I originally drafted a single, mammoth post reflecting on this whole year—but at more than 6,000 words, that seemed like a bit much. As such, I’ve broken it into a series of posts, to be published daily through the start of the new year. Hopefully they’re a bit more digestible that way!

• Introduction, or: a ridiculous year summarized
• Part 1: Running headfirst into a wall of pneumonia.
• Part 2: So. many. words. I had no idea how many words.
• Part 3: Podcasting: Winning Slowly, New Rustacean, and more!
• Part 4: Writing software for Olo and for open source.
• Part 5: Getting things done in 2016 and beyond.
• Part 6: Plans for 2017! (this post)

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In 2017, I really only have a few big goals:

1. Graduate seminary.
2. Spend good time with my family.
3. Love our church well.
4. Work hard for Olo.
5. Save money for a house.
6. Replace Pelican with Lightning for this site.

I have a bunch of smaller goals, too, of course. That list includes:

• publish two episodes of New Rustacean every month (of various formats—not all the full-length teaching-a-subject type)
• publish 16–20 episodes of Winning Slowly
• complete a full-length sprint triathlon¹
• run a marathon
• be able to do 15 consecutive pull-ups and 100 consecutive push-ups
• lose ten pounds and get back down to my target weight
• document all the undocumented features in Rust, and get the Rust reference all the way up to date (tracking issue)
• finish a couple side projects (and bring in the associated money!)
• teach in our small group at least a half dozen times
• write at least one long essay for Mere Orthodoxy
• publish the scripts and transcripts of New Rustacean as an ebook
• publish hard copies of the archives of my blog, in a way that mirrors the style of the site at the time it was written
• fully archive the Blogger and WordPress versions of this blog as static HTML
• move all the sites I host (mine and others) out of shared hosting and into a server I manage (probably Digital Ocean or Linode)

But basically all of those are flexible (and, if I’m honest, so is #6 in the first list—though it’s a high priority as far as the flexible ones go).

I have a pretty good handle on how I’m going to chase those things. The productivity patterns I’ve established over the last couple years are serving me well so far, and I expect them to continue to. After graduation, things will obviously look a little different, and I’m looking forward to that, too. Being able to take vacations where I’m not losing ground by not working on school projects? That sounds truly amazing.

I’m also looking forward to digging into more books I want to read and making progress on writing I want to do in the realm of theology, philosophy, ethics, and so on. I’ve spent nearly all the mental energy I have available for those subjects on seminary work over the past several years (with varying degrees of value for that effort). Once again being able to focus my own external studies as I like will be very freeing, I think. I hope to find some ways to continue to work at something like an academic level, and—crazy though it sounds right now—I do hope to get a Ph.D. in something in a few decades. But I am looking forward to having a lot of years of reading and writing outside academia between now and then.

All those goals are good, but ultimate I’m willing to just see what the year brings. I’d love to compose music again more regularly and at greater length. I’d love to write more fiction, and more (and better) poetry. But we’ll also be starting some schooling with Ellie, and dealing with the logistics of planning a move to Colorado sometime in late 2017 or the first half of 2018. We’ll be enjoying just not having nearly so much to do right after finishing seminary. It’s worth remembeirng to rest, and not do just jump into another season of being incredibly slammed by busyness. I plan to take some time to read novels and play video games, too. Those things are good for our souls in their own way.

And come what may, I hope to glorify God in the midst of it. Rest, work, play, side projects, you name it—soli deo gloria.

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1. 750m swim, 20km (12mi) ride, 5km (3.1mi) run↩