A Tiara...

I'm going to be 45 in March.  It makes me feel a little sick to admit that. I am not someone who has accepted the aging process well.  I still freak out at the gray hair I often see in the mirror (to be fair, I got my first gray hair at 25... and I cried for pretty much a week after I found it).

For the last 15-20 years if you asked me what I wanted for my birthday or for Christmas or any other gifting occasion I would have told you "I want a tiara".  And then you would have laughed because what would a grown woman possibly want a tiara for?

Well, here's the thing... The Bloggess (who I have a HUGE girl-crush on) has this traveling red dress thing she's doing.  And one of the things she's said about it is that the red dress isn't always a red dress. It is something you've wanted but not gotten/done for yourself because it's just too ridiculous/frivilous/decadent.  And I've come to realize that MY "red dress" is a tiara.  Because you don't just go out and buy yourself a tiara.  I have nowhere to wear a tiara. I have no special occasion I want it for. I can't even articulate to you WHY I want a tiara, I just DO.

I actually added a tiara to my Amazon Wish List last year... and there it sits.  And I am STILL trying to rationalize buying a tiara. And I don't know if I can actually talk myself into being ok with spending the money on a tiara. And no, a cardboard tiara would NOT be "just as good".  Because if you're going to have a tiara, you may as well go for "the real thing".

I'll let you know if I ever go ahead and get my tiara. And maybe just putting out the intention to the Universe is enough.  It's fun to think about, anyways.

Project Induced Paralysis

I don't know if I am the only person to ever experience this or if other people have this issue, as well.  You start the weekend with a mile long list of things to do and you look at the list and ponder where to begin and before you know it, it's 10PM Sunday night and you're blogging about the fact that another weekend has passed and you got nothing (or very little) done and now you will be behind all week again and need to spend next weekend catching up.   Well, that pretty much describes at least 3 decades of my life. I am NEVER caught up but I suffer from Project-Induced Paralysis on an alarmingly frequent basis.  I've tried all sorts of things to get myself on track but it always seems to come back to sitting here on Sunday night and realizing that another weekend has gone by and I am no closer to getting things done now than I was on Friday night.

I suppose that part of my problem is that I have this delusion that somehow, miraculously, I will receive an invitation to do something really fun on the weekend and I don't want to get all involved in a project and then miss the invitation because I was vacuuming and didn't hear my phone or I was up to my glutes in the closet project and missed an email inviting me to the most fun event ever that came up at the very last second...  And I KNOW that the chance of that happening is pretty much nothing, but it is the sort of thing that seems to enable my ongoing Project-Induced Paralysis.

I assure you, I am thoroughly disgusted with myself and am ruminating about how this is going to impact the coming week and I know that The POSSLQ is eventually going to be back in town and want a bed to sleep in but I made no progress in helping that happen this weekend. 

To be fair, I did take a ton of trash out and now the hall closet is as good as it gets once again (it's not perfect, but it's a hall closet and I just don't have very high expectations for it).  And I vacuumed the bedroom. Brought the kitty litter up from the car and cleaned the kitty box. And generally tidied a bit so if they come around to do their Fourth Amendment violating "inspection", they may not be completely appalled.  Don't think that my place is fit to be condemned or anything, it just isn't pristine and ready for a Better Homes & Gardens photoshoot.  And really, how many homes ARE like that on a daily basis (if you have one of them, I cannot fathom why you are reading my blog. Seriously.)

I also remotely logged into my work computer today and finished up something so that tomorrow and Tuesday will be less of a crisis.  So, that completely ate into the time that I was spending not getting anything done. They may hesitate to renew my "slacker" card over that but I am sure I can convince them it was a one-time incident for which I am receiving counseling and I'll be fine.

I had some writing I wanted to get done this weekend and maybe I'll still get it done following this post.  There's still time before I go to bed (too late again, I'm sure).  And tomorrow I will look at my list and be woeful at how many things did NOT get checked off the list.  Like every other Monday that I can recall.   I suppose when you wake up and have nothing on your "to-do" list, you're probably either a)ready to die or b) already dead.  Neither of which is optimal. (I would imagine. I've never been dead so I suppose I have no basis for comparison)...

So, anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

Apparently, I'm doing it wrong....

