Total Foil Count: 3,765
I am going to start to try and talk about my life more in these blogs, just so I have something to talk about. I just don't see the value of just posting the cards in my collection without something interesting to talk about. I mean, some people might want to just look at cards in my collection, but I need to make this more interesting. The one purpose of this blog is to provide a running ledger of my collection, but I really need to have something to talk about in these blogs.
So today going to talk about goals. Let's review my Magic the Gathering Goals.
1: Playset of every Standard Released Set from The Dark and up
2: A Single set of AAL and all supplementary sets
3: Complete Sealed Booster Box from Revised and up
4: Sealed product collection of all supplementary releases
5: Bucket List ABU complete sets Sealed product of more rare sets
6: Get rid of all my extra cards, and add the least amount to my bulk
I have OCD and I work best off of lists, so I tend to make lists of everything I want to do and that gives me some control and purpose of my days. It allows me to gain control of what I NEED to do, and I can stay focused on those lists. There is an added bonus to getting something done, but really it is a way for me to get up and move throughout my day knowing what I need to get done.
In my MTG life I have been able to complete #1, #2, and #4, while getting really close to #3. I do not expect to get to #5 until after I retire. And #6 we are in the middle of right now.
But with that I need more than just MTG lists in my life. I maintain multiple spreadsheets to gauge my retirement, and also a daily budget. I keep track of everything. I mean everything! It has helped me in knowing what I can spend, and what goals I can accomplish without stressing myself out. I know that I can pay for my child's schooling, as well as be able to buy groceries every week.
I would say that my budget has lead me to be able to be comfortable with having a child. There is no way to really plan for a baby, or to really be ready for a baby, but there were somethings that I did in order to make life less stressful for me. My wife could care less about the planning of everything, but I needed to take responsibility for how I was going to be after the baby came, and there were steps I needed to take in order to get there. I would also like to add that my freaking out still happened, but I would hope that it was to a minimum. I mean, my wife is still with me, so it has not been so bad that she could not stick around.
But one thing I needed to do was get rid of all our debt. That was pretty much my main goal before thinking about having a baby. I came from a broken home, and financials were the main cause for the break, so I wanted to be able to provide my wife and baby the comfort of not having to worry about the day to day costs of living. It also allowed me to have the flexibility of moving money from savings to spending without too much worry.
I save a lot.
One thing that I did not expect is the change of priorities. I am not talking about saving, or budgeting, but the well being and health of myself. I am an older first time father and some would say that I was not in horrible shape, but I was not healthy. Having my son was a nice wake up call for myself, and I set a goal of running in a marathon by the time he turned 1.
Fast forward to his first birthday and I was no where near being able to finish a 10K, but it did set me on a path to getting more healthy. I can now run a 5K without any real struggle, and I am working toward being able to finish a marathon at some point. I really do think that everything started to change when we had our child. At the beginning of the year, on New Years Day I decided to attempt to get a perfect year with consideration of my Apple Watch.
Rewind a bit, when my wife told me we were pregnant I went out and bought an Apple Watch. The thought was to really use this new toy in getting in shape so that I can be around to see my grandchildren. Time went on and I was able to finish that 5K, but I was very stop and go with working out. I found it to be very difficult to maintain a workout schedule due to injury and straight up being out of shape. I kept trying to find a schedule to working out that worked, but it was pretty difficult to maintain anything.
So, back on New Years Day I looked at my wife and said I was going to get a perfect year with my Apple Watch, and really make it a goal rather than just working out a couple times a week. On the Apple Watch you get three rings that you can accomplish every day.
Move Calories burned
Exercise Minutes
Stand Goal
The watch will keep track of all your calories burned, but the move ones are more important because you are actually moving. Then you need to exercise for at least 30 minutes each day, and stand for 1 minute each our for 12 hours a day. Easy right!
I could do that, those are 3 very easy goals.
At first the rings were closed pretty easy, but now that I am 3 months and 6 days into it, my watch keeps pushing that limit to see if it can break me. I swear that now that it sees all the completed days of rings being closed it is trying to see if I am really up to the challenge. I really think that with the daily goals, I will be able to make the prefect year, but the stupid watch throws these monthly goals in there.
The Monthly goals started off pretty innocent, but now that the watch thinks I am in pretty good shape it is trying to kill me. Now I have no real goal of getting a perfect year with all the monthly goals, but fuck you if I am not going to try. Like the January goal was to hit my Move goal 20 times in the month. Then February was to exercise for 830 minutes for the whole month. March hit me a little in the face with closing all my rings, which was not that hard because I was trying to do that anyway. Then fuck you April showed up.
This was not the kick ass April O'Neil from TMNT, oh no. This was "so you want to get a perfect year?" asshole April. I am so scared of this goal that I almost do not want to finish it because of what next month is going to look like. In April I need to burn at least 28,100 calories. That is 937 calories a day. Right now, my Move Ring goal is 770 a day, and I can average around 850 a day. This means I need to work out more that 80 more calories a day in order to hit this goal.
I know it does not sound like a lot, and I am thinking that next year around this time I will be laughing at that tiny goal, but it is good to have these goals to better my life.
Taking my OCD and using it in my favor. Creating these lists to maintain my life and being about to workout different ways of thinking of things in order to make my life a little easier. It might be more to do, or more work that needs to be put into maintaining all these lists, but it is bringing my better purpose in my life.
Without the lists of MTG cards I needed I would have not found a better way to spend money, and I would not take so serious budgeting. Without my wife and child I am not sure I would be out of debt. Without the thought of needing to grow old for my family I would not be on this path of staying healthy.
I still do get hit with those dark days, and it is impossible to take me away from my computer because things are not lining up. Or I spend countless hours looking for a single thing because it was not where it was supposed to be. But all in all I have been able to maintain my life through these lists, and if those are in good standing I can look at enjoying more of the life we are building for my son, and really enjoy life the way people should.
Goals are a good thing, and I think everyone should try and set some for themselves.
Here are some more of those Player Rewards Promos that came in. I love CardSphere!
Nice little pick up here!
I am really getting close to getting all these lands, and I am surprised that there is not more of a demand for these.
And these stupid Planeswalker deck cards. I seriously hope they cancel these decks after War of the Spark. I am really starting to hate this product. Just cause they have new printed standard cards, I am trying to get playset of them, and it really sucks.
So yeah, I am hoping to share a bit more of things that I am going through, and tie it to MTG collecting. Hopefully next post it will be spicy with a new purchase, and how I got there.
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