, smoke a cigar and smile like you have everything good.

Besides my resolution, I also had various projects planned:

• Crafty Goat — The redesign turned out great, and Crafty Goat has had its best year ever. Angela has done a great job of adding new products, improving search engine rankings, and marketing the site like crazy. I’m very proud of what we’ve done with that site.
• Smart Goat — I’m also happy with how this redesign turned out, although I do hope to find some time soon to tweak it a bit. I’m going to use Movable Type to control the site, and hopefully I’ll get to update the news column more often.
• Central Oklahoma Mensa — We finished this redesign as well, and it won us some more awards. I’m going to make some minor changes this year, but I think the basic design will stay around for a while.
• News Goat — Sadly, this redesign hasn’t happen yet. I have a million ideas, but no time to work on them. Maybe this year.
• Ad Goat — We closed Ad Goat when we realized nothing was working. I’d still like to try making a decent classified ad system, but it’s way on the back burner.
• Gift Registry — I haven’t given much thought to this one lately. The more I use MyGiftList, the more ideas I get for improving it. Unfortunately, like Ad Goat, it’s just not a priority.
• SweepsZilla — I would still like to do this, if for no other reason than to learn how to write Firefox extensions. I just don’t know when.

Three out of seven is not bad, right?

For next year, my resolutions can be summed up in one word: more. I want Smart Goat to earn more than it did this year. I want to write more — more articles, short stories, even a novel. I also want to read more — fiction, web design, whatever. In general, I just want to do more. There are so many things I want to accomplish and my resolution is to better manage my time so I can accomplish them.

I also have a couple of new projects I want to get going in the new year. They’re not things I’m ready for Google to know about, though, so I won’t announce them just yet.

Angela & I were pretty fortunate this past year. I hope whatever 2004 was like for you that 2005 is even better.

Oh, and an auld lang syne to you, too. Whatever that means.