So, I was perusing my e-mails and there was a link in one of them about blogging (You know, a sortve "Blogging 101: For Dummies" type post) and I read it and... I'm doing it all wrong.  And I read something the other day about intentionally posting content that will bring (artificial) traffic to your blog and I thought to myself "Well, crap.. I've been blogging since 2004 and I never would have thought of doing that..." and, well, if I am to believe the articles I am reading, my blog is way too small to ever get any recognition and the fact that I have any readers at all is, by their standards, quite the miracle.

Now, I have to tell you that I am only just starting to view blogging from more a business perspective than something I do because I like to write and having a forum where other people can read what I write appeals to me and if I can happen to enlighten someone or make their day better in some way, it strikes me as a winning proposition.  But I'm getting tired of going to blogger gatherings and having people be absolutely SHOCKED that I wasn't "monetizing" my blog.  So, I figured since everyone said Adsense was wonderful, I'd try that and ended up getting banned pretty much my first month into that and I understand that every blog I ever, ever, EVER have will be included in that ban and... well...there went that idea.

So, I found Adgetize... which, less than 2 weeks after I signed up with them they decided to call it quits and go out of business.  I made three cents with Adgitize and will give them kudos for having paid out (unlike my buddies at Adsense who arbitrarily decided I was breaking some rule but wouldn't tell me which blog was breaking the rule or any specifics really and therefore the $30+ payout I was slated to get, I didn't).  And now I am afraid to click on ads on any other blogs for fear of getting them banned (guilt by association, since I'm one of those nasty rulebreakers!)

On one of my other blogs, I am doing articles for EdenFantasys, which I really enjoy doing (and I need to do that this weekend) but I have to be careful what content I post where because it can keep you from being able to post other types of content. 

All I can tell you is that monetizing your blog seems like a lot of work for a small ROI.  I'm really happy that it works for some people and I'll continue to place ads on my blogs for things that I love/believe in (like DDP Yoga, which is a FABULOUS program which I DO use).  I love EdenFantasys, too but this blog isn't the forum for their ads.  I suppose I could use some of those "less than ethical" methods of getting tons of readers, but I'm not really wanting to skim content from other sites, which is how most of that stuff seems to work.

So, to potential advertisers... I may not be the biggest blog or have the most traffic but I'm ethical and if I like your product/service I'll talk about it.  The flip side is that if I *DON'T* like your product/service, I'm probably going to talk about it, too. But at least it will be HONEST feedback.  And, apparently, in a world of bigger, better, blingy-er blogs, that means I'm doing it wrong. And I'm fine with that.

I am not a fan of vague notices from Management

I managed to not get washed away by the rain we've been having the past few days. All of the sidewalks where I live were flooded and so I spent most of my day with soggy feet which is not at all pleasant.

I'm working on a big project at work and I'm taking a Project Management class tomorrow. Something tells me that I needed to take this class a couple of weeks ago before getting embroiled in the whole big project.

I am not sure what I am going to do this weekend. I think if I was smart I would stay home and work on whipping the apartment into shape. Apparently, my apartment management have decided that they are going to be wishy washy idiots and tell us that "over the coming weeks" the Fire Department will be "inspecting random units".

This, to me, translates to : "We've decided that on any given day, we will come in and wander around your apartment because we feel like it and we're not going to put any sort of time constraint on it so you can't ever bitch if we've been in your apartment without giving you the required 24 hours advance written notice..."

Also, they want to be notified of any pets.  I will inform them I have the same pet count I've ALWAYS had when I drop off the rent on Saturday.  I am half tempted to get out all of my stuffed animals (and I have a HUGE collection. Yes, I know how old I am. Shut up.) and stage them all so they are all staring at the front door.  Or maybe I should get out one of my critter carriers, put my stuffed Rhino in it and put a note on the carrier that says "Danger -- Attack Rhino"...

I am also sorely tempted to inform them that my POSSLQ has an odd work schedule and so they may walk in on him naked since they won't be giving any sort of warning that they're coming and it is hardly fair to tell someone that they cannot enjoy nudity in their own home especially if they are not given a time period in which clothing is advised.  I'd enjoy seeing the look on their faces when I drop that little bomb. *evil grin

Of course, the worst of it is having to keep the apartment "company's coming" clean (as opposed to "lived in" clean) for an undetermined length of time and I'm still working on my big closet project, so things are... less than optimal at the moment and there's not a way for me to miraculously make things "company's coming" clean in the midst of that project.  I fully expect some sort of nastygram from the management company some day when I get home. I'm just going to do the best I can and not worry about it.

Doing Everything But What I Should Be Doing....

