MCM's Goals for 2014

I thought about doing a couple of trade posts and catch-up posts to close out 2013 before doing this, but I realized I'm farther behind than I thought.  So, I'll go ahead and throw my goals out there.

1) Downsizing: I want to cut the footprint of all my cards in half.  In other words, I need more closet space, and my house is growing any time soon.  I have plans to give away a bunch, and I'm making progress on de-dupe-ing my collection, which is a solid start. 

2) Baseball Player Collections: My pack-ripping focus shifted throughout 2013 from baseball to football, so the bulk of this progress will likely have to come from trades (or in Sizemore's case, eBay).

• Scott Sizemore - 150 cards - I'm currently at 146 unique cards, so I should be able to reach this goal. However, I have more than half of his cards, and he has 100+ 1/1s, so opportunities are drying up a bit.  If he can latch on a team and get some playing time (and likely some new cards) this year, I'll up the goal to 175.
• David Wright - 300 cards - I need 18 cards to hit this goal, so it may be tight.
• BJ Upton - 235 cards - It'll only take 8 cards to get there, but if he continues to suck, people will be less likely to notice his cards.
• Justin Upton - 175 cards - I need 15 to get there, but it's do-able.
• Justin Verlander - 190 cards - I'm at 181, so I should get there, provided I don't sell off my JV collection and start over (yes, I know I threatened that last year and didn't do it).
• Ryan Zimmerman - 236 cards - I think this is the year that Zim passes BJ for the #2 spot.  I added 29 Zims last year.
• Michael Cuddyer - 90 cards - I'd love to get Cuddy to 100, but I don't see myself picking up 21 new cards, even with his resurgence.
• Mark Reynolds - 60 cards - 4 cards isn't too much to ask is it?  It remains to be seen where he'll play this year, but I should be able to get 4 cards.
• OVERALL (not incl. Sizemore) - 1300 cards - I need 89 to get there. Let's do this.

3) VT Hokie Football Collections:

• Bryan Randall - I want to add at least 3 cards.  I have 23 of his 32 non-printing-plate-cards. That leaves 9 cards to chase, of which 3 are CFL cards that are tough to get.  There are 6 cards that I want to track down, so adding 3 this year would be huge.
• All other Hokies - 500 cards/60 players/100 hits - I'm at 417/50/83.  I definitely want half of those 60 players to have autos, as well.  Logan Thomas figures to be VT's biggest rookie name, so I'd like to add his autograph.

4) Blog:

• Contests - I'm not planning anything remotely close to the magnitude of the football contest I did in 2013, but I will have a few contests.
• New Banner - The HOF card will be outdated, Royce White is forgotten, and the Buttfumble...well, ok, the Buttfumble is timeless, but it's time for an update. 
• Posts - I'm not setting a specific number, but I'd like to finish the 2006 Allen & Ginter set, as well as post all of the cards I've opened and scanned.  I also want to get back to posting trade posts faster.

5) Goals That Actually Matter:

• Enjoy collecting and enjoy my collections.  That's what it's all about.
• Spend less.  This isn't just card-related.  It's more a general life goal.  I want to improve my financial situation.
• De-clutter my house.  We have too much stuff.  Downsizing my card collection will help, but it's only small part of the equation.

Anyway, that's all I have for goals this year.  My blogging will likely suffer this year as it looks like I will be working a lot more.  Having a one-year-old doesn't help free up time, either.  If I have to choose between her and you guys, though...screw you guys.

Well, on that happy note, have a good 2014!