Hi, My Name is Thomas and I’m a Mommy-Blogger is the obligatory introductory post.

Are You At Your Mother’s House? is the first in what will be an unknown number of posts related to the challenges of having a 9 year old living in two households with two sets of rules.

Go check them out, along with the other parenting blogs, TummyTime for expecting parents, CuddleBugs for parents of infants and toddlers and Realiteen for parents of teenagers. And don’t forget to check out the other TweenBeat writer, Adrienne Osborn.

My personal goals for 2009 are much more complicated than my bicycling goals…On the bicycle, all I have to do is get my behind onto the saddle and pedal. Personal stuff is hard and requires effort. Personal goals often accentuate my past failures (AHEM…Fat Challenge, anyone?)…And let’s all be honest: Looking past failure is hard and requires effort.

Anyways, here’s my list of personal goals for 2009:

• Lose 20 pounds – I’ve already lost about 10 pounds in the last few months, just by biking to work and cutting back on fast food. I’m hoping to lose 20 more (making my weight a still-more-chubby-than-necessary 170ish pounds. This will be achieved by bicycling more (longer daily commute, plus more frequent recreation rides) as well as spending more time exercising. I’m going to start running twice a week during lunch and visiting a local fitness center in the evening.
• Read more – I’ve got shelves and shelves of books (not to mention boxes in the closet or at the local library) to read. I’m hoping to get through one a month (for a total of 12).
• Write more – My writing has sucked lately…Mostly because I haven’t really been trying. So, I’m going to write more and better and get something published somewhere.  There’ll be more on that as my ideas get better-shaped.
• Blog more and more effectively – My blogging has hit a sort of block…I’m not sure why, but I haven’t been writing on as much news/politics/local stuff as I should. I’ll be focusing more on the City of Jacksonville and Onslow County governments as well as keeping better tabs on what Onslow County’s representatives to the NC General Assembly are doing.
• Take more photographs – I’m going to get back into taking pictures. Since I lost my PC in March (and didn’t get it back until May) it’s been hard to make myself go take photos. I’m going to work harder on that and get the Photography blog updated.
• I’m going to work harder for the issues that are personally important to me. Making Jacksonville a more livable city (on several fronts: walk/ridability, public transit, managing growth and revitalizing downtown) will be a frequently-covered topic. So will veteran’s affairs, education and health care.

There will be more goals, but these are good start, I think.