I had every intention of doing a blog post to close my day. I was going to post and then go to bed. But that isn't what is going to happen. Because I am going to do my blog post and then take a bath. And after my bath, I am going to hang the clothes I washed up to dry.  I can't hang the clothes up before the bath (or indeed, when I washed them) because the clothes hang in the tub so they don't drip all over the floor which would likely cause me some serious bodily harm when I shuffle into the bathroom at 3AM to get water to make the cat's fountain stop making noise and then there would be water on the floor (from the clothes, not from fetching water for the cat's fountain) and I would slip, fall and possibly crack my head open and very likely die because there's no one here but the cats and I and something tells me that my cats aren't the kind who would call 911 but more the type that would take the opportunity to get on the Internet and order several pounds of premium catnip.

I am taking a bath tonight because 1) it is cold and I can't sleep when I am cold and 2)I like baths way more than showers but I cannot train myself to get up early enough to take a bath in the morning and would probably end up falling asleep in the tub and waking up about noon and you can only do that a couple of times before people start to wonder if maybe they should call whatever professional personnel to stage an intervention. Except that my falling asleep in the tub is because I am tired, not because I'm intoxicated but people always claim "exhaustion" when they've been on a bender so it's not like anyone will buy that I am falling asleep in the tub because I stay up until midnight doing blog posts.  It's a vicious cycle, people.

I discovered today that a file I desperately need has been corrupted so, instead of being able to do the project in the allotted time and have time for things like Quality Control, I will be frantically recreating a huge data entry file which will have to be tested a half dozen times and then will do a huge merge and hope it doesn't blow up.

Also, I think I need to find a way to trim my cat's back claws because she likes to nap on my chest and now my chest is full of cat scratches which probably looks like I've been on that bender I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago AND that I have an overzealous lover. Who needs to trim his nails. Or his fangs.  So, maybe I look like I'm hooking up with a werewolf.  I will let you come up with your own off-colour innuendo there (email me if you can't come up with any on your own... I've got plenty to go around but I'm TRYING to keep this a "family friendly" place).

Well, my bathwater is getting cold and if I have to re-run it, it will cut into my bath-napping time. Goodnight Internetz!

Tuesday Case of The Mondays

I woke up 2 hours late this morning. This was a bad sign. I stepped directly in the pile of cat hork on the floor at the foot of the bed. I was starting to think that MAYBE I should just crawl back into bed and try again tomorrow. Turns out, I should have listened to my gut on that one...

It wasn't the most horrible day ever but I'm not going to lie and tell you things went well. I figured that maybe my Tuesday Wino Rhinos would help cheer me up. And there were elements to the evening that were outstanding. Like the Nutella Cupcake.  But I didn't want to get started on politics tonight and there were politicians at the Wine Bar and I just felt like, I don't know, that I probably should have just stayed in bed today.

Sometimes social things go very well for me. Tonight didn't feel like it "clicked". And the internet was in and out for me so I didn't get the things done (like this blog post) that I had hoped to get done.

I find myself feeling on one hand like it's a really good thing that I have nothing planned for the rest of the week and that I should use the opportunity to get things done and then I am also sortve... bereft at having nothing to do and knowing that I have a series of nights alone. Which is stupid because I have so much work I need to be doing.

Perhaps I am just overtired and still trying to shake off my "out of sorts" feeling that began this morning. This will be good for me. It'll be good practice for things I know are to come.  Because I know that the only constant in life is change, even if it is a reset to (as the Talking Heads so eloquently put it) "Same As It Ever Was".

Hoping the rest of the week will be productive. Being smart and not doing what my first instinct is screaming at me to do because I KNOW it is the wrong thing. Should have had another glass of wine.

Quiet Busy Week

Last week I was very busy doing things outside the home. This week I will be very busy (after tomorrow night, when I'm going out) week in getting things done.   I have a number of projects I need to get around to and will need to get things wrapped up before the end of the month, so it'll be busy. Plus, I am taking a class on Friday so I have to cram 5 days of work into four days this week.

But, the class is on Project Management which will be good from a professional standpoint but I am also hoping to learn some things that will help me in my day-to-day life.

I have a number of things I will be posting about here. Things I have been doing lately, a couple of reviews and a look at something coming up in February.

But tonight, it's 2 and a half hours past bedtime so I am off to bed!

I Don't Know Me Anymore...

