I often skip out on resolutions because I usually wind up with a big fat fail (literally) when I try to do things like exercise, lose weight or eat better. But I’m giving resolutions another shot this year, because 2009 was good but sort of aimless. I feel the need to pick up the pace in 2010, so I’ve set a few small goals and few large-ish ones.

I think #5, #6, and #7 will be the hardest, but probably the most important to me overall. The book-writing thing has been the voice in the back of my head for YEARS, and it’s time to do something about it, even if the result sucks. A lot of successful authors didn’t sell their first novels. I just have to be brave enough to fail. After all, who am I to tell bloggers that they must press on to meet their goals if I can’t press on with mine?

And so:

1. Take more pictures and KEEP THEM ORGANIZED.
2. Learn some new software. Specifically Photoshop so I can clean up my skin before I post said pictures.
3. Keep address book up to date.
4. Send Valentines.
5. Finish the novel. Even if it sucks. FINISH IT by the end of March. April. May.
6. Send finished novel to at least 5 agents, just to see if it really does suck.
7. Then start another one by June. July. August.
8. Don’t bother trying to lose weight. Just quit gaining it.
9. Put all money saved from deferred student loan payments directly into savings. Do Not Pass Go. Do not collect $200.
10. Do not pay full retail for books; be patient and buy used on Amazon or eBay.
11. Check 20SB at least every 3 days to remain active in discussions.
12. Do not change blog URL.
13. Write something for Guidespot without using the word “Wordpress.”

Pshhht. I can do this.

2000

• Was happily ensconced in a small-town university, pledging Sigma Alpha Iota.
• Was probably the most “popular” I’ve ever been, albeit in a shallow, “squeee!” sorority girl kind of way.

2001

• Met a boy and fell in love in the spring.
• Had a very difficult living situation upon returning to school in the fall.
• Got myself a little “unpopular” because people were driving me in-freaking-sane and I told them so.
• After changing my major three times in two and a half years, decided to leave school and move back home for awhile. Conveniently closer to the boy.

2002

• February 23: Got engaged!
• Set a date: August 9, 2003
• Wedding plan, plan, plan.
• Got a halfway decent job in retail and had a vague notion of starting back to school in radiation therapy.

2003

• Started at The Hospital as a secretary.
• Have to see a dead person for the first time. As in, the body bag thing.
• April: Best friend got married and I started to get the shakes.
• More in April: Argue, cry, make up, argue, cry, make up.
• May: Just before my first bridal shower and just before the invites go out in the mail, we break up.
• June: We get back together briefly, though decide not to worry about a wedding anytime soon. We break up again a month later.
• I start dating again and am told I have baggage.

2004

• Move into the city with a notion of becoming hip Urban Girl.
• Run up ridiculous credit card debt
• Travel alone for the first time – see England, Scotland and a little nubbin of France
• Start back part-time to finish my bachelor’s degree in English at Wash U.

2005

• The credit card debt catches up with me. That didn’t take long.
• Date a nice boy for awhile, my first real relationship of significant length since the fiance and I split.
• We break up and stay friends.
• I get a promotion at work.
• My blog “My Red Stapler” is born.
  

2006

• I graduate from college with a BS in English.
• I meet Tim.
• I don’t blog too much.
• I get an even better promotion at work and clear all credit card debt.
• I deal with being an Air Force WAG during a deployment.
• I buy a house and fix it up.

2007

• Winter: Tim and I break up in horrific fashion
• In emotional crisis mode, I buy a Jeep.
• Spring: I have a nervous breakdown of sorts.
• I briefly write a blog called “Therapy, Schmerapy.”
• In the fall, I meet and start dating E.
• I resolve to start blogging again on a more regular basis.

2008

• I get another promotion at work.
• I get a foster dog and have to send her back because she made my cat sick.
• Spring: E and I break up in horrific fashion.
• I have my first Blog Crush.
• I rename the blog “She’s Got Baggage.” It seems right at the time.
• I have a wild and crazy summer of dating inappropriate people. (Just read all of July and August 2008 for this.)
• I meet my first blog friends.
• Fall: E and I get back together
• I move to self-hosting my blog.
• I complete my first NaNoWriMo.

2009

• The economy begins to take its toll and I sell my beloved Jeep.
• E and I build a much stronger relationship than we ever had before. We think about the future.
• I have an awesome Girlfriend’s Guide to Gaming party sponsored by Nintendo and Brand About Town, and meet some more lovely bloggers.
• I attend BlogHer for the first time.
• More on the economy – I put my house on the market in early summer and sell it in early fall.
• I decide to ditch the baggage and rename the blog again.
• I password-protect a TON of old posts.
• I complete my 2nd NaNoWriMo with a much better product.
• I apply to and am accepted into a master’s program for Communications Management.

And what do I know for 2010?

• I start school next Wednesday.
• E and I are taking our first real, alone, not-visiting-family, proper vacation together in a week.

That’s all I’ve got so far.

All the lunch-table chatter about 20SB reminded me last night – I graduated from high school in 1999. I should have had a reunion by now.

WTF?! Who didn’t invite me to my own freaking  high school reunion?

I scrounged around Facebook this morning and realized that plans had never materialized for the reunion, so the class president is going to make us oh-so-cutting-edge and have an 11 year reunion for us sometime in 2010. We are SO the wave of the future.

Then, inevitably, I got back to thinking about lunch tables.

