{"id":253,"date":"2008-01-12T07:25:09","date_gmt":"2008-01-12T14:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sackrider.org\/category\/mythoughts\/have-you-made-today-different"},"modified":"2025-06-15T06:07:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T06:07:35","slug":"have-you-made-today-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/have-you-made-today-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Have You Made Today Different?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/sackrider.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/calendar_clip_art.gif\" title=\"Calendar Clip Art\" alt=\"Calendar Clip Art\" align=\"right\" \/>If you&#8217;ve read my blog regarding New Year&#8217;s Resolutions (<a href=\"http:\/\/sackrider.org\/category\/mythoughts\/new-years-resolutions-2008\" title=\"New Years Resolutions 2008\">here<\/a>), then you know have had a rather cynical view.  Each year we make commitments to improve ourselves and most of those &#8216;commitments&#8217; have been abandoned by February.  I tried to not even participate in the New Year hype, but I found it impossible (maybe I&#8217;ll make that a resolution for next year).  I&#8217;ve committed to loose weight, pay down debt, increase savings and charity, go back to school, and give more volunteer time at my church.  So, we&#8217;re two weeks into the new year and I thought I&#8217;d give you an update of how I&#8217;m doing&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I&#8217;m off to a decent start.  I adjusted my direct deposit to increase my savings and I&#8217;ve enrolled in Western Governors University (<a href=\"WGU.edu\" title=\"WGU.edu\" target=\"_blank\">WGU.edu<\/a>).  I start school next month, so that&#8217;s one resolution that might just make it out of January.  Paying down debt will take time to evaluate, however Stephanie and I haven&#8217;t financed or charged any new debt (which isn&#8217;t that big of a deal considering that we are only two weeks into the year, but hey it&#8217;s a start).  I&#8217;ve made it a point to go to Sunday night and Wednesday night church services in addition to Sunday morning and Stephanie signed up to lead an interest-based small group. We also want to host one of the regular (non-interest based) small groups, but I haven&#8217;t filled out the form.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/sackrider.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/elliptical.JPG\" title=\"Me Working Out\" alt=\"Me Working Out\" align=\"left\" \/>Stephanie and I made a change to the house to assist in our weight loss goals; we&#8217;ve converted the TV room into an exercise room.  The sectional is out in the garage and the bowflex is in.  We also picked up an inexpensive elliptical (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kmart.com\/shc\/s\/p_10151_10104_080W134812110001P?adCell=A3\" title=\"http:\/\/www.kmart.com\/shc\/s\/p_10151_10104_080W134812110001P?adCell=A3\" target=\"_blank\">Under $200<\/a>) from KMart (Yes, we paid cash).  This picture to the left is me working out on it&#8230; well, kind of.<\/p>\n<p>Stephanie and I have also eaten out  only once this year and only because we had gift cards.  We split a meal and still felt like we ate too much.  We have enjoyed eating meals together at the house as a family every day and I have to say its been very refreshing.  I&#8217;d like to think this is another resolution that will make it out of January.<\/p>\n<p>So, that&#8217;s how I&#8217;m doing.  Every night before I go to bed, I ask myself &#8220;Was today different?&#8221; and every morning I get up and ask &#8220;How will I make today different?&#8221;  I&#8217;ve been &#8217;rounding the same mountain year after year; gaining weight, growing debt, spending savings, and skipping school for another year.  So how will this time be different.  I&#8217;ve decided to make the question a challenging one instead of simply a cynical one.  How about you?  How are you doing on your New Year&#8217;s Resolutions?  Have you made today different?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve read my blog regarding New Year&#8217;s Resolutions (here), then you know have had a rather cynical view. Each year we make commitments to improve ourselves and most of those &#8216;commitments&#8217; have been abandoned by February. I tried to not even participate in the New Year hype, but I found it impossible (maybe I&#8217;ll [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2791,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/2791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sackrider.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}