So, in the past couple of weeks, I've been to the Dallas Museum of Art....TWICE.  Since when do I go to any sort of museum, much less an art museum?  Ok, yeah, I used to sortve dig the Science Museum Up North but I went every five years or so, so it wasn't a HABIT or anything.

I've had a bunch of fun at the art museum. Even if one of the exhibits I saw made me think some very unpolitically correct (not sexual, though) thoughts about who it would be fun to share that exhibit with.  And last night was Late Night at the museum and there was music and art and a Madonna tribute artist.  Plus, we went to hear Cintra Wilson speak and I have to admit to a bit of a girl-crush on her because she's freakin' hilarious and brilliant and I envy her writing ability PLUS she wears black ALL THE TIME. I have to get ahold of her books (yes... *gasp* I am actually going to read a book instead of doing all of my reading on the Internet, although she DOES have a blog! Squee!)

Sunday (tomorrow? today? I am still a little shaky on what day it is) I am going to the art museum AGAIN and then trekking off to Teavana. Maybe I can find a tea monkey for Lisa...  then maybe she'll have lunch with me. Or dinner. Or drink a bottle of whipped cream vodka and eat bacon and Cheetos... I should check to see if she likes the puffs or the crunchy kind, though...(of Cheetos...)

So, since I have an actual agenda tomorrow, I had better get to bed now so I don't over sleep.  Get yourself some Cintra Wilson books and read!  (If you're not sure you'll like them, I will more than likely post more about the books after I have read them).

What day is it?

I notice that I last posted on Saturday and I think it is now the wee hours of Thursday and I have no idea where the week has gone. I mean, I've not been in bed sleeping since then, but the last few days have been a blur of waking up, being cold all day long, working and then off doing all the things that people who have social lives do and wondering how the heck I got a social life and then wondering if I am going to spend the whole weekend asleep because I have been getting about three hours of sleep a night because while being social is exhausting for me, it also winds me up and then I need to decompress (thank you to SJ for a reminder of that excellent term) and I am sitting here right now freezing BUT I don't want to turn on the heat too much right before bed because it's a waste of heat and heat doesn't grow on trees and if it did, I wonder if the tea-picking monkeys could also pick heat or if the kevlar gloves that would require would too greatly diminish their manual dexterity.  And THAT, my friends, is the sort of thing that my brain ponders when I am sleepy.

But, you will notice that I am not immediately logging off and going to bed. This is partially because I am pondering the pros and cons of stopping off for a nice, hot bath on the way to bed and may be because I found a couple of chocolate covered pretzels and we all know how chocolate makes sleeping so much easier (just shush about the caffeine in chocolate, this is no time for science or nutrition facts).

I have two more nights out this week. Tonight (if we are going to count right now as Thursday), I go do my volunteer work for the Cat Rescue and Friday I am going to the art museum (yes, again).

The plan for the weekend is to work on the Closet Project unless I get a better offer. Which pretty much would be any opportunity to leave the house.

Finally (and I apologize that this has been a little weird and disjointed. I blame sleep deprivation). I have found my dream purse..I want this purse but know it'll never happen because I could never justify spending that much on a purse (unless I won the lottery or something).  I may have lustful dreams about that purse. I promise I won't blog about them (I can't promise there won't be a steamy story over on Literotica, though..)

Another Wild Saturday Night

I've been working on the Closet Project today and went out to the apartment office and paid the utility bill after having to excavate my checkbook from the bag of stuff I'd gotten sick of looking at...

I ended up in a bit of a quandry as I really had nothing much in the house to eat tonight but I was hungry but I had no desire to get dressed and go outside and get in the car, warm the car up, drive somewhere and get food. I didn't even run to the post office today, which I should have and I JUST realized that Monday is a holiday so I will have to take care of that errand at lunch on Tuesday and then I have plans for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday evenings this week. (I need to check my calendar to be sure that that is true, but I think it is... and if that's so, it's going to be a completely crazy week and I'd better kick a$$ on the Closet Project because I need to have at least part of it done before POSSLQ is home next and wants to actually sleep in his bed which is still buried in stuff from the Closet.  But... I am making progress so I think I can pull it off.

I have a bunch of coupons I need to clip which means I probably won't go grocery shopping until Monday, so then I will be out every freakin' night for the next week and that's insane.  How do people with social lives ever get anything done? I mean, I don't even do that much and have trouble making it through my email inbox and reader every day and housework falls to the wayside.

One of these days I'll get my act together, the Closet Project will be done and something that passes for normalcy will come along.  Now I'm off to the livingroom to work on a project out there!  Goodnight Internetz!

