I didn’t set any official new year’s resolutions this year, because New Year’s Eve sneaked up on me and by the time it rolled around, I was loading up tissue after tissue with enormous amounts of snot, declaring my hatred for the ineffectiveness of DayQuil™, and making nasal-love to my bottle of Dristan™ like I haven’t done since that crazy spring break down in the Cayman Islands (hey, I was younger then…).

Seriously, it was a time of much illness—look at all the crap I relied on to keep myself going {and yes, that is a package of tampons and pantyliners you see there, because it was just that sort of week} .  I’m pretty sure I caught the swine flu from Mickey and Friends—not fact, just speculation.

Needless to say, setting goals for self-improvement was not high on my list of priorities that week.  I was asleep, down for the count, by 8:30 on New Year’s Eve.

Still, I firmly believe that setting goals is a good activity all year long, and, in the back of my head, I always knew what I wanted this year to be for me: A year of SUCCESS.

Success at school, success at home, success with my blog.  Just all-around success.  That means I want to get straight As again; I want to get my kitchen spruced up the way I’ve always thought it should be; I want to make friends with Jillian and start yoga; and I want my blog/writing to ACTUALLY MAKE ME SOME MONEY FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE.

The way I see it, I’ve coddled my blog for long enough.  I’ve been doing it for three years, and (until the last month) have invested hours upon hours updating it on an extremely regular basis.  I’ve given it my all, my best, every ounce of creativity I had, I’ve sunk into this chunk of the internet.

And, quite frankly, I have not seen a return on my investment like I’ve hoped to see. This lousy blog is like a 39 year-old son still living at home, rent-free, and I’m the pathetic mother that can’t seem to keep myself from making his bed every morning.  This has got to stop.  It’s time for the ol’ blog to shave, put on deodorant, get a job, and meet the Real World.

I’m kicking it out of my house.  I will not be an enabler.  I will not be an enabler.

There are bloggers who have blogged less and been loads more successful than me, and while I’m always happy for other people’s success (unless one of those people happens to be the skinny girls who were mean to me in high school—they can fail, fail, FAIL for all I care!), I really hate being the loser in the group.  Me and my blog? We’re not gonna take it anymore.  I’m stepping up my game big-time this year, and it’s gonna be good.

The way to achieve that success, I decided, is to TRY.

It’s an obvious solution, I know. But so obvious that it never hit me until recently.

What it means, logistically speaking, is this:

-Every writing contest I see, I will enter. I’ve tried my hand at three so far, and I haven’t won yet, but guess what? When the day rolls around that the judges announce the winners, at least I have a chance of winning—a prayer of a chance, but a chance nonetheless.  And the one surefire way not to even have a chance is NOT TO ENTER.

-Every other contest I see, I will also enter. Giveaways, sweepstakes, you name it, I’m entering.  Yeah, the chances of me winning any of these are slim, but, again, the chances are even slimmer if I don’t even try.

-By July 1st of this year, I will have submitted samples of my writing to at least ten publications, print or online. Maybe they’ll all laugh at me, but maybe one of them won’t.

-I (read: Poor Kyle, my tech guy) will be revamping my blog (coming soon) and once that’s done, I will be opening it up to advertisements. I get mad that my blog is not paying me back for all my hard work, but guess what?  My blog can only make money if I open it up to advertisements. It’s not this website’s fault that I have, thus far, been incompetent with the business end of things.  I shouldn’t blame it for my failings as a blogmaster.  I’m sorry, little blog—you deserve better.

-I’m going to BlogHer this year.  Even if the classes don’t teach me a dadgum thing about how to make my blog work for me, it will still be a great experience—a real networking smorgasbord.  There’s no reason for me not to go, especially since they are offering, quite generously, if you ask me, student pricing for registration this year, making it particularly affordable for this unemployed student blogger.  I’m going.  I’m going, and that’s that.

So, in lieu of this new resolve, I would like to note that I have just entered a Best Western™ giveaway here, and I get an extra entry into the draw if I write about it on my blog, so this is me writing about it on my blog. Poor Kyle and I are pretty loyal to the Best Western™ hotel brand, because they are usually fairly affordable (mid-range economy class, I’d say), and pretty dependable for cleanliness and quality.  Plus, they always offer free breakfasts (I’m a sucker for free orange juice and bagels), and their rewards program has already paid for two new sweaters and a pair of flip-flops for me.  We like the Best Western™.

The only mid-range economy hotel chain I like more than Best Western™ is Holiday Inn and Suites™, because, for a mid-range economy hotel, they have fantastic bedding and the most delicious oatmeal-cinnamon smelling toiletries (in very chic packaging, no less) and lovely breakfasts.  But they’re more expensive than most Best Westerns, and we usually opt for the cheaper route.

Here’s the comment I just posted for the giveaway—not my best writing sample, but enough to get me an entry:

My most memorable travel experience was the five-month stint I took as a nanny in Belgium at the age of twenty. I was terrified to go, having never met the family I was working for (except on Skype), but I was even more afraid of missing out on the adventure of a lifetime—I was right to go!

The first day I arrived, the family picked me up from Charles de Gaulles, gave me my first week’s pay, dropped me off at the apartment they owned in Paris, and headed off for a week of family vacationing that they hadn’t planned on me arriving in time for. So right off the bat, I was given 200 Euros, a map of Paris in a language I didn’t know, and free roam of the most fascinating city I have ever visited.

TALK ABOUT ADVENTURE! I played the game just right—figured out which museums had student discounts when, bought all my food from grocery stores instead of cafes, and even picked up a bit of french along the way. I will never forget that first week of my job as a nanny (the ensuing months were equally amazing); I will be forever grateful to myself for not chickening out at the last minute.

So that’s it.

Phase One of Operation Stop Being a Loser has commenced.

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