Hey Friends!

It’s New Year’s Eve, lots of energy in the air and plenty already planned for 2015! It’s been a long year, so let me recap some of the good things that happened:

• At the start of this year, I was approached by my good friend and colleague MJ to help do fundraising for the Dr. Harold Goldstein Endowed Scholarship at FSU’s School of Library Science. This was slightly daunting, as fundraising was something I had never done before. Thankfully, The Brash Librarian raised well over $1000 – and $232 alone at the Florida Library Association conference in May!

Mafe and I after selling off a chocolate basket at the FSU mixer!

I moved from Florida to Texas! I came for my sweetie Heather and my new library job in Houston, but I stayed for the food. Why lie?

Fried jalapeño cream cheese balls with ranch. FRIED CREAM CHEESE WITH RANCH.

• I ran in all three of the Spartan Mud Races! I ran in the Spartan 5K Sprint in February (with sister Ashley and Nigel to support me!), the Spartan Super 8-miler over the summer, and the Spartan Beast 13-miler in November! Each race earns you a third of a medal that lock together, creating a trifecta. It was tough, but worth it.

An example of all three pieces combined!

Now, about those resolutions…let’s take a look at last year’s promises to myself.

• “Improve and maintain my body! In the last two years, I’ve rather gone through some extremes. I went from 190 down to 163 all the up to 210. I really need to figure out how much muscle and definition I want.”

190, 163, 210, 190, 225…my waistline and clothes really hate me. I think I’ve decided that 190-200 is my new goal, with more muscle this time. After seeing Stephen Amell as the Green Arrow, I pretty much wanted to get into crime fighting shape.

Abs and arms are nice, but I can do without the scars and tattoos.

I will continue to do mud runs and all that other good stuff, but my life changed when I learned that they make dress pants with a hint of stretch in them. After epic stretchy dress pants, I can never go back to regular pants.

• “Try to get back into frequently posting. I know y’all have missed me!”

 Eh, still working on it. My new intro into Brash Jobs has helped keep me on track.

• “De-clutter my life, and enjoy living with less stuff.” 

Holy crap, have I weeded things out of my life. There’s still plenty more to go, especially with clothes. All that weight loss/gain has meant many clothes no longer fit and went bye-bye to various people larger or smaller than me. At least it all goes to nice homes! All the trinkets, knick-knacks, and things I’ll never use have been going as well. I’m not as ruthlessly disciplined as Katy, but I’m getting there.

• Be better to myself! I think I’ve decided to have a cup of coffee or tea a day and to burn one candle a day.

I kept up with this one pretty well! I definitely burned more candles this year and drank the occasional beer instead of tea.

This year, I’ll keep my goals fairly easy and manageable:

• Try to read more books! Given the work we do, it sometimes feels like we’re taking work home with us.
• Keep working out! I started getting back into it during winter and I just want to keep that up. Fingers crossed…
• Keep de-cluttering! I want to live in a home with less stuff. Not things, but just stuff.
• Learn stuff! More camping, practicing another language, just stuff in general that may one day prove useful during trivia or the zombie apocalypse.
• Basically, keep moving forward and being awesome.

That’s all for this year kids. Now go and have a SAFE and happy New Years! Don’t forget this is the year Marty McFly comes to visit in Back to the Future II.

These damn YOLO kids.

See you next year!

Justin Brasher, Brash Librarian