On the run...

Things have been crazy busy this week. I’ve been doing several blog-related things but haven’t gotten here to update because of all of the non-blog things I have going on right now.   Case in point, tonight I am going to the Dallas Museum of Art.  High time I got some culture! *grin

Honestly, though, that’s part of the beauty of moving somewhere new.  You get to explore all of the venues your new locale has to offer. And yes, I’ve been here for almost 3 years now but it’s only really been the last three or four months that I have ventured much outside of my routine.  There are a number of reasons for this but suffice it to say that I am having a good time getting to try new things and go new places.

I have some projects for this weekend and a three mile long “to-do” list.  My reader is stuffed full and I volunteered to read and review a book for an author I know.

But on my to-do list is getting things done here and on my other blog.  So, there is more to come shortly!

Trying to catch up...

I spent most of the weekend working on the Closet from H3LL.  Progress was made but there is still a long way to go and I sortve have a clock ticking and there are 2 stages in which the clock ticks....

1st - POSSLQ is going to come back from business travel at some point and want a place to sleep.  Since that bed is largely being used for the pile o' stuff from the closet, I have to figure out how to get things subdued and cleaned up to the point that there will, indeed, be a bed to sleep on. (I am not foolish enough to pile things on MY bed!)

2nd - I am probably having out-of-town company in March and they will be staying at my place (non-negotiable, they WILL be at my place).  I'd like to not die of embarrassment when they come. Therefore, I will have to have the Closet from H3LL either beaten into submission OR I will have to find a way to haul it all out, rent a storage locker and then when they are gone, haul it all back.  Let me just say, I miss the days of having a garage.  Also, I can't afford a storage locker so... I have to get the closet whipped into submission before March.  And if you've never had a Closet from H3LL you are laughing at me right now and think I am being overly dramatic.  I assure you, I am not.  What I am dealing with is a lifetime of things accumulated, moved, lost, found, lost again, packratted, hoarded and loved.  And the paperwork.. oh my, the paperwork.  My current apartment has 2 mid-sized closets. One in the bedroom and one off the main hall.  I cleaned the hall closet last year. Unfortunately, that meant that a bunch of stuff migrated to the bedroom closet and it became the Closet from H3LL.  While I now no longer have to keep my steam cleaner and vacuum sitting out, I also don't have a whole lot of storage real estate and I have a ton of STUFF.  So, I am working on it and will (eventually) prevail.

There are other things going on and I am trying to keep on top of emails, social media, blogs, etc. and failing miserably.  There are things I am really excited about, too.  But we'll get to those another day. Now it's nearly midnight and I have to function as a working person tomorrow.   Goodnight!

Family Friendly?

I've been blogging, in some capacity, since 2004.  I've written a number of blogs, starting on LiveJournal, then Multiply, even on Yahoo for a while.  Because of my personal situation, there have been many things that I haven't blogged about on my main blog or I've actually started completely new blogs because there were things I wanted to talk about but I didn't necessarily want, say, an ex-husband to come across and think (correctly or incorrectly) that the situation I was blogging about was about him.  I call my daughter "The Girl" in blogs and don't talk about her often because I don't ever want anyone to go back to her and start an ugly rumor.

In the last year or so, my blogging ambitions have shifted some.  This is partially due to getting more involved in the community I now live in, partially because of people I have met and partially because I have had some new directions in my life and I wanted to blog about those things (couponing, reviews, etc.)

But I find myself in a tich of a quandry now that I am taking some steps to do some monetizing on my blogs.  I often see something I want to participate in that has, somewhere in the blog about the event/giveaway, etc. that you can only participate if your blog is "Family Friendly".  I have yet to involve myself in a single thing thusly marked because... well, I'm just not sure what that MEANS.

