Getting worse and back to the basics

I've been studying chess and playing correspondence games as well as a few live games. I think I'm actually getting worse somehow. I think part of it is I'm actually trying to play strategically and come up with a plan. On top of it my tactic rating isn't getting any better it stays in the same variance. So in order to try and rectify that I am taking my tactics back to the basics. I've set the tactics trainer to 400 - 800 which should be just basic motifs with few extra moves. The idea is to use this upcoming month to burn these patterns into my brain as well as I can. Since I generally do between 50 - 100 tactics a day it should give me quite a few repeats and get those basic motifs under my thumb. Then in November I'll switch back to the usual rated tactics and see if my understanding has improved.

I want to be able to actually find these shots within my games if they come up. I'm starting to look through grandmaster games as well and am trying to improve my understanding of the game. Sometimes I feel I may just be too old to actually get any better, but I am hoping this isn't the case. Ultimately I'd like to get to a 2000 rating. I'd also like to find a way to get some over the board tournaments in, but that looks very unlikely currently.

I need to find someone who has the time to go over my games with me to help understand my mistakes and how to correct them. I don't know if just self study will be enough to help me improve, but I doubt there is anyone close by that is even capable or willing to do that. I guess until things improve I am stuck with self study and hoping beating my head against the proverbial wall is enough to break said wall down. All in all I guess I'm a bit depressed by the lack of progress and the fact that I seem to be getting worse.

Sorry, but I won't be posting a game this week. I highly doubt anyone looks at them anyways so cheers.

An annotated loss

I present to you a game I lost against my brother recently. I have annotated it to show my thought process during the game. It was a good game and I am hoping by annotating my loss I can gain some insight into what I need to work on and fix. I'm interested in any thoughts or criticisms anyone may have.

http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2013/9/3/Game42693437.html