Ten and a half years ago, I was going to a pretty good-sized high school. There were about 450 people in my graduating class, and seriously – you never ate alone unless you chose to. Everyone had a lunch table. There were groups in that school, TONS of groups because there were so many of us. Everyone couldn’t be everywhere and do everything, so our natural alignments were driven by our priorities.

I was kind of middle-of-the-road, socially. I was in band and theater and so that’s where I had most of my friends. The “popular” girls were nice to me in class but we didn’t hang out or anything. They were the ones on homecoming court, student council, cheerleading, dance team, all that. But you know – those things were their priorities. I wanted to play piano. They wanted to flip about and scream really loudly at sporting events. I wanted to write a play. They wanted to play on the state-champion softball team.

A lot of those girls were truly nice people, and they didn’t dislike me – we just had our sights set on different things. I had my friends and they had theirs. Theirs ended up on homecoming court because their priority was to get them there. My friends were elected theater club and band officers and made choices on plays and performances.

I used to really want to be the tiger mascot that hopped around with the cheerleaders. I could have done it. I was energetic and you didn’t have to do a backflip in the silly costume. I was afraid that trying out would mean I wanted to be like them – and I didn’t, I really just thought it would be fun. I was at all the games with the band anyway, so why not? But I didn’t get it – not because I lost in tryouts, but because I didn’t try out at all. I didn’t make it enough of a priority to get over my fear of rejection.

I said as much to one of the nice cheerleaders who had honors English with me senior year and she said “Oh, you should have done it! You’d have been great! The girl they picked wasn’t that good, you should have at least tried out.”

Um. Oops. *mwaah mwaah mwaaaaaaah….*

It didn’t break my heart to think I had missed out on being friends with the popular girls, but it was a lesson in getting off my ass and at least trying a little harder for things I say I want.

I never sat at their lunch table. I sat with my music and theater friends. And together with a number of the cheerleaders, the dancers, and the sports stars, I got into National Honor Society, scooped up scholarships, graduated in the top 10% of my class, and went on with life somewhere else.

With 9,000 people in a community like 20SB, we can’t all be friends with everybody. We just don’t have the time. But the ones who are most visible in the community, our dancers and cheerleaders and sports stars, may shine the brightest because their priorities are those of the 20SB community. Online presence. Great communication. Reaching out and building bonds. Striving to be better writers, vloggers, techies.

When these things become your priorities in life, you can make your way to the top in a community like this.

Me? I’m not at the top. If I realigned my priorities I probably could be. I used to put more time into my blog, I used to be more visible and active in the blogging community both online and off. But as I’ve evaluated my life, I have determined that maybe I needed to step away from the glowing screen a little more. It works for me this way. This is my balance. I have blog friends who I adore, blogs by writers I don’t know but I still read, and a little bitty stake in a 20SB and Guidespot. I could do more. And I will, if I can make it fit in the balance I need in my life.

One of the popular cheerleaders quit the squad her senior year. She could have gotten a cheer scholarship. “It wasn’t for me,” she shrugged, and went on to run track instead.

Evaluate yourself. Think about why you write what you write, and where blogging fits in the priorities in your life. Are you committed to becoming a better writer? Are you committed to spending a lot of time developing communities and planning activities with people you may have never met? If you’re not – IT’S OKAY. For some people, that kind of life works and works awesomely. For you it may not. And if that means you don’t get an award, just realize – THAT’S OKAY TOO.

Are you committed to these things, committed to getting to the top and yet still feeling overlooked? This can take awhile. You don’t learn backflips and roundoffs with a full twist overnight. You must keep on.

You still have your lunch table. People still like you for who you are. And if they vote in someone else for homecoming queen, that doesn’t mean they like you any less. It’s just that they thought that in terms of real-time committment to excellence in the blogging world, they thought that someone else deserved it more.

My class homecoming queen was smart, pretty, fun, sweet, an athlete, a class council member, and active in her church. She was a busy girl who was committed to being awesome and to my knowledge never said a mean -spirited thing to anyone who hadn’t tried to grab her boobs or ass in the hall. Because she was involved in everything, everyone knew her and everyone was aware of all of her good qualities.

When you are visible, you are nominated. When you are visible and you demonstrate awesome, you win. Period. Everyone voted for Kristen, she won, and she deserved it.

Pour yourself a glass of flat champagne, put on your bent party hat, and think about this before you get mad or defensive about an award, a nomination or a lack thereof.

And by that I mean: “I almost forgot I have a review blog!”

Not really – I knew it was there. What I mean is that Propel sent me some yummies awhile ago and I drafted a review but never finished it. It’s up now, though, so please go read it!

I promise there will be more good ones to come in 2010. I have a new camera, a new camcorder, some new software, and more lovely tech goodies that I want to write and write about.

And maaaaybe a giveaway.

A lot of lovely bloggers have re-posted this for Brandy over the last few days. I’ve kept it till now so it’ll get into your reader for yet another day. She’s a wonderful blogger and one of my long-time favorites, but more than that, Brandy is a wonderful human being. And she needs something from the blogosphere right now.

It’s not an ASPCA commercial, don’t worry. It won’t cost you $19 per month to help this girl in the simplest of ways. She and her boyfriend and their families are just asking your prayers, good vibes, and strength right now during a really difficult time.

Just take a quick look at her post and have a little think about it, then point your love toward Canada.

———————————–

My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.