Ok, I get that a blog is NOT family friendly if every other sentence contains an "F-Bomb".  I get that nudity is no go. I run through my head "Is this something a child should see" sometimes.  And then I go back to being confused.  Here's why...  My daughter was almost 3 when South Park came on TV.  I knew very well that South Park was NOT a cartoon meant for children.  But I'm going to tell you that my daughter, at almost 3, did watch South Park.  Pretty much every episode.  And she watched music videos.  She never saw an episode of Barney, though, and I think only caught The Teletubbies at a friend's house.  She did not pick up bad language or bad behavior from any of this.  In fact, until she was almost 15 years old, she didn't cuss at all and would comment on it if anyone else did ("You said a cuss" was her usual phrase)

So, what would be "family friendly" in my household would never fly in other households.  But I don't want to go to the extremely conservative end of the spectrum, either, because there are people who think that music and dancing are horrible things and I am just not trying to appeal to that sort of extremist.  But, here's the thing.  EdenFantasys, an "adult" company, has a fabulous program for bloggers. Plus, they have an affiliate program. And I am pretty sure that I can't get away with doing adult toy reviews on my blog and even remotely qualify as "family friendly" but, on the other hand, people had to have sex (in most cases... I know people adopt) to get families in the first place so is talking about adult products really not "family friendly" as long as I am not doing a post that is full of pictures of S&M fetish equipment and huge phallic objects?  How about contraceptive devices? Strictly forbidden?

Ultimately, I am probably going to decide to include what I want to include here and hope that I don't have anyone get overly offended by what I offer. Also, I am probably going to continue to "opt out" of the "family friendly" opportunities because, honestly, I am unsure enough about what's ok WITH THE ENTIRE BLOGOSPHERE that I don't want to "opt in" and then get told "Your blog is way too smutty for this giveaway/bloghop/promotion".    I guess that, in the end, I find that while I am a BIT of a sheep... I am, at best, the one that grazes a little removed from the flock... my rainbow wool causing the rest of the herd to roll their eyes and refer to me as "wolf bait".

Back to work

So, today was the first day back to work after a 4 day weekend.  My inbox is piled high.  I cleared my "To-Do" list from last year and started a new one.  It was really nice to see a completely blank to-do list, even if only for a minute.

Tonight is Wino Rhino Tuesday.  It's less boozy and more fun than it sounds.  Well, I mean, there IS wine, but it's not like we sit around swilling it down and partying with abandon... because we are serious writers.  Or, ok, honestly, my fellow Wino Rhinos are serious writers and I'm a blogger which is not the same thing at all but I like feeling like I'm literary and I have tried my hand at being a novelist but think I am too... I dunno.... easily distracted to be a REAL novelist.  But I like my Wino Rhino Tuesdays and I miss them when things like HOLIDAYS get in the way.  Plus, it's really nice having friends. Which I know probably sounds like a bizarre statement but really, I don't know a bunch of people where I live so the fact that I have made some friends is a big deal to me. Tonight I am having White Moscato. It is lovely.

The first quarter of a new year is really busy at work. I like it on one hand because being busy is nice but it can get overwhelming.

That's all I really have for you tonight...

Some things never change...

I meant to be in bed by 10PM.  It's 10:20PM now and I am figuring I'll be up until at least 11 with all that I have left to do before bedtime.  BUT, it will help me be less rushed in the morning so it's not a TOTAL loss.  Of course, I will be more tired in the morning from having stayed up late, so I guess it's a balancing act at this point.

As has become typical, this week will be busy on Tuesday and Thursday. And tomorrow should be interesting as I am trying to turn over a new leaf and start looking/acting more professional at work.  This is not their mandate, it is just something I feel I should do.  It's been all too easy to be too casual and too familiar and if I ever want to be taken seriously, I have to think about putting my best foot forward (which reminds me that I did NOT get the footwear I wanted to get this weekend... guess I will make do with what I have until I have the chance to do something about it).

I am also looking at putting some new adverts on the blog...Adgitize is going under and I am researching what I can do to fill that gap.

Hope 2012 has been good to you thusfar!

You Say You Want A Resolution...

I am not the sort of person who makes New Years Resolutions because I am keenly aware of my total lack of self-discipline.  However, I thought that I would take a stab at some blog-related resolutions (especially now that I once again have internet!)  These are actually more like "things I'd like to do" than actual "resolutions"...

1.  Make an effort to comment on other people's blogs more.
2.  Try to visit new blogs, there are so many out there that I haven't seen yet!
3.  Participate in more blog hops.
4.  Actually participate in one or more multi-blog giveaways.
5.  Not get 100+ things to read in my reader, get frustrated, hit "mark all as read" and then feel guilty.

All very do-able and things I should be doing regardless of whether it is a New Year.  I want to increase my traffic/readership this year and maybe move a spot or two on some of the blog rankings.

Apparently Adgitize is going under, AdSense has me on their "naughty" list and I need some ideas...  So, that's another thing I will be looking into this year.

But now, I'm off to romp around on the internet some more. Since I can do that now!! Yay for Internet at Home!!