Out with the Old and In with the Goals

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been writing this blog for over a year now.  Somehow we’ve made it to this, our 166th blog post.  Go us!  Here’s to many more posts in the future!

We feel like we’ve hit a nice stride and groove.  However, we don’t want to become complacent.  To keep ourselves on our A-game, we are here to set goals for the year.  A little accountability and transparency can go a long way.  Mix that with a desire to keep improving and we should have a recipe for success, or at least not failure.

This peek into our goals should also give you, our dear readers, a look into what you can expect from our blog this year.  That’s right!  Thanks to us, you can fancy yourself a seer of the future.  

Of course, we are also open to suggestions, so please don’t be afraid to share your thoughts and feedback as well.  Are we giving you too much power?  Don’t go crazy with power, okay?

Now, let’s check out our goals to help make 2023 the best year for Chaos and Confetti yet!

THE GOALS OF C&C’S FUTURE:

Blog Goal:

• At least 125 Post this Year:

In 2022, we set out to create over 100 posts and we ended up obliterating that goal.  We stated that we would have regular Tuesday and Thursday posts with the occasional Sunday post.  Oh how silly we were.  Instead we always had our standard two posts of the week and only missed only two Sunday posts for a total of 154 posts in 2022. Oh the digital ink we spilled.

It took a lot of time and effort, but we think we can do it again, but we also like a little wiggle room.  So, while we’re actually hoping for at least 150 posts again this year, we are setting our goal a bit lower to help keep ourselves from getting too stressed (We also have to give ourselves some room to grow in 2024, right?  You’re welcome, future Chaos and Confetti).  

No matter where our final number lands though, expect to get plenty of Chaos and Confetti in 2023!  

Board Game Goals:

• 10×10 Challenge:

It’s a tale as old as time, the classic board game challenge: play at least ten games ten times during one calendar year.  We set this goal last year and ended up rushing to achieve it in the final month of the year.  While we had a few bigger games on our 10X10 list, we also used plenty of quick play games to help meet our goal.  Success is success!

This year, we’re going for the 10X10 again.  We won’t name our 10 games ahead of time because we don’t know where the year will take us, but we’re sure we’ll find plenty of great games to really dig into multiple times.  Spoiler: You can probably expect to see games like Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game and Frosthaven on our future list.

• Raise Our Overall H-Score by 2 points (up to an H-13):

After starting to track our board game plays using BG Stats in early 2021, we entered 2022 with an overall H-Score of 9 (nine games played at least nine times).  By the end of 2022, our H-Score rose to 11.  

As our score becomes higher, it becomes more difficult to raise.  Each point requires more games to be played more times.  Also, certain games that are already helping our H-Score, such as campaign, legacy, and puzzle games can max out with no more plays available, making them unhelpful at raising our score.  That would mean we would have to raise a completely separate game up to take its place.  So much to consider.  So many games to play!

Since we raised our H-Score by two points last year, we plan to do it again this year.  Come on lucky 13!

• Clash of Chaos and Confetti:

Our Clash competition is a chance to get a wide variety of competitive games to the table, as we take battle through regular best-of-three series.  While not the sole contributor to this fact, thanks to the Clash, we played over 100 unique games last year.  

We will continue the clash this year to help get games to the table, but instead of weekly, this will become a bi-weekly (every other week) event.  This should still let us get competitive games to the table and let our overly competitive sides rear their ugly heads, but it will also make room for our next goal.

• Chaos and Confetti’s Cooperative Challenges:

Always wanting to make sure we keep things fresh and give ourselves reasons to delve into different segments of our gaming library, we introduce The Chaos and Confetti Cooperative Challenges.  These will take place during the weeks that don’t contain C&C Clashes.

Here we will highlight cooperative board gaming experiences.  Here we will take on cooperative board games to test our abilities as a unit.  There may be the addition of some twists and tweaks to make sure our mutual-mettle is truly being tested.  We plan to take on the challenges in one-offs, meaning we either succeed the first time, or walk away hanging our heads in shame.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to bring our gaming best!  

Reading Goals:

• 52 Books Read this Year:

Once again, we’ll be setting our Goodreads book goals to 52 books for the year.  Chaos achieved his goal with 68 books read last year and hopes to make 2023 his 7th year in a row of hitting at least 52 books.  Confetti fell a bit short last year, but since she is shorter than Chaos, that only makes sense.  Hopefully, she’ll find even greater success this year.

While Chaos tends to hit over 52 books a year, a book a week always feels very doable and he would prefer to keep his reading more about the joy of reading than the stress of hitting a high number of books.

• Book Reviews:

One of the best parts of reading is getting to talk about and share what we’ve read.  Chaos will continue releasing a post of reviews for the previous month of books he read.  Hopefully, our readers will come across a few books that might be worth adding to their own to-read list.  

• 50 Comics Read this Year:

Chaos loves reading comics, but they can often get pushed to the side when life gets busy.  Like his traditional books, Chaos has a mountain of comics in his to-read pile.  One nice part of falling behind is that he can usually read large chunks of a writer’s run on a title, or sometimes even their entire series.  Yay unintended boons!  

When Chaos does make the time for his comics, he is always happy he did.  Last year, he surprisingly made enough time to read 46 comics (trades/collections).  For 2023, he hopes to up that number to 50.

Cookbook Challenges:

• Making and Posting about 12 New Recipes: 

We set this goal last year and ended up falling one recipe shy, only 11.  Who would have guessed that November, a month known for having people cook, would have been where we stumbled?  In 2023, we will actually deliver on this goal.  We may dive into the cookbook we’ve already used.  New cookbooks might be featured. Like last year, we may pull from random places as well (kickstarters, other blobs, Disney clubs, etc.).

Chaos’ Realistic Personal Goals:

• Don’t go to prison.  (There’s nothing I’m doing that would warrant being locked up for any reason, so I’m going to see if I can keep it that way).  
• Be a decent to great parent (I’m trying.  I’m not always sure I’m doing it right, but here’s hoping)
• Maintain good grades in grad school (4.0; let’s not go below!)
• Celebrate five years of marriage with Confetti

Confetti’s Realistic Personal Goals:

• Finish Yeti’s playroom (carried over from last year, but we did make good progress in decluttering our office! Just need to finish it off).
• Be more active (still a goal)
• Celebrate 5 year anniversary with Chaos 
• Keep Yeti alive, happy, and healthy. 

Chaos’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” Personal Goals:

• Find the time and will to do some writing that is worth sharing (outside of this blog of course).
• Find the balance that lets me spend time with family and friends, fit in all my hobbies, and succeed at work (Dream big!)  Yes, I said that last year, but it remains elusive so far.

Confetti’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” Personal Goals:

• One year I really will actually read 52 books.
• Find more time for me. 
• Redo the blog layout

*The Goals of C&C’s Past:

For anyone who is curious, here’s a quick link to last year’s goal post.